Courses

The ASAP Case Study Assessment Library is a package containing all 16 of the ASAP Case Studies. Titles include:

1. The Principled Principal
2. Developing Professional Development the Tech Way
3. The Facebook Predicament
4. What Fits the Teaching Bill?
5. Driving Miss Jacobs
6. The Abuse Allegation
7. The Classified Claims
8. The Shady Substitute
9. The Suspected Students
10. Implementing an Instructional Plan
11. Technology and the School Climate
12. Supporting All Students
13. The Canary in the Data Mine
14. Continuum of Services
15. Leading the Leadership Team
16. Keeping the Campus Safe

ASAP^® Case Study Assessments for school leaders are aligned to specific state standards and proficiency areas.

About This Case:

In our current educational landscape, leaders are expected to formulate and examine their own professional codes of ethics, as well as the standards set forth by the profession. Understanding that the profession consists of a variety of ethics (justice, critique, care, and profession to name a few) and being cognizant of them when making decisions as a leader is vital when attempting to lead with integrity and credibility (Marzano, 2005; Shapiro & Stepkovich, 2011).

As leaders apply such ethics, a professional paradigm is created that is dynamic, multidimensional and responsive to the complexities of being an educational leader in today’s society.

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving a conflict of principles and the exploration of the value of care, trust, and relationship as characteristics of a school’s climate. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

Research is replete with evidence demonstrating that greater collaboration will foster collegial trust, enhance job satisfaction, promote teacher success in the classroom, and improve student responsibility (Fullan, 1993; MetLife, 2010; Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber, 2010). Districts and/or schools are therefore charged with the responsibility of creating and promoting structures which will allow collaboration to occur. Technology offers such a venue to accomplish this task (Bonk, 2009; Zhao, 2009).

Ultimately, through effective and innovative use by the organization (in this case a school or district), Internet and virtual technology have the capacity to place faculty and administrators into safe and secure communities. Within these secure communities, the organization can provide administrators and teachers with access to familiar social networking tools, allowing them to establish meaningful, relevant and authentic learning relationships with partners of varying skills, opinions and backgrounds. With such access, they can collaborate in discussions, share tasks, review and assess each other’s work and co-construct knowledge; arriving at a shared understanding and deep learning in alignment with core skills and standards (Frick, 2012).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to address a situation involving technology integration, specifically its use for professional development purposes. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

Educational leadership research is replete with guidance regarding ethical decision making and organizational leadership practice. The meta-analytic study of Marzano, McNulty, and Waters (2005) outlines twenty-one responsibilities of effective school leaders and provides a framework that not only renders leadership direction but emphasizes the premise that leaders need to also know why, how, and when to take action.

Effective school leaders are able to balance efforts to change with maintaining structures that already work. They should know when, how, and why to create learning environments that support people, connect them with one another, and provide the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to succeed.

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving the use of technology while maintaining sound leadership practice and commitment to the school district vision and community values. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

In an era of Race to the Top, it is increasingly clear that educational leaders at all levels must be more than administrators. They must be educational visionaries, change agents, instructional leaders, curriculum and assessment experts, budget analysts, facility managers, special program directors, and community builders (Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson & Orr, 2007).

Given the plethora of responsibilities, leaders need to practice situational awareness by understanding the undercurrents regarding the functioning of the school and using such information to address current and potential problems (Marzano, Walters & McNulty, 2005).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to address a situation involving mandated legislation, potential faculty redeployment and cultural divisiveness. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

Given the litigious nature of our society and the current educational landscape, leaders are expected to know and adhere to established policy as well as practice situational awareness. Adding to that complexity, it is essential for them to make decisions based on the standards set forth in the profession.

Understanding that a variety of ethical principles (justice, critique, care, and profession to name a few) inform decision making is vital when attempting to lead with integrity and credibility (Marzano, 2005; Shapiro & Stepkovich, 2011).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving both a legal and ethical issue impacting a middle school and ultimately the district-at-large. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

The fostering of an effective school culture; creating strong lines of communication; and employing ethical decision making are common threads across educational leadership research (Elmore, 2000; Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

School leaders need to act through and with other people (teachers and students) to create positive and productive environments that are safe and free of learning barriers (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving student conflict and abuse. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

The fostering of an effective school culture; creating strong lines of communication; and employing ethical decision making are common threads across educational leadership research (Elmore, 2000; Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

School leaders need to act through and with other people (teachers and students) to create positive and productive environments that are safe and free of learning barriers (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving internal faculty strife. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

The fostering of an effective school culture; creating strong lines of communication; and employing ethical decision making are common threads across educational leadership research (Elmore, 2000; Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

School leaders need to act through and with other people (teachers and students) to create positive and productive environments that are safe and free of learning barriers (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving the hiring of faculty and staff. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

The fostering of an effective school culture; creating strong lines of communication; and employing ethical decision making are common threads across educational leadership research (Elmore, 2000; Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003; Marzano, 2005).

School Leaders need to act through and with other people (teachers and students) to create positive and productive environments that are safe and free of learning barriers (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).

This case will provide learners with an opportunity to consider how to bring resolution to a situation involving accusations surrounding the vandalism of a school. The case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About this case:

In our current educational landscape, leaders are expected to model practices and behaviors to assist educators in enhancing teaching and learning, helping to provide a common experience for them to replicate. Resistance to change is commonplace and effective transformational leadership encompasses the ability to get people to want to change and improve (Northouse, 2001).

Transformational leadership is the responsibility of the organization, not just the individual (Hallinger, 2003) and to achieve this, transformational leadership behaviors must have direct and indirect effects on followers’ behavior, their psychological states and thus on organizational performance (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006).

Exercises and structures such as co-teaching and professional learning communities (PLC’s) emphasize this approach. In support of professional growth and teacher effectiveness, administrators need to engage in observation and feedback in an ongoing process of development and evaluation.

This case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.

About This Case:

Many teachers continue to have difficulty integrating technology into classroom learning. Despite the fact that novice teachers are entering the classroom with far more advanced technology skills than their counterparts of an earlier age, less than half of teachers surveyed report “moderate” or “frequent” use of technology as an instructional tool (Grunwald Associates, 2010).

One cause of this difficulty seems to be the types of technology-related professional development teachers receive. Technology training is one of the most common types of professional development for teachers (NEA, 2008) but very few rate it as “useful” or “very useful.”

While effective and innovative use of technology by educators can benefit students, one of the fundamental problems can be that people do not have a clear and coherent sense of the reasons for educational change, what it is, and how to proceed (Fullan, 1991). As a result, there can be superficiality, confusion, and misunderstanding about the purpose of the reform; in this case the use of technology in the classroom.

This case provides details regarding the situation but offers no solutions; learners will demonstrate proficiency in the given areas by responding to the questions following the case.