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- 1. David Ip Yam, Catherine Salole, Sandra Yu CACUSS May 26, 2015 Making Meaning of Student Leadership
- 2. 2 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Learning Outcomes: By the end of this presentation participants will: • Understand Kolb’s Theory of Experiential Learning and its application to co-curricular experiences. • Reflect on their student leadership programs and re-imagine them as powerful experiential learning and skill development opportunities. • Construct a set of strategies to engage their campus colleagues in student leadership & career development. • Identify and apply aspects of “The Leader Within” and its evaluation to their own campus programs. • Agree that David, Sandra and Catherine’s red accents in their coordinated outfits are truly mesmerizing.
- 3. 3 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Session Outline: 1. Context 2. Applying Experiential Learning Theory to Student Leadership 3. Peer Leader Training Pilot 4. Activity: 1. Leader Within: Preparing for the experience 2. Leader Within: Making meaning from the experience 5. Evaluation: How did we do? 6. Next Steps 7. Discussion
- 4. 4 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS
- 5. 5 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Pathway to goal… 2014-15 Identify and pilot value proposition for student leadership 2015-17 Leadership & Career strategy developed and piloted 2018 More leadership and career development opportunities for all students. Each step supported by pan-university campus partnerships
- 6. 6 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS 2014-15 Achievements…. 2014-15 Identify and pilot value proposition for student leadership Co-curricular experiences identified as rich Experiential Learning opportunities Leader Within series developed and piloted with peer leaders
- 7. 7 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Why Experiential Learning? The literature on co-curricular learning, positions campus leadership experiences, such as those found in student government, student clubs, varsity & intramural teams, peer mentorship and ambassador programs, as ones that provide a rich source of personal and professional development. • Gain transferable workplace skills Value to Student • Increased engagement • Increased capacity to offer students opportunities to practice in the “work” place Value to Institution
- 8. 8 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS WHAT IS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING? CONCRETE EXPERIENCE REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION ABSTRACT CONCEPUALIZATION ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION • Simply…learning through doing • Popularized by Kolb in 1984
- 9. 9 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS For Example….
- 10. 10 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS And…
- 11. 11 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS 2014-15 Pilot: Peer Leader Community of Practice • Pan University Group of staff & faculty who coordinate peer leader programs such as: • Residence dons, tour guides, peer health educators, peer mentors etc. etc. • Purpose is to share resources, leverage expertise, collaborate on training, collectively raise the profile contributions of peers across campus. • Peer Leader Training (PLT) an annual outcome of the group
- 12. 12 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS The Leader Within • 2 part series developed by student leadership and career development practitioners and delivered to 100 peer leaders during PLT 2014. 1. The Leader Within: Preparing for the experience 2. The Leader Within: Making meaning from the experience • The sessions were designed to facilitate deep reflection and personal meaning of experiences through a number of reflective activities.
- 13. 13 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS The Leader Within Part 1: Preparing for the Experience “Creating a personal mission statement will be, without question, one of the most powerful and significant things you will ever do to take leadership of your life. In it you will identify the first, most important roles, relationships, and things in your life -– who you want to be, what you want to do, to whom and what you want to give your life, the principles you want to anchor your life to, and the legacy you want to leave. It will be a compass – a strong source of guidance amid the stormy seas and pressing, pulling currents of your life.” - Stephen R. Covey
- 14. 14 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Outline 1. Learning Outcomes 2. Importance of peer leadership in the context of York University and broader higher education contexts 3. Importance of defining your vision, mission and values 4. Using the Story Board for reflective observation 5. Making meaning from the Story Board (abstract conceptualization) through a pair and share 6. Individual activity: Journaling and articulating your vision, purpose, values and characteristics, and mission statement 7. Next Steps
- 15. 15 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS What experiences led David to becoming a student affairs “pro”? Grade 4 Grade 12 First Year Fourth Year Glendon ?
- 16. 16 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS What led you to where you are today? Create a story of critical stages in becoming the professional you are today. • Think about the experiences, people, impact, and milestones that brought you to your present role? 1. What was your life like prior to having any belief in your leadership capacity? 2. When, why and how did you begin to explore your leadership potential? 3. At what point(s) did you begin to think about yourself as a ‘leader’ or as someone with leadership capacity? Why? How? 4. When and why did your understanding of your own leadership capacity (impact) expand, shift, or change? 5. What describes/illustrates you in your current role? 6. What is your mission statement?
- 17. 17 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Think Pair Share Discuss the following: • How would you describe your story? • What does your story tell you about you who are and who you are becoming?
