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The NISL Program: Content Map and Course Descriptions (2022-23 PIL Version)

The NISL Program

NCEE's NISL program is a powerful initiative that will help school-level principals, assistant principals, and teacher-leaders, as well as superintendents, assistant superintendents, and directors and specialists redesign their schools as higher performance organizations, improve instruction, leverage data-driven decision making, improve student and school culture, and integrate a focus on equity. NCEE firmly believes that to dramatically improve student achievement for all students, school leaders need to understand the common components of successful systems, how they support each other, and how to lead teams to implement, sustain, and improve these systems. Leaders need to act with urgency to create momentum in the short-term, while also developing the long-term solutions that create high-performing systems.

NISL will equip school leaders with the skills, knowledge, and tools to create strategies for raising school performance, driving effective teaching and supporting student learning through structures and incentives, aligning instructional systems, creating a culture focused on equity, and implementing high-performance management structures that drive growth. NISL's leadership development approaches are culled from international best practices in education and research of leadership programs in the military, business, and education fields. This powerful program offers sustained, cohort-based, job-embedded, and applied learning. NISL uses a blended learning model of face-to-face and technology-enhanced learning, including video interviews from leading educators, case studies, best practice videos, simulations, and diagnostics that focus on both participants and their schools. NISL supports school leaders by developing strong foundational skills and increasing leaders' ability to transform schools.

Twelve units are distributed over three thematic courses:

Course One: World-Class Schooling: Vision and Goals

  • Unit 1: The Educational Challenge
  • Unit 2: The Principal as Strategic Thinker
  • Unit 3: Rigorous and Adaptive Learning Systems

Course Two: The Research on Learning and the Implications for Teaching, Leadership, and School Organization

  • Unit 4: How People Learn: Implications for Teaching, Leadership, and School Organization, Part 1
  • Unit 5: How People Learn: Implications for Teaching, Leadership, and School Organization, Part 2
  • Unit 6: How People Learn: Implications for Teaching, Leadership, and School Organization, Part 3
  • Unit 7: Promoting the Learning Organization
  • Unit 8: Leadership for Effective Teaching

Course Three: Sustaining Transformation through Capacity and Commitment

  • Unit 9: Teams for Instructional Leadership
  • Unit 10: Culturally-Responsive Leadership for Equity
  • Unit 11: Driving and Sustaining Transformation
  • Unit 12: The NISL Program: Inquiry, Reflection, and Closure

The NISL program prepares leaders to create and lead high-performance schools. NISL participants graduate the program with an understanding of the common components of successful systems, and with the skills, knowledge, and tools to create and lead such systems in their schools. Participants strengthen their leadership capacity and learn to create high-performance management structures, aligned instructional systems, and cultures focused on ethics and equity.

Participants also graduate ready for further supports that deepen and apply NISL concepts. NISL Applied Plus courses and coaching allow participants to continue applying their learning to real school challenges and embedding their experience into their individual practice. 

 Accordion



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Course One: World-Class Schooling: Vision and Goals

Course Two: The Research on Learning and the Implications for Teaching, Leadership, and School Organization

Course Three: Sustaining Transformation through Capacity and Commitment