Degree focus: EDD Performance Improvement Leadership Week 9 Critical Reflection and Writing Process Evaluation Critical Thinking and Professional Growth The core of effective leadership in education is centered on critical thinking. All the tough decisions require leaders to critically analyze problems, challenges, and issues through the lens of the critical thinker who consistently integrates critical thinking principles into all decisions about how to best lead educational organizations.Throughout the course, we have emphasized key elements of your program and specialization while remaining focused on the factors needed for success as leaders in education. These factors are represented through the essential course competencies: Determine how action research and systems thinking apply to professional problems, challenges, or issues in education. Apply information literacy skills to locate and critically evaluate scholarly data, theories, and research. Critically reflect on one's own professional decisions, attitudes, actions, and skills to direct one's own learning and growth. Analyze the characteristics of ethical behavior and respect for diversity and civil discourse. Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and appropriate to purpose. This week, you will work to transition what you have learned in this course to the start of your specific program or organization. As you prepare to progress from your first course at Capella to the program-specific requirements and courses for your own field or specialization, we encourage you to save the resources, links, materials, tools, and feedback to help you create your success. You will also continue your focus on critical thinking this week with emphasis on Paul and Elder's universal intellectual standards. TO DO LIST: Assignment : Write a 12–15-page paper in which you compile your previous assignments and reflect on your experience writing papers for the course. What You Need to Know : Read about intellectual standards. Assignment Overview For this final assignment, you will revise and compile the assignments you have developed throughout this course and reflect on your experience writing papers. What You Need to Know Final Assignment Your reading time this week will be devoted to completing your final assignment. The final assignment is a compilation of the revised assignments you developed throughout this course, along with your final reflection. This week: Review each writing revision matrix you worked on for your assignments in Weeks 4 and 7. Your final assignment is expected to include a reflection on how you addressed the feedback you received from Smarthinking, the Writing Center, and your instructor for each assignment. Revise your previous assignments to reflect the feedback you received. Be sure to use the Week 9 Assignment Template [DOCX] as a guide to format, organize, and address the final assignment components. Rework your assignments.

1. Degree focus: EDD Performance Improvement Leadership
Week 9
Critical Reflection and Writing Process Evaluation
Critical Thinking and Professional Growth
The core of effective leadership in education is centered on
critical thinking. All the tough decisions require leaders to
critically analyze problems, challenges, and issues through the
lens of the critical thinker who consistently integrates critical
thinking principles into all decisions about how to best lead
educational organizations.Throughout the course, we have
emphasized key elements of your program and specialization
while remaining focused on the factors needed for success as
leaders in education. These factors are represented through the
essential course competencies:
Determine how action research and systems thinking apply to
professional problems, challenges, or issues in education.
Apply information literacy skills to locate and critically
evaluate scholarly data, theories, and research.
Critically reflect on one's own professional decisions, attitudes,
actions, and skills to direct one's own learning and growth.
Analyze the characteristics of ethical behavior and respect for
diversity and civil discourse.

2. Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and
appropriate to purpose.
This week, you will work to transition what you have learned in
this course to the start of your specific program or organization.
As you prepare to progress from your first course at Capella to
the program-specific requirements and courses for your own
field or specialization, we encourage you to save the resources,
links, materials, tools, and feedback to help you create your
success. You will also continue your focus on critical thinking
this week with emphasis on Paul and Elder's universal
intellectual standards.
TO DO LIST:
Assignment
: Write a 12–15-page paper in which you compile your
previous assignments and reflect on your experience writing
papers for the course.
What You Need to Know
: Read about intellectual standards.
Assignment Overview
For this final assignment, you will revise and compile the
assignments you have developed throughout this course and
reflect on your experience writing papers.
What You Need to Know

3. Final Assignment
Your reading time this week will be devoted to completing your
final assignment. The final assignment is a compilation of the
revised assignments you developed throughout this course,
along with your final reflection.
This week:
Review each writing revision matrix you worked on for your
assignments in Weeks 4 and 7. Your final assignment is
expected to include a reflection on how you addressed the
feedback you received from Smarthinking, the Writing Center,
and your instructor for each assignment. Revise your previous
assignments to reflect the feedback you received.
Be sure to use the
Week 9 Assignment Template [DOCX]
as a guide to format, organize, and address the final assignment
components.
Rework your assignments to include a new introduction and
conclusion for this final paper.
Consider saving your course assignments to your
ePortfolio
. The work you submit for this course will only be retrievable
for a limited time, and you may want or need to access these
assignments in the future.
Assignment Instructions
CRITICAL REFLECTION AND WRITING PROCESS

4. EVALUATION
Overview
Professional practice requires ongoing reflection to identify
strategies, behaviors, processes, and dispositions that lead to
the strongest results and those approaches that might be
improved. We also reflect on our own responses to our
professional experiences as a means of processing and
strengthening our practice. This assignment will help you
reflect critically on:
The writing and revision choices you made in the previous two
course assignments.
How your experience in this course relates to your professional
orientation and career goals.
For this assignment, you will submit revised versions of the
assignments from Weeks 4 and 7, an evaluation of your writing
process for each assignment, and a critical reflection that
explores the impact of this course on your professional
orientation and career goals. You should also include a new
introduction and conclusion.
Instructions
Before you begin your paper, review the grading criteria in the
scoring guide. Then use the
Week 9 Assignment Template [DOCX]
to complete the following components:
Title Page
Enter your name on the title page where it says

