Center for Diné Teacher Education K-12 Partners - US Department of Education (NSAPP)

The program curriculum is embedded with a Navajo focus through relevant content and faculty instruction. In addition, the thread of Learner Centered Leadership is interwoven throughout the courses and internships. These two perspectives give a unique focus to the course work leading to the M.Ed. and the principal’s certificate. All courses are offered at the Diné College - Tsaile campus or at the Navajo Nation school.

The curriculum of this program is closely connected to everyday demands and practical settings found on the job. Some of the skills and knowledge required for licensing are aligned with the Arizona Professional Administrator Standards and include, but are not limited to, developing and administering the following: quality curriculum and instruction; state, district, school, and classroom assessment strategies; faculty and staff motivation and evaluation; resource allocation; and conflict management, communication, and community involvement strategies all within the context of leadership in Navajo schools.

Induction. If new principals are to become effective and remain in the profession, they need on-the-job support that is collegial, reflective, and consistent with adult learning principles. During the induction phase, an understanding of day-to-day site-level management is forged and leaders come to realize their role in the lives of the students, teachers, parents, and community members. During this time, a program for long-term training and more specialized administrator coursework is needed.

If schools are to be vibrant and energized, the perspectives of children, parents, and teachers all must be included in the mix. Leaders need to be able to frame problems from many vantage points and perspectives. School leaders need to examine their own beliefs about the complexity of teaching and effective school leadership, which combines abstract human thought processes, concentrated study, and practice.

Action Learning. Leaders are not developed in the classroom. While they may be stimulated by discussions, real learning comes when developing leaders are given projects or jobs in which their leadership is applied and tested. Action learning requires participants to engage in real work with their staffs and stakeholders to develop high performance. Action research methods will be situated in a real-life school setting during internship. Participants in the program will use the real-life setting to support an extended internship experience spread over the life of the program, for which the action learning experience will be the culminating, field-based experience to solidify academic knowledge gained through coursework. The guiding question for the action learning experiences will be, "What does a school administrator do as instructional leader, community leader, and systems manager to ensure that all students achieve?"

The mentors will provide a sounding board from which the prospective school administrators will be able externalize their practice as instructional leaders, community leaders, and managers. Participants will learn how to collect and analyze student performance data; diagnose root problems; and prescribe curricular, instructional, community-based, and organizational rearrangements that will remove barriers to achievement for Navajo students in Navajo schools. Once these barriers are removed, Navajo students will demonstrate achievement through measures such as AIMS assessments, the SAT-9, and, over time, through lower high school dropout rates.

Participants will work in schools, on a rotational basis, with a variety of mentors, each mentor with a special knowledge-base in one or more of the dimensions of effective schooling administration as each intersects with the core functions of teaching and learning for Navajo students in Navajo schools: learner outcomes, curriculum, instruction, assessment, learning environment, technology, school-community relations, time, governance, teacher leadership, personnel, and working relationships. Each experience with a mentor will help to shape the candidate's administrative competencies and socialize the candidate into the administrative profession. Because NSAPP participants spend extensive practicum experiences within school settings serving Navajo students, there are many sources to ensure feedback pertaining to their professional development and performance. Throughout the program each prospective administrator works with a practicing school administrator who serves as his or her mentor.

Mentoring is considered the most effective strategy in terms of cost and usefulness to beginning principals for further developing and retaining newcomers to the profession (Murphy, 2002; Murphy & Louis, 1999; Hill & Guthrie, 1999).