International Leadership Development through Web-Based Learning

This article provides a rationale for developing an online graduate course in educational leadership. Then, it offers a set of seven assumptions for online teaching: the relevance of public teaching and learning, the need for a broad leadership base in schools, the merit of peer guidance by classmates, the need to validate personal knowledge, the value of international learning networks, the strength of online learning communities, and the efficacy of leadership for teaching and learning. Then, the development of the online course is explained and lessons learned are provided, for example, the importance of a design team that includes technical support personnel, the need for instructors to have computer skills and access to ongoing professional development. Other lessons include the following: a caution about directing too much class communication through the instructor, the advantages associated with attention to community building among class members, the value of layered participation in the class by representatives of educational stakeholder groups, new perspectives on teaching time, cross-cultural differences in online participation, prudent considerations of copyright, and the politics of online teaching. The article closes with a set of questions and possibilities for online educators and a proposed model for developers of online courses and programs. (Contains 3 figures.)