Leadership for Entrepreneurs Course

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Table of Contents

Course title and description
Institution information
Instructional strategies and collaboration
Faculty role and professional development
References
WIKI 1-4, ASGMT 1
Assignment 2
Experience

Course title and description

The course title is Leadership for Entrepreneurs 101. One of the qualification requirements for the course is that a learner needs to have completed high school and spent at least two years as an entrepreneur with a business, which employs at least one person. A learner can also be a student at a post-secondary institution, such as a college or university pursuing any course. The course offers leadership skills and will be seeking to enhance the ability of learners to manage other people and recognize their potential. It provides continuity for ethical decision making, and it examines a range of issues that employees and managers face. The course is under the Management and Leadership area of professional development. The course will enable learners to identify personal values so that they can use their values to choose the effective leadership styles for different occasions. It will also allow learners acquire skills for formulating and working with organizational policies to encourage employee voice, increase efficiency in decision-making, and promote ethical conduct.

Institution information

The demand for online classroom courses has been increasing because of the increase in job market opportunities and limited positions in the traditional classroom. Individuals learn to construct their meaning of the world around them when they interact with others. Moreover, learning can take place as long as the interaction is sustained. Therefore, online learning is as credible as traditional learning (Allen & Seaman, 2013).

The Leadership and Management Institution was set up five years ago and has been delivering some courses online. However, it only offers two certifications recognized globally as professional qualifications. Besides, the other courses offered allow students to develop tangible skills that are immediately useful for their business undertakings. The institution provides post-secondary education and targets adult learners in or out of universities and colleges. It provides parallel learning opportunities to those offered in universities. The target student population is people who seek additional business certification to make them qualify for particular jobs. This target population includes anyone already in practice or still learning to pursue their career. The learner has to have an interest in learning management, leadership, and real-world marketing skills.

The course is informed by the increase in the number of people opting to start businesses. There are persons who do not want to seek employment in an unpredictable job market. Many “solopreneurs” require skills in various areas of running business and above all must know how to lead (Tomei, 2010).

Course type and rationale

The course type will be an online 6-week short course delivered remotely and flexible to work with the learners’ pace and availability. There will be no physical meeting with instructors and coordinators of the course. However, a partnership with business establishments in the main cities will provide a 2-day experience for learners who complete the course and require the actualization environment. Otherwise, students are expected to be in job positions that provide them with an environment to test, practice, and improve what they would be learning in theory from the course. Learners are also expected to bring their experience to the course. The course is going to use some multimedia tools to ensure it mimics a traditional learning environment with virtual face-to-face interactions, learner-centered curriculum, and easy access.

The target population is already busy with other career requirements and may not afford the time to attend a full-time or part-time traditional course. The online course offers different modules, allowing learners to progress at own pace.

Course design model

The learning will be done in virtual classrooms. Assessments will be in live sessions, while other learning will take place using recorded sessions so that learners can advance through the course at their pace. The course is going to follow the learning design of instructional design model. This will be a systematic design that follows real world situations. This design follows the principle that the learner remains active throughout the learning process. The design incorporates the learners’ needs, skills, and learning context into itself such that it can provide motivation for further learning, as well as being responsive to areas that students find difficult (Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2009).

The design comes with objectives for the course delivered as learning outcomes. With this design, a learner can predict the skills and knowledge that he or she will gain after completing the course. The learner can then evaluate the outcome and the needs of their business or career to determine the relevance of the course. The design also makes it easy to incorporate learners with different prior experience and qualifications. At the same time, it makes it easy to break down the course into different deliverables that can determine the learner’s progress. Each outcome can serve as a qualification for the learner. The course design is appropriate because it offers a practical approach to learning; the leadership skills are readily applicable to the real-world situations of business.

Course introduction

The purpose of the Leadership for Entrepreneurs 101 online course is to add value and educate entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs on the demands and opportunities needed to be effective leadership in business. The learners are expected to have grasped the fundamentals of leadership when they complete the course. They will also be able to come up with specific leadership qualities and styles that are appropriate for different real-world business situations.

