The Lead by Learning Certificate Program

The Lead by Learning Certificate Program is available for educators who participate in our district, agency, and school partnerships who are leaders of adult learning. On a case by case basis, educators who are not current partners can participate.

The program guides learners through four modules that include framing videos and writing prompts designed to deepen self-awareness and guide learners through core elements of leading adult learning.

Modules are published throughout the year with completion deadlines. Participants access learning experiences and content through our online learning management system and use this system to turn in the program’s required reflections. The program is largely asynchronous but will feature 2-3 synchronous meetings (1 hour each) in order to connect with the wider Lead by Learning Network and engage in thought partnership with other leaders.

Certificate Modules Include:

  • Module 0: Reflecting on Self
  • Module 1: Clarifying Purpose
  • Module 2: Refining Practices
  • Module 3: Understanding Impact
This program is intended for leaders of adult learning. Open to teacher leaders, department heads, PLC leads and ILT members, site and district  leaders, non-profit administrators, and beyond. Whatever your role, you must lead adult learning.

 

Aligned to Lead by Learning’s Leader Profile Framework, educators who participate are supported to build their skills and dispositions as partners, learners, and visionaries as shown below.

  • Values multiple perspectives and seeks thought partnerships
  • Deeply listens with empathy and care, looking first for assets/connections
  • Builds relationships that cultivate a culture of professional respect, trust, agency, and distributed leadership
  • Supports rigorous learning steeped in SEL
  • Publicly models a learning stance (curiosity, vulnerability, trust, flexibility, adaptability)
  • Uses data to make adult and student learning visible
  • Adapts and improves by deepening self-awareness
  • Leads collaborative learning by experiencing and reflecting on conditions that supported their own learning
  • Puts students at the center of learning by identifying and returning to high leverage goals that target students’ needs
  • Communicates purpose and progress in humanizing, authentic ways to build awareness and support continuous improvement
  • Creates space to move beyond transactional compliance to curiosity and collective efficacy
  • Is driven by a moral imperative
A recent certificate graduate, Carol Lewis, composed the poem below as her final reflection.

What I Found

What I found this year, when doing this work, is that

loosening the grip of one’s own identify-bound perspective leads

to valuing multiple perspectives that add to the vision of a high quality program for our students

asking “What else do I need to know; what have I not thought about?” leads
to more power behind our continuous quality improvement process and better outcomes

deeply listening with empathy and caring leads

to identifying assets in others that I don’t possess and finding that the people I lead have wisdom that this moment needs

cultivating a culture of professional respect, trust, agency and distributed leadership leads

to building a program that is more responsive to the needs of our students that isn’t based just on my vision for the program, but the strengths of the people I lead who implement it

engaging in rigorous learning and braving uncomfortable conversations leads

to change, of how we think and act to improve the program and improve the outcomes for the students we serve
Carol Lewis
District Coordinator, Expanded Learning
Vallejo City Unified School District