This research explores the instructional strategies most frequently used by leadership educators who teach academic credit-bearing undergraduate leadership studies courses through a national survey and identifies signature pedagogies within the leadership discipline. Findings from this study suggest that class discussion-whether in the form of true class discussion or a hybrid of interactive lecture and discussion-is the signature pedagogy for undergraduate leadership education. While group and individual projects and presentations, selfassessments and instruments, and reflective journaling were also used frequently, overall, discussion-based pedagogies were used most frequently. These findings offer attributes that a variety of leadership educators have shared as effective for teaching and learning within the discipline and may facilitate the development of new leadership programming policies, provide direction for future research, and contribute to the existing body of literature.
The author explored 24 commonly used instructional strategies in student leadership development programming recently profiled in the leadership education literature. Through a national web‐based survey, this study asked leadership educators teaching classroom‐based academic credit‐bearing undergraduate leadership studies courses how often they used certain instructional strategies. Leadership educators showed a preference for discussion‐based pedagogies as well as instructional strategies that promoted conceptual understanding and personal growth. Although the infrequent use of tests and quizzes in leadership education was anticipated, the sparse use of highly experiential skill‐building activities such as simulation, role play, and games was surprising.
This study combines multiple national datasets on leadership educator demographics, education, positions, and experiences, in order to answer the question: Who teaches leadership? Comparing leadership educators across both curricular and co-curricular contexts allows a snapshot of the diverse perspectives of leadership educators and informs a set of critical questions and challenges for the field. Questions about the preparation and socialization of leadership educators, the development of pathways for faculty from traditionally underserved backgrounds, and the multiple roles and identities of leadership educators merit further investigation.
Th e articles in this special symposium of the Journal of Leadership Studies off er a wide range of models for leadership education, from the very old-close, refl ective reading of Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient thinkersto the very new-intensive instruction in engineering skills. Yet, across all the diff erent perspectives, from the liberal arts and social sciences to agricultural education, engineering, and cocurricular learning programs, a common core learning structure is evident, which serves to tie these varied programs (and our varied contributions in this symposium) into a remarkably coherent and thematically unifi ed whole. Across these diverse programs, all seeking to help young people gain a better understanding of, and skill in the practice of, leadership, three key learning themes emerge: knowledge acquisition; praxis, or experiential learning; and refl ection. Th ese three key building blocks of learning-fi rst, learning that is essentially designed, structured, and more or less passively received; second, learning that is active, "in the moment" and in a sense unique to each student; and, third, learning that is refl ective and after the fact-emerge in the symposium's widely varied articles as the critical unifying elements of contemporary undergraduate leadership development programs.Consider these snapshots of the leadership programs described within these pages:
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