IMPACT Ethics Syllabus
(575-7019) (jpijanow@uark.edu) (104 Peabody Hall)
General Course Information
Description:Leadership Ethics is an experiential based course grounded in ethical decision making theory that uses case study and practice to study school based ethical dilemmas.
Purpose of the Course: Students will study and practice the seven stages of effective ethical decision making: Perception,Interpretation, Judgment, Motivation, Implementation and Action, Reflection in Action, and Reflection on Action. Content areas to be covered include school finance, student discipline, instructional leadership, parent and community relations, human resources, and building school culture.
Required Course Materials: Case studies and articles will either be linked on the course website or available for download from blackboard. There is no textbook for this course
Academic Honesty: The University of Arkansas Academic Honesty Policy for Graduate Students can be found on the left sidebar of my website.
Inclement Weather Policy: The general policy regarding inclement weather is that the University typically stays open regardless of bad weather. In the event of weather disrupting an online class I will do my best to post a notification on the course website.
Accommodations: Information about the Center for Educational Access can be found at www.cea.uark.edu. Please do not hesitate to contact the center or me with questions or concerns about the services available to you.
Graded work:
You will journal reflections on the material and your practice each day and those journals will be grouped by weeks for grading purposes. The daily journals (found in blackboard) are a regular product you will create this semester. These will be based on the readings and other material covered throughout the semester. Each day there is specific guidance provided for your journaling but beyond those specific prompts there are three primary questions that may be useful to consider when doing summary reflection in your daily journals:
As I reflect on the course materials so far this semester, what new insights do I have about how I process information and make personal decisions?
Do these insights indicate to me that I should make any changes in my approach to ethical decisions and if so how would I practically execute this changes? (answering this question by saying that you must simply "do better" is not helpful in the same way it would not be helpful for a doctor to tell their patient to simply "feel better" - you have to understand the root causes for your own behavior to develop a plan for doing something about it)
How do I apply what I have learned so far to my future context as a leader? In other words, how does this knowledge inform your understanding of how other people you might be working with make ethical decisions and as a leader how can you use this information to create a more ethical system, climate, and culture that is consistently more healthy and productive?
Grades will bedetermined on the following basis using a 100 point scale:
A 90-100 C 70-79 F below 65
B 80-89 D 65-69