Upon completion, the learner is expected to attain 30 credits in the course modules, which are recognized by the Leadership and Management Institute. The Leadership and Management Institute has a five-year experience in delivering on-demand, short courses, and seminars to the business fraternity in the United States and Europe. This is one of its leadership courses offered exclusively online.

Students will be introduced to foundations of leadership and then get an opportunity for reflection on their leadership style, and match it with their operating environment. The aim of the exercise within the course is to align the learner’s professional and personal goals. In addition, the course will equip students with networking and personal development skills that will guide them in the relevant ways of correcting their leadership shortcomings and also managing employees and business partners to embrace effective decision making at work. The last installment of the course introduces learners to leadership planning and project management for their business needs, which aims to give learners strategic planning skills for working on opportunities or dealing with business crises. Lastly, the course brings together a global framework for leadership and exposes students to different cultural, ethical, and economic requirements for the business that influence effective leadership in various parts of the world. Learners develop a worldview that is necessary in their business dealings with people from different cultures. This aims to develop the learner’s ethical, cultural, and economic judgment skills as part of business leadership requirements.

Instructional strategies and collaboration

The course will rely on an active learning instruction design that puts the learner at the center of the training program. The use of online technology is going to allow students who are located in different areas of the world to participate in classroom activities, learn from their classmates and from the instructor, as well as offer their experience, solutions, and contributions to the course. The design of the course uses various interactive tools that ensure the learner feels part of an educational community and, therefore, avoids associations of neglect and disengagement that may affect other similar online courses (Stavredes, 2011).

The course will rely on the following online collaboration tools to sustain a community of learners and at the same time facilitate learner-paced progress. First, the course comes with clear outcomes for learners, and the results relate to the different components of the course. Learners can evaluate their progress based on their attainment of the outcomes. The instructors of the course are also going to assess learners’ progress, based on how they achieve the desired outcomes of the course and demonstrate them to the rest of the learner community, which includes the course instructors. There will be at least three instructors offering live interaction guidelines and teachings to students. At the same time, learners will have access to multimedia learning resources like recorded video lectures, transcripts, online tests, electronic books, and discussion forums that offer text chat and video chat (Stavredes, 2011).

The course will offer clear instructions to the learners in a group so that all learners know their roles and expectations of group activities. Instructors will participate in all group activities by being online and providing guidance. Groups will be small, with seven members or less so that there is sufficient room for interaction and feeling of inclusion for the learner. Students will be assigned groups based on their progress in the course and the availability of a slot in a group. Learners will also belong to a general group that matches their SignUp date.

Community

The right tools and design ensure that an online education community thrives because of trust and reliability of the support given to learners. The course will rely on collaborative online office tools for delivery of written assignments for individuals and groups. It will also use collaborative online presentation tools that allow learners to access course materials, participate in virtual learning classrooms, and interact with other learners in real time. Live collaboration tools will include video chat for groups, such as Skype and Hangouts. The tools will also avail file sharing options to support fast communication. Learners will also have access to the online library for personal research, and there will be a question and answer sessions for every teaching module. For the recorded presentations, videos and written resources, learners will submit questions in a written form and the questions can become subjects of group discussions or presentations by instructors. There will also be learner relationship building sessions that give learners opportunities to provide their motivation, cultural, and business backgrounds to the rest of the community as a way of building cohesion.

The following fact informs the course delivery strategy. Increasing opportunities for learners’ input to the online community also increases the vibrancy and relevancy of the online course and helps to deliver the outcomes of the course (Vesely, Bloom, & Sherlock, 2007).

Faculty role and professional development

The instructor offering the online course requires adequate knowledge of the pedagogy of leadership learning, course content, and relevant technologies that will be used in delivering the course. The instructor must be competent in using online collaboration tools and be able to deliver traditional course material to an online audience using the tools. Therefore, instructors must come up with at least two concepts for delivering course content. Instructors also need to have passed through an online professional development course delivered online to understand the needs of their learners.