- 18. 18 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Samples: Vision, Values, Mission Vision: Student success made simple Purpose: To help people get the most out of life Values: Simplify, enjoy life and fitness Mission Statement: I provide simple ways for students to make the most out of being at York. Vision: A campus/world free from discrimination Purpose: To give power to the powerless Values: Social justice, inclusivity, and community Mission Statement: I create a culture of safety and inclusion, free from discrimination, so that everyone feels welcome, heard, and a part of a community.
- 19. 19 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS The Leader Within Part 2: Making Meaning from the Experience Participants developed: • Set of skills they have, set of skills they wish to develop & an action plan for developing them.
- 20. 20 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Outline 1. Learning Outcomes 2. Importance of Identifying and Articulating the Skills You Have and the Skills You Want to Develop 3. Using STAR to Articulate Skills and Highlight Accomplishments 4. Group Activity: Skills Bingo 5. Individual Activity: Skills Identification Card Sort 6. Group Debrief: Skills Reflection 7. Skills Development Action Plan & Skills Journal 8. Next Steps
- 21. 21 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Why Identify Your Skills? • Increased pride and self-confidence • Ability to stand out • Ability to articulate skills in job/grad school apps, interviews Greater Self- Awareness • More clarity and better sense of career direction • Increased career satisfaction and fulfillment More Informed Career Decision- Making • Increased capacity to take action to develop skills, and stay relevant, marketable and employable Improved Career Resilience
- 22. 22 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS How to Identify Your Skills? • Card sorts have been widely used for years by career development professionals (e.g. Knowdell, SkillScan and Winnipeg Transition Centre’s Values & Skills Assessment Cards) • Our skills card sort drew from a variety of sources: − U of Calgary Career Services’ Identifying Skills & Building Competencies workshop − Conference Board of Canada’s Employability Skills 2000+ − U of Alberta: “Skills Expected from Graduate Students in Search of Employment in Academic and Non-Academic Settings” − (NACE) National Association of Colleges & Employers’ annual Job Outlook Survey − Stanford U’s Career Development Center Functional Skills List − Cornell U’s List of Graduate School Core Competencies
- 23. 23 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Skills Identification Card Sort 1. Sort the cards in the deck according to two categories: “I HAVE THIS SKILL” or “I DO NOT HAVE THIS SKILL”. Consider your personal and professional (i.e. career development) interests. 2. From the “HAVE” pile, choose the top 5 skills you MOST enjoy using and/or are strongest in, and record them on your worksheet under “Summary of My Preferred Skills”. 3. From the “DO NOT HAVE” pile, choose 5 skills you would most like to develop. Record these on your worksheet under “Five Areas for Personal & Professional Development”.
- 24. 24 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Think, Pair, Share: Skills Reflection 1. What patterns or themes can you see either from the skills you have and enjoy using OR the skills you want to develop? 2. Keeping in mind your professional and career development interests, how relevant or transferable are some of your “Preferred Skills” and “Areas for Development” to roles, organizations and fields of interest to you? 3. Looking forward to the year ahead, how do you plan to further develop your skills?
- 25. 25 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Skills Development Action Plan & Skills Journal 1. Sign a “contract” with yourself identifying the specific steps you plan to take to develop your skills 2. Commit to taking the time to reflect on all of your experiences as a Peer Leader over the course of the year ahead, and documenting your successes, skills and accomplishments
- 26. 26 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS “No one else on the planet has the identical list of talents, skills, and abilities as you.... Recognizing and finding peace with WHO you are is the first step in developing real confidence.” -- How to Click with Everyone Every Time
- 27. 27 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Evaluation: Year end survey On Personal vision, mission and values: 95% reported that they reflected on their vision, mission and values during their role as a peer leader. 67% reported they reflected considerably. 100% reported that their vision, mission and values guided them in their roles. 77% reported that they would revisit
- 28. 28 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS One respondent wrote: “I wrote a statement that has been a touchstone for me personally and professionally, It’s one that I have revisited already because it’s given me focus and motivation around the kind of person I aspire to be”.
- 29. 29 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Evaluation: Year end survey On skills development… • 100% of respondents were able to list at least 5 skills that they had developed. • Reported experiences that led to skill development included: helping others, working on a team, time management, conflict resolution, event planning • 77% reported that they would revisit and/or revise their areas for personal and professional development in the next 12 months.
