Department of Educational Leadership
and Cultural Foundations

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    1. MSA in Educational Leadership
    2. PMC in School Administration
    3. PMC in School Administration-Specialized Education Focus (PMC-S)
    4. PMC in Urban School Leadership and Administration
    5. Ed.S. in Educational Leadership
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Guidelines for Ed.S. Capstone Experience

Essay

The student will write a paper that responds to the following:

Reflect on the ways in which your approach to leadership practice in schools (or other contexts) has changed as a result of your learning experiences in the Specialist in Education program.

Reflecting on your coursework and the literature on education, leadership, and culture, describe the core values you want to promote in your professional practice and discuss how they would be reflected in your response to several challenges you expect to face in your work.

Discuss some of the lingering questions you still have about education, leadership, and culture and society, questions that may frame your personal and professional learning in the future.

The capstone essay should be both reflective and scholarly. It should include reference citations to works that were influential in the student's development, and a properly-formatted reference list (that is, using APA format, as detailed in the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). The essay should reflect growth beyond the student's master's degree work. A copy of the capstone paper is due to each of the 2 faculty members participating in the student's capstone hearing 2 weeks prior to the capstone hearing.

[Additional clarifying note (1/11):It is likely that in order to adequately address the prompts below and to ground them in the professional literature, the capstone essay will be 15-20 double-spaced pages in length, plus references. The discussion of the capstone essay prompts (see above) should be thoroughly grounded in the professional literature. The essay should provide evidence not only of the student's professional growth in the Ed.S. program, but it should also document how the professional literature contributed to that growth. In order to accomplish this, the essay should make extensive use of relevant citations.]

Group Capstone Hearing

The capstone hearing is a group hearing with approximately 4-5 students and 2 faculty members participating in each hearing. During the CAP Hearing, each student will have no more than 10 minutes to make a presentation around the content they provide in their CAP papers. The student will answer questions specific to his/her presentation and dialogue about it with fellow students and the faculty members. Students are welcome to use PowerPoint or other media for their individual presentations, but they are not obligated to do so.

Capstone hearings will take place during late October/November (Fall semester) or March/April (Spring semester). Students will typically be notified of the date and time for their capstone hearing by early October (Fall) or mid to late February (Spring).

Applying for the Ed.S. Capstone

The student should provide notice of intent to complete the Capstone Experience at the beginning of the semester in which they intend to do so by submitting a written memo to their advisor and to the Coordinator of the Ed.S. Program.

Rev. 1-30-11