Case study 02
KEYS to Leadership Success programme, AUT, 2003-2005.
In mid-2003 I was seconded from my role at AUT as a Career Counsellor to lead and co-develop a leadership development programme for students of the university. The programme provided students with credit-bearing courses and practical experience in leadership. In broad terms my work involved:
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research and programme development
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co-writing and delivery of four 'mini-papers'
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leading the development and teaching team
Guiding principles of the programme were that as well as providing a traditional 'academic' learning environment, learning experiences would make as much use as possible of student-centred, experiential and practical activities, that they would challenge students to reach their own understanding through reflection, and that they would allow for the varied learning styles of a diverse cohort of students.
What I learned from this role
This was my first major effort at developing and delivering learning experiences for tertiary students that would involve active engagement, group work, practical activities, collaboration and community involvement. In particular, I developed a range of learner-centred and experiential activities and resources such as:
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Self-assessment activities, journals, self-reflection tasks.
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Frequent use of discussion in pairs and in small groups - e.g. at end of Unit 1 of Paper 1, students worked in groups to synthesise the materials encountered in class to develop their own definition of leadership.
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Practical activities in the workshops - Bob the Builder; Blind drawings; team building activities and challenges.
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Assessment of academic components plus credit given for community involvements and participation.
See the files pasted below for examples of these.
Additional learnings
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Academic administration - e.g. prepared documentation for and attended Academic Board meetings
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Leadership - e.g. programme leader of the KEYS to Leadership Success programme
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Professional collaboration - e.g. organized and chaired committee comprising people from across the university and from the community
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Project management - e.g. liaised with community organisations to set up practical leadership/community projects Planned and led a two day development camp
For the future
I remember observing at the time that the activities most popular with students and with facilitators were the practical and team activities, which was reflected in their satisfaction ratings at completion of the courses. Not only were these the most popular, students remembered the experiences and learnings gained from these experiences very well and were able to note these in their reflective journals.
So the challenge for me is - how can I incorporate more of this style of teaching/learning into my future practice?
Community projects: as part of the concept of 'servant leadership' and to put their leadership skills into
practice, students organised and delivered various community projects. For example, spending a day
clearing out an overgrown, littered area in West Auckland and then spreading bark and planting shrubs.
Another project was the cleaning, washing and property maintenance of the premises of the Kidney
Society in Auckland.
Examples of out-of-class experiences and activities:
Team-building and challenge activities: as part of the 2 day
camp, various practical activities were completed in order to
complement the 'academic' learning that was occuring in class
sessions.
Below is an example of the activities planned for the camp.
These activities were planned and led by students of the
Diploma of Outdoor Recreational Leadership programme
from AUT's School of Sport and Recreation.
Group activity: for an area such as leadership, putting skills
and knowledge into practice was a most important aim.
The idea being that deeper learning occurs through actual
experience and observation, as opposed to 'paper' learning alone.
In this activity, the person who chose to be "leader" was blindfolded while completing a simple drawing task with the goal of learning first-hand the value of being a good follower.
Teamwork activity: groups worked to build a Lego structure
by following conflicting written instructions. Observation and
reflection provided insight into students leadership and team
skills.
Learning style: print materials used images and pictures,
not only to provide interest but to engage a different part
of the brain/person in the learning.
Examples of in-class experiences and activities:
Reflection: students were required to make regular entries
into a personal reflective journal, the cumulative result of which
formed part of the assessment for the paper.
Graduate Profile Attributes exemplified in this Case Study
GA 5: develop and promote professional, inclusive relationships with all learners in their care, relevant employers and the wider community (community projects)
GA 6: analyse relevant adult education and cognitive theory and draw on this in practice (learning styles, experiential, collaborative)
GA 7: design, facilitate and guide learning for each individual’s success, using a wide range of context‐appropriate strategies (range of teaching/learning approaches as shown above)
GA 8: lead evidence‐based assessment practices for learning in a range of contexts, including APL and work based learning (formal academic assessments and experience-based skill assessments)
GA 10: foster communities of practice, identifying and sharing good practices across the organisation and beyond (e.g. work with colleagues and community members to create this new programme; lead a steering panel to develop a university-wide initiative)