- 30. 30 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS 2014-15 Identify and pilot value proposition for student leadership 2015-17 Leadership & Career strategy developed and piloted 2018 More leadership and career development opportunities for all students. Next Steps… Pan University Steering committee & working groups Expanded Pilot group of positional leaders Staff/coordinator training development Reflections & Co-curricular record development Evaluation & Assessment
- 31. 31 Division of Students PARTNERS IN STUDENT SUCCESS Great Resources Co-curricular & Experiential Learning • American College Personnel Association & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. (2004). Learning reconsidered: A campus-wide focus on the student experience. • Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students (Vol. 2): A third decade of research. • Educational Advisory Board’s Reimagining Experiential Learning on Campus Webinar Series Leadership • Komives, S. R., & Wagner, W. (2009). Leadership for a Better World: Understanding the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. • Komives, S. R., Owen, J. E., Longerbeam, S. D., Mainella, F. C., & Osteen, L. (2005, Novemver/December). Developing a Leadership Identity: A Grounded Theory. Journal of College Student Development, 46(6), pp. 593- 611.
- 32. Questions? Contact Information: Catherine Salole Director, Student Community & Leadership Development salolec@yorku.ca David Ip Yam Manager, Student Affairs dipyam@glendon.yorku.ca Sandra Yu Job Search Advisor & Resource Coordinator sandyu@yorku.ca
Editor's Notes
- Intros Thanks for coming Who is in the room? - Who works in leadership education? Who works with student leaders, peer mentors, ambassadors etc. Who is in career services? Wonderful, welcome all of you and thanks again for joining us. We at York are on a journey of creating an evidence-based theory informed leadership and career strategy and have identified it as a key student success priority for us. We are at still at the beginning of our journey but have made some huge strides this year – namely identifying the value proposition for student leadership and stitching together student leadership education with career development which currently are organized and run quite separately. We are looking forward to sharing where we are at and hearing your feedback.
- In 2013, under Vice Provost, Students Janet Morrison’s leadership, the Division of Students unveiled a 5 year strategic plan. The plan included a refreshed vision, mission and values to guide the division 4 student success priorities that were identified and developed with our student demographic in mind with the goal of positively impact success and retention 3 enablers to position staff and departments to do their work effectively and efficiently And an accountability framework through the Balanced Score Card framework We began our work on the final student success priority (Student Leadership and Career Development) this year…. This is the work that we are sharing with you to you today
- The overall goal of the strategy is to create more leadership and career development opportunities for all students, and I emphasize all students. Currently, our leadership education programing, while excellent, it serves positional student leaders and a handful of non-positional student leaders and doesn’t do a great job of encouraging the non-involved students. Here’s the thing, while our leadership education has a significant impact on 1000 students we have 55000 students at York, most of them commute and spend less than 5 hours a week on campus outside of classroom time, they are busy, they have jobs and most of them have family commitments outside of school. So before we could even begin building and testing a framework, we thought that we needed to ask the question “what is the value proposition for student leadership and specifically leadership education that will not only engage more students but will compel them to be involved. Before I leave this slide, just want to make the point that we have committed to building the strategy with others not only outside leadership and career , but also outside the division of students. There really is a feeling of Whole Campus working together create a strategy here and I will talk a little more about how we did this for our pilot
- We achieved two major accomplishments this past year namely: We identified experiential learning as our theoretical lens as well as our value proposition for leadership education We developed and piloted a 2 part series of workshops called The Leader Within” for peer leaders I will take you through these 2 accomplishments separately Let me just call out before you do, that we have chosen to begin with positional student leaders as a place to create and test the model….they are our low hanging fruit, we as leadership educators are used to working with this group of students. This is our start not our end.
- Quite simply, we think that the value proposition for leadership and co-curricular experiences is transferable skill development. In fact much literature on co-curricular learning, positions campus leadership experiences, such as those found in student government, peer mentorship and ambassador programs, as ones that provide a rich source of personal and professional development. Ultimately, by reframing leadership education through the lens of experiential learning, the value to the student lies in the gain of transferrable workplace skills. Here is where we hope to engage the non engaged student that is, encourage students to invest in their skill development through involvement outside the classroom. The value to the institution lies in an increased capacity to offer students opportunities to practice and apply their classroom learning in the real world. Just as important though, we have an opportunity to enhance the student experience and retention through increased engagement. The experiences is bolded for a reason….experiences are central to experiential learning theory, which we have landed on as our theoretical guide…. .
