Conceptual Framework: Reflective Urban Practitioner Model
The conceptual framework for the educational leadership program is based on the College of Education’s Reflective Urban Practitioner (RUP) model.  Educational Leadership faculty strive to prepare school leaders who are reflective urban practitioners. “School leader as a reflective practitioner” includes three frameworks, each based on a guiding question:

Framework I:
Knowledge Foundation
Guiding Question for school leaders as RUP: What knowledge do candidates need to acquire in the master’s degree program in educational leadership to work effectively with learners, colleagues, and families in an urban community?

Framework II:
Leadership Skills
Guiding Question for school leaders as RUP: What pedagogical and leadership skills do leaders in urban schools need to translate educational theory into practice?

Framework III:
Dispositions for Urban Education
Guiding Question for school leaders as RUP: What dispositions do educational leadership candidates need to be successful in urban schools, i.e., help all students learn?

Throughout the program, leadership candidates are required to demonstrate competency in their patience and perspective, the exercise of judgment and wisdom, the development of new technical and analytical skills, sensitivity to other cultures, highly developed communication skills, and finally personal values that integrate ethical dimensions of decision making to promote student achievement.

The Reflective Urban Practitioner Model outcomes that are addressed in the Master of Arts Degree in Urban Education with a specialization in Administration and Supervision are:

Framework I:
Knowledge Foundation

1. Literacy: Candidates being prepared to work in urban setting demonstrate competence in the literacy skills required to present their subject matter to P-12 students and other school personnel.
2. Development and Learning Theory: Candidates being prepared to work in urban settings demonstrate knowledge of P-12 student development and learning theory in the context of academic settings.
3. Legal and Ethical Issues: Candidates being prepared to work in urban settings demonstrate knowledge of the complexity of the legal and ethical issues associated with teaching and learning in P-12 classrooms.
4. Content Knowledge: Candidates being prepared to work in urban settings demonstrate the content knowledge necessary to help all students learn.
5. Family and Community: Candidates being prepared to work in urban settings demonstrate knowledge of the role that families and communities should play as valued partners in the education process and tacit cultural assumptions of schools that may not be shared by families and communities that urban schools serve.
   
   Framework II:
   Pedagogical (and Leadership) Skills
   
   
6. Motivation and Behavior: Candidates will demonstrate a critical understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior, contemporary learning theories, and the use of technology to create learning environments that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
7. Communication: Candidates will demonstrate the use of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques and technology to foster active inquiry, respect for cultural difference, and collaboration in the classroom.
8. Plan Services and Instruction: Candidates will demonstrate the ability to plan services and instruction based upon synthesis and evaluation of knowledge of the individual learner, subject matter, the community, and the curriculum, particularly in urban environments.
9. Instructional Strategies: Candidates will demonstrate a critical understanding of the uses of a variety of instructional strategies and technologies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking, information literacy, technology, problem solving, and performance skills, and demonstrate the ability to adapt the curriculum to the unique needs of the learner.
10. Assessment: Candidates will demonstrate the ability to assess different levels of development and adapt practice accordingly based on a proficient and informed use of research, reflection, and individual needs.
    
    Framework III:
    Dispositions for Urban Education
    
    
11. Power of Students: Candidates demonstrate a belief in the ability and potential of all learners in our urban environments to meet high expectations of academic achievement and social development.
12. Power of Schools: Candidates demonstrate a belief that schooling and education function as vehicles for economic, social, and political equality and liberation.
13. Power of Difference: Candidates demonstrate recognition and valuing of culture, language, gender, socioeconomic status, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, exceptionality, and other forms of difference as assets in teaching and learning.
14. Power of Lifelong Learning and Reflection: Candidates demonstrate that they value lifelong learning and commit themselves to actively seek out opportunities to grow intellectually and professionally. Candidates demonstrate a willingness to examine and investigate personal assumptions and the ability to reflect upon and evaluate the effects of their action and choices on others.
15. Power of Empathy and a commitment to the success of all children in schools: Candidates will provide evidence that they have a personal commitment to an ethic of caring and empathy, and a commitment to promoting academic and social success of all learners.