Curriculum & Courses

The three-course (9 credit hour) certificate supports the preparation of a pipeline of practitioners and clinicians in organizational learning, collective impact, strategic doing, systems transformation, human-centered and liberatory design, rapid prototyping, implementation practice, and the science of improvement.

Format

Courses are offered in a blended, weekend format to enable full access to students from different professional schools and work settings. Asynchronous on-line content will be complemented with 6-8 project-based weekend sessions. During in-person weekends together, students will engage with faculty from across campus as well as community partners in interprofessional learning opportunities, including panel discussions, interviews, case studies, project-based learning, tool application, and team-based activities.

Three Courses

To help scaffold learning and students’ knowledge for leading change in collaboration with community members, three courses will be taken in order: Change Leadership & Systems Improvement, Rapid Prototyping, and Implementation & Equity.

Change Leadership and Systems Improvement

In this course, students are introduced to and apply knowledge, tools and dispositions drawn from improvement science, organizational and management studies, psychology of change, strategic doing, relational leadership, team science, and collective impact that support the development of learning systems (in government, healthcare, education, social services) capable of bringing about their own continuous transformation.

Spring 2024:
Online lessons: Students will work through 6-8 online lessons asynchronously, beginning on the first day of the spring semester (Jan.10) through the end of the course in mid-March. You will receive an email from Lora Cohen-Vogel, Ph.D., informing you about how to access the online learning management platform on or before that first day. You will need to have access to a laptop and internet connection to complete the certificate.

Rapid Prototyping

In this course, students learn to apply the mindsets, methods, and processes associated with design thinking (i.e., human-centered design) to solve real-world problems. Design thinking is a creative problem-solving process that prioritizes co-design, convergent and divergent thinking, as well as rapid prototyping. Students will also practice equity-advancing design and liberatory co-design, and will collaborate with community members to design solutions (e.g., programs, products) that are desirable, feasible, viable and promote equity and justice.

Implementation and Equity

Applying lessons from implementation practice and research, students in this course learn the skills and competencies to tailor implementation frameworks and strategies to different settings to meet the unique needs of communities and to improve outcomes reliability and at scale. Equitable implementation occurs when strong equity components (including explicit attention to culture, history, values, and needs) are integrated into principles, tools, and cultures of work to facilitate the implementation of co-designed solutions for scale and sustainability.

Fall 2024 Course Meeting Dates (TENTATIVE)

• Online:
  Friday, Aug. 16, 4:30-7:30 p.m.
  Friday, Oct. 18, 4:30-7:30 p.m.
• In Person:
  Friday, Sept. 5, 4:30-8 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 6, 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
  Friday, Dec. 6, 4:30-8 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 7, 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 pm.