- Simply, Experiential Learning is learning through doing We have adopted Kolb’s framework Kolb’s model defines learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience importantly, the model views learning as a process vs. and outcome that needs to be acquired. In EL, the learner is an active player vs. a passive empty vessel waiting to be filled by someone more knowledgeable…. Kolb describes learning as a cyclical process that moves through 4 phases: Concrete experiences serve as the basis for experiential learning Through the reflective observation phase, the learner begins to make personal sense of the experience and reflects on the experience from various perspectives This reflections leads to abstract conceptualization, whereby the learner creates sound hypotheses, implications, and/or strategies for actions from their observations. In the active experimentation phase, the learners are provided an opportunity to practice their hypotheses, implications and/or strategies in new experiences, which in turn itself, becomes a new concrete experience So instead of being a cycle it is more a spiral…where knowledge builds Before we leave the theory then…. The process of reflection and making meaning of an experience results in learning.
- Our presentation…. A couple of weeks ago, we practiced our presentation. After the experience, we know that we weren’t quite there….we reflected with each other and then on our own, and each made modifications which we tested again though another practice which required more reflection and modifications and then another practice and another….each time learning and improving… until today….
- In the context of a student leader then….Experiences of a student leader Other than jumping spontaneously, unprompted, regularly what are common student leader experiences? Planning event Chairing a meeting Navigating a conflict Helping others Managing Time What kinds of skills do these lead to… Communication Time mgt Working with others Conflict resolution Problem solving And each time they have the experience they get better and better an betters at each skill
- This notion of skill development in leadership experiences isn’t a novel one. I suspect that like at York, many campuses have career development sessions that help students identify their skills and accomplishments from a range of experience and articulate them in resumes, cover letters and co-curricular transcripts. What was new for us, is incorporating this kind of activity or process into leadership education. Our vehicle for doing this was through the work of the Peer Leader Community of Practice pan university group of ~40 staff & faculty who coordinate peer leader programs Purpose is to share resources, leverage expertise and collaborate PLT is an annual outcome…members collaboratively develop and deliver Part of it’s success I think is that it’s a non-prescriptive group.. in that it values all approaches to peer leader programs….
- 2 part developed by student leadership and career development practitioners and delivered to 100 peer leaders during PLT 2014. They were both 90 mins long… The Leader Within: Preparing for the experience The Leader Within: Making meaning from the experience The sessions were designed to facilitate deep reflection and personal meaning of experiences through a number of reflective activities.
- The Sell sense of purpose link to student development theory, and to University strategic plan. They can see themselves as a key player in that vision. Effective peer leadership contributes to a positive student experience, campus community, and overall student success The link to leadership Connect mentorship to leadership for social change because they need to see themselves as leader. You have to believe, in order to achieve. Story board, think, pair, share Authentic self-reflection is a catalyst for change, renewal and leadership development. Instead of telling students that they are and can be leaders, we take them through an experiential reflection so they can interact with their personal milestones. Vision, purpose, values, characteristics, personal mission statement Articulating and committing to a personal mission statement for your role(s) can produce awesome results! They are generally excited about having a mission statement by the end of the session. It is the dynamic interplay between self-reflection and purposeful and relational action that builds leadership capacity
- Get them into the head space into doing this. This is what we did. Speak from your own exp. Lack of confidence and esteem = parents enrolled me swimming, tennis, keyboard, French, anything to expose me to group dynamics! Awareness of leaders “out there” like my Sensei, etc. “Other people are leaders; I am not a leader” – hard work, role modelling, entrepreuneurship, honour, discipline, and respect Exploration: I began my a period of immersing in group experiences in grade 10: usually because of my close friends at the time... -- having friends that were ambitious and purposeful underdogs in different forms became sub consciously important to me I disliked bullies so I joined and ran an anti-bullying initiative (sensei) – developed an affinity towards working with slightly younger people, but in collaboration with adults. I also joined some sports teams, council and some other things (principal) – but individual sports teams because I had a DIY attitude to help the common good. I caught the bug “I want to be involved” to develop skills and make a difference – I fell in love involvement Huge change in my attitude and in the way I showed up in the world Fall-back – health, personal reasons. Leader identified (confidence): Starting off with a rough first few weeks in first year – picked up by a peer mentor -- combined some great student leadership experiences with some great employement at SCLD, it culminated into becoming a formal and informal peer educator (synonymous with leader, for me). This is when I fully acknowledged my personal capacity for leadership in diverse contexts and owning my identity as a leader without having to hold a positional role (Komives, et al., 2005). Self-belief! Theme: Education. Highlight the importance of self-discovery, relationships, persistence, and action. Process of becoming!
- Now it’s your turn. Close eyes and take four deep breaths Read slide Open eyes and grab handout... Allow them to complete 1-5 boxes For those who are getting stuck, perhaps think about chronological stages: were there defining moments in elementary school, highschool, university