Similar to my preconceptions of the Ways of Knowing class and the Doctoral Seminar, I felt as though this course was inconsistent with my goals. To me, a leadership course would be appropriate for students who had aspirations to be a principal or another similar career path that required them to directly lead a group of people; however, this course taught me that people who conducted research were leaders in their own right. Specifically, professors are building knowledge through research and making new discoveries that guide practice and policies in education. Additionally, I find that the concepts in this course also have important implications for my research and professional goals. Specifically, I believe that every researcher wants his/her work to be endorsed by the community and have an impact on theory or practice. In order to do so, the researcher must have a specific and compelling vision (e.g., research goal and why the research is important) in order for the researcher to even begin doing research. In essence, the researcher leads the domain in a way that a leader leads a group of people, where the researcher must take charge and improve the current conditions of the domain. Therefore, this course has evolved the way I understand research and my role as a future professor and a leader in the domain of educational psychology.

Artifacts