Unit rationale, description and aim
Educational communities exist within complex ecologies. Ecclesial, theological, philosophical, social, cultural, and political dynamics influence the localised contexts in which leaders serve.
This unit draws from integral theology, organisational ecology, and cultural theories to help leaders understand and apply their own wisdom to enhance the life and culture of their learning community. It draws from complex systems organisational theory, practical theology, and contemplative practice to equip students with conceptual and spiritual resources to understand and respond to their complex, and unique, professional context. Distributed, self-organising, multi-layered, networked, agile, and team-based leadership models and modalities are explored.
This unit aims to equip students to make sense of their organisational complexity. They develop practical skills in redesigning and empowering cultures where complexity can be harnessed for innovation, improvement, and positive community relationships.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Analysis of contemporary organisational theories (...
Learning Outcome 01
Use this analysis to critique their personal pract...
Learning Outcome 02
Integrate frameworks of spiritual, relational, and...
Learning Outcome 03
Content
Topics will include:
- Organisations as:
- Closed systems
- Open systems
- Complex systems
- Ecologies
- Leading complex cultures, climates, and modalities
- Models and theories for leading (self-organising, multi-layered, networked, agile)
- Theologies of communal life
- The school as
- Organisation
- Institution
- Community
- Family
- Ecclesia
- Mission
- Transrelationality as leadership practice
- Spiritual renewal and sustenance: Practices and priorities
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment tasks for this unit are designed for students to demonstrate achievement of each of the learning outcomes. Assessment tasks build on each other through a developmental and applied approach and provide students with the opportunity to meet the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes and professional standards and criteria consistent with University assessment requirements.
Learning in this unit draws from diverse disciplines to provide students with multiple perspectives through which to understand their educational community. Assessment 1 requires students to engage in critical analysis of how leaders’ actions impact the culture within their community, especially those with a Catholic or other faith-based mission. Assessment 2 requires students to move beyond conceptual and analytical commentary to articulate how their personal leadership practice contributes to the ecological health of their professional setting.
The assessment tasks and their weighting for this unit are mapped to demonstrate the achievement of the learning outcomes and the related academic and professional standards.
In order to pass this unit, students are required to successfully complete both assessment tasks regardless of their mode of enrolment.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1: Critical Review Critically rev...
Assessment Task 1: Critical Review
Critically review and justify a range of strategies that are effective for building strong school cultures and ecologies.
50%
Assessment Task 2: Evaluation Evaluate the contri...
Assessment Task 2: Evaluation
Evaluate the contribution of your personal educational leadership practices to the ecological health of a school community/or system.
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This unit may be offered in online and multimode and uses an interdisciplinary and reflective learning approach. Lectures and scholarly readings provide the knowledge base of complexity leadership theories for the unit, complemented by wider exposure to contemporary news reportage and social media (blogs, podcasts) on relevant topics. A range of leadership structures and modalities for leading through complexity are introduced. It then explores the value of personal spiritual practices for sustaining and renewing leaders. Students reflect on how their own journey of vocation, formation, and renewal contributes to the health of their educational community.
This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the teaching period, comprising directed tasks and self-study.
AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS - LEAD LEVEL
On successful completion of this unit, students should have gained evidence towards the following standards:
AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARD FOR PRINCIPALS – PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
In addition to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers this unit addresses the following Professional Practices: