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Emre Acaroglu

EE811 Activity 1.12.3

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This activity call for the identification of the 'relevant professional leadership development or professional/competency framework' for my own context. i did some research on this, as i do not work in a pure educational context. the closest i could get is this definition of educational leadership by AOSpine, an academic organization (an NGO) for which i had been doing some volunteer surgeon training, and it goes like this:

"(Leaders are) distinguished members of the worldwide spine community, who have demonstrated a sustained and significant contribution to educational excellence in the field of spine surgery."

  • where you currently place yourself as a professional within this structure

this definition was provided to describe the efforts of educators who were awarded the title 'regional educator of the year (2016)', a title which had been awarded to me in the previous year. supposedly then, i had been recognised as one of these leaders by this organization as well. does this mean that i had been a real educational leader? well, hard to tell, for two reasons:

  1. excellence is very hard to define, it is mostly used (here as well) undenotational, mostly signifying hard work.
  2. i have certain doubts on whether doing your job (albeit as a volunteer) is the only quality on which leadership should be based upon.
  • which elements required for leadership within your work context do you hope will be supported and strengthened by studying this module?

my expectation on the most important element to be supported and strengthened from this module is the understanding of and subsequently the ability to create a change in my educational context. i do understand that this ability is not the sine-qua-non aspect of leadership, but still, in an educational environment that is rapidly changing, i would like to get some insight about the mechanisms by which to propel all the stakeholders to a common goal of 'state of the art education'.

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