PIL Blended Course Offering Descriptions
What are PDE/PA Inspired Leadership (PIL) Program Blended Learning Courses?
To expand the opportunities for professional development within the Pennsylvania Inspired Leadership (PIL) Program, a series of blended courses aligned to the Pennsylvania Framework for Leadership is being offered. Each blended course is 8 weeks in length, comprised of a combination of online discussions, study hours, job‐embedded actives, a one‐day face‐to‐face meeting, and one or two online synchronous meetings*.
Facilitators for these courses are practitioners with extensive school administration experience and have completed training in effectively utilizing technology tools to maximize instruction in an online environment. Successful completion of all online and face‐to‐face requirements for a blended course will provide participants 30 Act 45 PIL hours.
Registration:
www.education.pa.gov/Act45PIL
All face to face/synchronous sessions will be held in a virtual format.
The PDE PIL Blended Courses Available in 2023-24 are:
Team Building and Collaboration
In this course, school leaders will consider how to support educational excellence by creating a culture of teaching and learning that emphasizes collaboration, communication, engagement, and the empowerment of school board members, teachers, students, families, and community members. Within the context of a shared mission, vision, and goals, school leaders will explore and evaluate the social, economic, political, and educational factors that influence the range of possible improvement scenarios for their schools. School leaders will also discuss the development and implementation of a comprehensive safe schools plan that includes prevention, intervention, crisis response, and recovery. In addition, school leaders will explore how to review, analyze, and adjust school safety and discipline plans based on school data, crisis feedback, and current regulations and mandates.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session):
Transforming Organizations
When transforming organizations, school leaders must develop a clear vision and collaborative culture. In order to successfully transform organizations, a change in mindset must occur. Transformative change is persistent, purposeful, and intentional. Communication of the intent for transformation, as seen in revised visions, norms, values, expectations and goals, is essential to enable transformative change. Successful transformative leaders recognize individual and collective contributions and utilize failure as an opportunity to improve school culture and student performance. When navigating systemic transformation, school leaders need to seamlessly integrate digital technologies that support all aspects of the process.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session):
Comprehensive Mental Health for School Leaders in Action
Comprehensive Mental Health for School Leaders in Action is the second course in the PIL Blended Mental Health set. Participants will focus on the next steps for the SHAPE assessment and how to move theory into practice. The course focuses on what action steps school leaders will take, based on successes and lessons learned, to drive systematic change within their schools or districts. Self-care, purposeful implementation, opportunities for reflection, and the benefits of networking are emphasized.
This course is 8 weeks in length with one virtual face-to-face session.
Data Courses
Foundations: Data to Action
Foundations: Data to Action is the first in a rigorous three-course series designed to equip school leaders with the knowledge, skills, and practices they need to create and sustain an effective data culture in their schools. This course will explore the various types of data, the benefits of using data, and the basic structures and processes that must be in place for administrators to be successful in promoting and sustaining a data-driven school culture.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session)
School Level: Data to Action
This course is the second in a rigorous three-course series on data, available to school leaders who have successfully completed the first course: "Foundations: Data to Action."
"School Level: Data to Action" extends the knowledge and skills school leaders developed in the first course, with a focus on how to apply data practices specifically to school level work and decisions. Course activities are designed to prepare educators to implement effective and efficient practices in the use of data, including: the implementation of a school-wide assessment calendar; scheduling and aligning data meetings for a variety of purposes; analyzing data to determine root cause; and developing and monitoring action plans. This course will prepare participants to use data to address a variety of decisions, including, but not limited to, student learning/academics.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session)
Classroom Level: Data to Action
This course is the third in a three-part series on data, available to school leaders who have successfully completed both "Foundations: Data to Action" and "School Level: Data to Action."
