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Welcome students to our spring governance and policy development class
in pre K through twelve twelve education. I'd like to introduce myself
I am Lisbeth Johnson your instructor
and I'm going to talk first about my family, the things I like to do as a way for
you to get to know me
the experience I bring to the class as an instructor and my passion for school
reform.
First
here's some pictures
of the important people
in my life and what I like to do
In the image at the top left I want to show you that I love to eat and so this is a picture of
me in Helsinki, Finland eating there
what is called
a cloud berry dessert topped with reindeer cheese Yum.
While I am no Andrew Zimmer.
I like to try new and exotic menus within reason
from countries far and wide
I also love to travel and
have traveled to seventeen foreign countries
including four continents and forty five American states
My traveling pictures include
on the bottom left
the cheek to cheek picture with my boyfriend Wayne
in Roturua and a rain forest picture
at the fiord adventure cruise we took around Christchurch
both in New Zealand.
Up above this picture is me sitting in a winery in Australia.
But my real joy comes from the two pictures on the right with my
two grandsons who are my son's children ages twelve and twenty years
and my thirteen-year-old loyal Dalmatian Patch.
Now that you know a little bit about me and my family and what I like to do
let me address the course you will be taking.
I come to you as a four time instructor for this
spring class.
I have been an educator for thirty nine years
retiring as a superintendent but still working as a consultant in the field.
There are five objectives for this course.
By the end of the five session seminar class
you'll become immersed
in understanding the structure, history and purpose of school governance teams.
This is the first objective.
Two, the class will have an opportunity to investigate the relationship between
politics and decision making
in school governance structures.
Three, you will have time to explore the characteristics of effective school
boards
and you will be provided
with an opportunity to dialogue
about what could impact student learning when boards demonstrate
toxic
behavior.
As leaders,
the class will be asked to glean from multimedia input and readings
what characteristics schools of the future possess
and how do you project school governance structures that might be
transformed
with this new
future school structure.
And five,
the one assignment that is pivotal for this class is that you will be required
to get out of your comfort zone and interview non educators
to determine what policies that they think need to be constructed to reform
K- through twelve schools
and prepare students for their twenty first century futures,
something I am
very passionate about.
You will then bring findings back from these interviews and present the deltas between our
perspective as educators and their perspective as non educators from this
interview
and what you can do to create change in your school
and or your transformed educational position
after the interview.
Finally,
this is an online class.
We will have a brief orientation session before the class
begins
and I and our technology support from the university
will start with an introduction for you to online Web 2.0 tools
which will be integrated into assignments throughout the course. All class sessions will
be held using asynchronous and synchronous tools.
You will have two dates to submit your assigned work so deadlines are soft.
As a teacher I will provide ongoing formative assessment feedback on your
work through the online learning management system we will use.
With no papers to write you should have fun in this class because it's the way
our students want to learn in the future.
You'll learn a lot to be able to lead transformation and school or district reform back to your
school
or advocate for future transformational school reform policies as a result of
the learning.
So let's begin the governance and policy development class learning and remember to have fun.