5. Learner Name
.
Introduction
Immediately following the title of the paper, provide an
overview of what is included in this paper.
Literature Review
Writing Process Evaluation
: Before pasting the revised components of your Literature
Review assignment (listed below) into the assignment template,
remember to first evaluate the stages of your personal writing
process while you completed the assignment, as well as those
specific revision choices you applied in response to feedback
from your instructor, from Smarthinking, or from rethinking
your work. Explain how lessons learned or strategies used
during the writing process for this assignment might be applied
to future writing tasks related to this program and your chosen
profession.
Revised components of your Literature Review assignment:
Overview of Topic.
Topic Relation to Specialization.
Review of the Literature.
Synthesis of the Literature Reviewed.
Ethical Behavior, Diversity, and Civil Discourse
Writing Process Evaluation

6. : Before pasting the revised components of your Ethical
Behavior, Diversity, and Civil Discourse assignment (listed
below) into the assignment template, remember to first evaluate
your personal writing process while completing the assignment,
as well as those specific revision choices you applied in
response to feedback from your instructor, from Smarthinking,
or from rethinking your work. Explain how lessons learned or
strategies used during the writing process for this assignment
might be applied to future writing tasks related to this program
and your chosen profession.
Revised components of your Ethical Behavior, Diversity, and
Civil Discourse assignment:
Overview of Focus on Ethical Behavior, Diversity, and Civil
Discourse.
Diversity Issue Related to Specialization.
Ethical Behavior Issue Related to Specialization.
Civil Discourse Issue Related to Specialization.
Review of the Literature.
Synthesis of the Literature Reviewed.
Conclusion
Evaluate the impact of this course on your understanding of
your professional goals, future doctoral courses, and strategies
for program success. Make specific connections to your chosen
specialization.

7. Professional purpose and career goals
: Reflect upon your professional purpose and career goals,
including how your career aspirations align with your program
or specialization outcomes. This self-reflection activity should
inform your decision to reaffirm or reconsider your chosen
degree program and specialization.
Professional attributes and professional growth
: Articulate your professional strengths and opportunities for
growth. Discuss why effective educators must be lifelong
learners. Identify organizations, resources, and activities that
could be used for professional development to strengthen your
skills.
Career Center
: Discuss how Capella University's
Career Center
resources and services may be useful as you pursue your career
goals related to your specialization.
Writing process
: Summarize your experience with the writing process and
writing tools throughout this course.
Describe how you first read and interpreted assignment
prompts.
Analyze your use of the Writing Center resources.
Explain how the drafting and revision experiences differed for
the Week 4 and Week 7 assignments.
Compare your comfort with and ability to identify and search
scholarly journals relevant to your specialization before and
after this course.

8. Describe any other relevant writing experience during this
course.
References
Include a minimum of 10 peer-reviewed, scholarly references
that are also cited in the paper.
Appendices
Copy and paste the following writing revision matrices at the
end of your paper:
Week 4 Writing Revision Matrix.
Week 7 Writing Revision Matrix.
Smarthinking
Prior to submitting your paper for grading, submit it to
Smarthinking
. Make any needed changes to your paper based on the feedback
you receive from Smarthinking. (Remember, it can take up to 48
hours to receive feedback from Smarthinking, so be sure to
submit your draft to Smarthinking early enough so you will be
able to incorporate the feedback, revise, and submit your
assignment on time).
Additional Requirements
In addition to the requirements outlined above, your assignment
should meet the following:

9. Template
: Use the
Week 9 Assignment Template [DOCX]
to complete this assignment.
Written communication
: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the
overall message.
Sources
: A minimum of 10 peer-reviewed, scholarly references that are
also cited in the paper.
APA formatting
: Follow current APA style and formatting for in-text
citations. For more information on the APA guidelines for in-
text citations, go to
Academic Writer
and use the Learn tab to find the Quick Guides on Citing
Sources and Paper Format and Organization. See the
Evidence and APA
section of the Writing Center for instructions on accessing and
using Academic Writer.
Include a title page with the following title: Critical Reflection
and Writing Process.
Length
: 12–15 double-spaced pages, in addition to the title page and
references page.

10. Font and font size
: Times New Roman, 12 point.
Portfolio Prompt
: Consider saving this assignment to your
ePortfolio
. The work you submit for this course will only be retrievable
for a limited time, and you may want or need to access these
assignments in the future.
Submit your paper as a Word document in the Week 10
assignment area.
SCORING GUIDE
Your Work will be evaluated using this criteria.
VIEW SCORING GUIDE
Competencies Measured
By successfully completing this assignment, you will
demonstrate your proficiency in the following course
competencies and assignment criteria:
Competency 3: Critically reflect on one's own professional
decisions, attitudes, actions and skills to direct one's own
learning and growth.
Evaluate personal writing process and revision choices applied
to the Literature Review assignment.
Evaluate personal writing process and revision choices with the
Ethical Behavior, Diversity, and Civil Discourse assignment.
Evaluate the impact of the course on understanding of

11. professional goals, future courses, and strategies for program
success.
Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly,
professional, and appropriate to purpose.
Develop engaging text with varied sentence structure and sound
grammatical structure.
Integrate appropriate use of scholarly sources, evidence, and
APA citation style.
Organize content so ideas flow logically with smooth
transitions.