Instructors must collaborate and manage teaching workload effectively and recommend to management the need for the additional instructor when demand for the course increases. Important issues that the faculty will handle in the course include the definition and execution of faculty roles, the development of faculty capacity to use technology to sustain the learning community, management of perceptions and experiences of instructors, and improvement of the course design or course instructions. The faculty members are also expected to be open to their beliefs and engage in critical reflection to every course activity, as well as keep on advancing knowledge about technology integration into the course delivery design.

The faculty will have to keep learning educational technologies for teaching and must discuss the unfamiliar or different experiences that they have with online teaching, which could advance or impede their work. The online framework offers reduces hierarchical structures for instructors, which allows them to play different roles such as partners, guide and teacher for the learner, with opportunities for concurrent private sessions with learners (McQuiggan, 2007).

Assessment plan: Description of plans to assess the course

The course will have a traditional assessment aspect, where learners take written tests to assess factual knowledge of the course. Another parameter used for assessment will be student feedback throughout the course, including any compliments or complaints to instructors. There will also be persistent monitoring of learners’ progress throughout the course, and the results will be evaluated against the expected duration of the course for an average learner. Moreover, there will be the use of alternative assessment methods like occasional case studies that can incorporate a few learners and instructors to evaluate the progress of the course and its ability to meet its objectives.

The assessment will focus on the instructions provided in the course. This includes anything relevant to learning and competency development of the learner. There will also be a focus on learning as a goal. Here, the assessment will cover the way students become capable of constructing knowledge in a reflective and active way. Lastly, there will be a focus on the assessment itself. Here, the aim is to ensure that the evaluation process is using the right context to make it relevant as a tool for improving the course objectives and gains to learners and the institution offering the course. The assessment at all stages will have to meet specific standards of interpretation, context, and performance assessment. Overall, the preferred tools and forms of assessing the online course and student progress will be essays, reports, online threaded discussions, video and group projects, collaborative writing and presentation, and student peer review. In the online classrooms, the instructors will rely on live room transcripts and quizzes, as well as surveys to assess the learner’s progress and their teaching effectiveness.

References

Allen, E., & Seaman, J. (2013). Changing course: ten years of tracking online education in the United States.Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC. Web.

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2009). The systematic design instruction (7th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Learning.

McQuiggan, C. A. (2007). The role of faculty development in online teaching’s potential to question teaching beliefs and assumptions.Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, X(III). Web.

Stavredes, T. (2011). Effective online teaching: foundations and strategies for student success. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Tomei, L. A. (2010). Online courses and ICT in education: emerging practices and applications. New York, NY: Informatoin Science Reference.

Vesely, P., Bloom, L., & Sherlock, J. (2007). Key elements of building online community: comparing faculty. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3(3). 234-246.

The Chronicle of Higher Education. (2015). Psychology instructor full-time one year position. Web.

WIKI 1-4, ASGMT 1

Name:

University:

Course:

27 June 2015

Assignment 2

Cover Letter

I am writing to apply for the position of Psychology Instructor Full-Time One Year Position, where I will serve as a psychology professor online at Columbia Basin College in Washington (The Chronicle of Higher Education 2015). My graduate work centered on learning and teaching psychology through online courses.

As my resume shows, I have sufficient experience and knowledge in teaching and working with college-level administrations as an instructor. In addition, I am committed to shared governance and improving my discipline. I have a passion for teaching. I aim to ensure that my students succeed in their endeavors. I have experience and knowledge in designing and accessing online courses, with sufficient timeline and approaches to learner-centered education. My interest in teaching psychology at Columbia Basin College stems from my experience and desire to develop online coursework and delivery methods that improve student outcomes and enrich the community.

I have attached my Resume to enhance the credibility of my application.

Resume

Summary of qualifications

Education:

Master’s Degree in Psychology

Experience

6 months as teaching intern at community college

Insights:

Contacting students and welcoming them to the course and learning about their backgrounds
Monitoring the participation of students in their coursework and recommending interventions based on the assessments
Maintenance and submission of academic records for learners to the institution
Following teaching guidelines
Representing primary instructors as a temporary replacement when the need arises

1 year as assistant professor in community college online course program in psychology.