School leaders will explore two prongs of data use at the classroom level: how classroom teachers can use data effectively to enhance outcomes for all students; and how school leaders can support, guide, and monitor teachers' use of data in their daily planning and decision-making. This course examines the use of demographic, perceptual, process, and student learning data at the classroom level to address classroom learning, climate, and culture. This course includes a practical guide for implementing data meetings that address individual students, going deeper to establish a personalized learning focus.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session)
Student Career Readiness: Foundations for School Leaders
This course is designed to help school and district leaders understand and implement strategies in their school systems related to career development and career preparation for their students. Specifically, this course will help leaders K-12 school and district leaders better understand the implications of workforce trends for education, learn how to implement the Pennsylvania Career Education and Work Standards and meet the Future Ready PA Index Career Readiness Indicators, strengthen employer and community partnerships to support career education, increase communication and collaboration with career and technical education administrators, and examine strategies and best practices in career connected learning.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session)
Equitable Education for All Students: Why Leadership Matters
This course is designed to enhance educator effectiveness in improving academic achievement and promoting equitable schools and districts. Using a framework with an emphasis on prevention, response, and recovery, course activities will prepare school leaders to plan, implement, and sustain a culture of equity in their school environments. Modeling effective practices, conducting needs assessments, composing plans for stakeholder buy-in and support, creating a shared identity, communicating effectively, exploring the roles of academic and disciplinary equity, and applying data to improve and sustain equitable practices are among the topics that school leaders will examine during the course experience. Important: In this course, participants will use existing or new School Climate survey data.
Course length: 12 weeks w/2 face to face meeting days & provides 45 Act 45 PIL hours
Important:
Equitable Practices in Education: Cultivating Conditions for Success
Equitable Education for All Students: Why Leadership Matters was the initial course introducing the cornerstones of equity through the lens of an educational leader. The course concluded with an action plan on how to engage in equitable practices through self-awareness, data analysis, family-community engagement, academic equity, disciplinary equity, and school climate.
This second course, Equitable Leadership Practices in Education: Cultivating Conditions for Success, will offer a deeper experience in determining how equity in education encompasses how to be intentional in ensuring equity is a part of everyday leadership practice. In particular, there will be a focus on Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) and how an equitable MTSS impacts students with disabilities, students from varying socio-economic status, gender identity and sexual orientation, religion, mental health, and students who have experienced trauma. Additionally, continued dialogue and activity around how to engage and empower staff in their interactions with colleagues, students, families, and communities through an equity lens will be provided.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one face-to-face session)
Shaping Communication Practices for Improved Leadership
Effective communication is the foundational underpinning of successful relationships and leadership. Clear, focused, and strategic communication with built-in feedback loops assists leaders in executing their vision and managing the continuous improvement process. This course explores core communication processes, typical correspondence, crisis communications, methods to engage multiple audiences, and opportunities for new communication structures. Equipped with communication strategies, a variety of communication modes, appropriate media, and an organized communication plan, school leaders will shape their current practices and enhance their skills for improved leadership.
Offerings (each offering is 8 weeks long with one virtual face-to-face session). This course is a replacement for the Effective Communication course. If Effective Communication was completed, the Shaping Communication Practices for Improved Leadership course may also be completed for credit.
Comprehensive Mental Health for School Leaders
Comprehensive Mental Health for School Leaders is designed to help school leaders understand the core components of comprehensive school mental health as they engage in a planning process around implementation of services. The course focuses on a comprehensive school mental health curriculum and several core features of effective school mental health initiative.
Participants will examine a range of supports and services that promote positive school climate, social emotional learning, mental health, and well-being, while reducing the prevalence and severity of mental illness. This course examines ways to build or improve a foundation of district and school professionals, including administrators and educators, specialized instructional support personnel in strategic partnership with students, families, and community health and mental health partners. Participants will focus on ways to assess and address the social and environmental factors that impact health and mental health.
This course is 10 weeks in length with one virtual face-to-face session.
Continuous Improvement 1: Getting Up and Running with the Essentials
Throughout course 1, participants will explore continuous improvement, designed by and for PA schools and school leaders, as a process requiring collaboration, innovation, and action. While reviewing each step of the cycle of continuous improvement, participants will be introduced to tools and strategies aligned with the phases of the cycle, including monitoring the implementation and the effectiveness of plans. These strategies shift teams from planning to improve to implementing their plans and demonstrating improvement, which will lead to actualizing their vision.
Learning Outcomes:
- Explore each phase of the Pennsylvania Cycle of Continuous Improvement.
- Examine strategies to implement within the phases of the PA Cycle of Continuous Improvement.
- Utilize available tools to guide and strengthen work within the phases of the PA Cycle of Continuous Improvement.
- Identify the current status of the PA Essential Practices within the participant’s educational setting.
- Develop a plan for systematizing data usage that will guide participant engagement in the PA Cycle of Continuous Improvement.
This course is 8 weeks in length with one virtual face-to-face session.