Building Leadership Capacities Through Course Development Planning at a Conventional University

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) looks at reducing the resistance found when faculty members are asked to use a systematic plan for online course development. The course development plan is a framework that is built around the concept of “backwards design” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Backwards design makes all items congruent—the assessments to the activities, activities to the instructions, and instructions to topics and learning outcomes. The literature review within the context of this OIP, found that course development planning lacks flexibility, creates anxieties with faculty members, is time consuming, and organizational faculty development support is limited and/or inadequate. To address these concerns, Schein’s (2010) organizational culture model, consisting of three-stages and a primary driver on “culture” was introduced. In terms of finding a solution, four were proposed and one, enabling a “proof of concept” was introduced including the use of servant leadership as the selected approach to help achieve this new organizational state. Finally, a change plan based on the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model (The W. Edwards Deming Institute, 2016) was presented that addressed the transition to the new state, goals, monitoring of the plan, and ethical considerations. Communities of Practice (CoP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Professional Learning Communities (Abbott, Guisbond, Levy, & Sommerfeld, 2014; DuFour & Eaker, 2009) were also considered important concepts in helping to move this change plan towards success. Abstract This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) looks at reducing the resistance found when faculty members are asked to use a systematic plan for online course development. The course development plan is a framework that is built around the concept of “backwards design” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Backwards design makes all items congruent—the assessments to the activities, activities to the instructions, and instructions to topics and learning outcomes. The literature review within the context of this OIP, found that course development planning lacks flexibility, creates anxieties with faculty members, is time consuming, and organizational faculty development support is limited and/or inadequate. To address these concerns, Schein’s (2010) organizational culture model, consisting of three-stages and a primary driver on “culture” was introduced. In terms of finding a solution, four were proposed and one, enabling a “proof of concept” was introduced including the use of transactional, transformational, and servant leadership as the selected approaches to help achieve this new organizational state. Finally, a change plan based on the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model (The W. Edwards Deming Institute, 2016) was presented that addressed the transition to the new state, goals, monitoring of the plan, and ethical considerations. Communities of Practice (CoP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and Professional Learning Communities (Abbott, Guisbond, Levy, & Sommerfeld, 2014; DuFour & Eaker, 2009) were also considered important concepts in helping to move this change plan towards success