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Guiding Questions Overview

Page history last edited by Josh Tarr 14 years, 10 months ago

 

Overview 

 

Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs consists of this Overview, which may be used for basic review. Each of the following five sections comprises a more extensive and elaborated section that can be used for a more comprehensive review:

 

1.    Conceptual Framework

 

2.    Context

 

3.    Content

 

4.    Teaching and Learning

 

5.    Outcomes and Assessment

 

Each section begins with a brief introduction and provides the context for its particular focus. General guiding questions follow that are designed to assess the relevant section of the leadership program under development or review (e.g., “What is the program’s conceptual framework?”). Additional specific guiding questions relevant for each section allow pursuing and evaluating particular perspectives within that section (e.g., “What are the program’s overarching guiding principles?”). Finally, a brief reference section guides the reader to literature that has informed the crafting of the guiding questions and that may also provide further information regarding the respective topics.

 

While each section may stand alone, guiding the reader interested in a particular focus, ample cross-references are provided to other sections that indicate the interconnectedness and comprehensive, multi-faceted approach of this collaborative project and the resulting document (e.g., The question “What theories and beliefs about teaching and learning underlie choices made about pedagogy, assessment, ordering of content and activities?” complements the section on ‘Conceptual Framework’).

 

As a consequence, Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs can be read in sequence if the reader wants to gain an in depth overview of all relevant sections pertaining to leadership education programs; alternatively, the reader can start with a section of particular interest.

 

Each section is introduced below both in its particular perspective as well as in its context to the whole document. Finally, a conclusive summary is presented together with an overall reference section.

 

Conceptual Framework

 

Overarching Guiding Question: “What is the conceptual framework of the leadership education program?”

 

This section is based on the assumption that explicitly describing and communicating values, beliefs, and theoretical frameworks underlying any leadership education program allows assessment of the basis and validity of the program’s educational design. Furthermore, explicit frameworks enhance student learning and thus improve the overall quality of the program.

 

Guiding questions help describe and assess the underlying conceptual framework; its articulation; its theoretical and practical background; its relationship to the program’s context as well as to its philosophy, purpose and goals; and its relationship to pedagogy, content, and assessment.

 

Context

 

Overarching Guiding Question: “How does the context of the leadership education program affect the program?”

 

This section describes how leadership programs, their conceptual frameworks, their content, their chosen approaches to teaching and learning, and the respective outcomes and their assessment may be affected by factors and elements within the program’s context. Thus, a “systematic approach to leadership education within a social process is encouraged to help increase the ‘fit’ of the leadership program within its context” (http://ilaguidelineslc.pbworks.com/Section+2:+Context).

 

Guiding questions help describe the various contextual categories of identity, sector, academics, place, discipline, organization, field of practice, and field of leadership as well as these categories’ impact on leadership education programs. Furthermore, this section focuses on the significance and impact of the program’s cultural context particularly from a global and cross-cultural perspective. Finally, this section explores the institutional context of leadership programs.

 

Content

 

Overarching Guiding Question: “What is the content of the leadership education program and how was it derived?”

 

This section explores topical areas that may serve as foundational curriculum for comprehensive leadership education programs. In particular, this section encourages a balance of declarative, procedural, and affective types of knowledge that may be “driven by the context, conceptual framework and outcomes for the program” (http://ilaguidelineslc.pbworks.com/Section+3:+Content).

 

Guiding questions link program content to conceptual and contextual elements; to the program’s students’ developmental level; and to the program’s outcomes, curriculum, and learning resources. Furthermore, specific questions help explore the following areas that may impact leadership education in particular ways: leadership foundations, strategic leadership, personal development, organizational leadership, and ethical leadership.

 

Teaching and Learning

 

Overarching Guiding Question: “What are the students’ developmental levels and what teaching and learning methods are most appropriate to ensure maximum student learning?”

 

This section explores optimal pedagogies that may enhance teaching and learning within the context of the Leadership Identity Development Model’s (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella & Osteen, 2006) six stages: Awareness, Exploration, Leader identified, Leader differentiated, Generativity, and Integration. Thus the guiding questions can be explored within a developmental approach following each of the six stages of leadership development.

 

Guiding questions explore general issues and concerns of teaching and learning leadership for each of the six stages of leadership development. More specifically, they discuss the role of the instructor; the teaching methodology; the approaches to teaching; expected learning outcomes; and the roles and responsibilities of the learner; the learning activities, projects, and experiences. Finally, two questions link this section and the six stages of leadership development back to supporting philosophical and conceptual frameworks as well as to elements of the social and cultural context relevant to issues of teaching and learning.

  

Outcomes and Assessment

 

Overarching Guiding Question: “What are the intended outcomes of the leadership education program and how are they assessed and used to ensure continuous quality improvement?”

This section focuses on formative and summative program evaluation in the context of institutional evaluation and the assessment of student learning outcomes. Furthermore, the section explores the links between “the assessment and evaluation processes and results at each level … to each other and to other underlying contextual frameworks, leadership content, teaching and learning” (http://ilaguidelineslc.pbworks.com/Section+5:+Outcomes+and+Assessment). The main assumptions of this section are the crucial role of learning outcomes and their assessment for transparency and accountability of institutions and programs towards students and society in large as well as for a consistent institutional, program, and personal / professional development of students, faculty, and staff; student learning is considered to be “at the core of educational programs” (http://ilaguidelineslc.pbworks.com/Section+5:+Outcomes+and+Assessment).

 

In sum, the guiding questions explore multiple levels of leadership education, namely the institutional, program, and student levels. Guiding questions explicate the identified leadership competencies and proficiencies and their relationship to the program’s philosophical and theoretical perspectives; the desired (learning) outcomes; their relationship to conceptual, contextual, content and delivery related elements; indicators for the assessment of learning outcomes and elements of a comprehensive assessment system; and potential criteria of excellence.

 

Specific questions on the institutional level investigate how assessment of learning outcomes and program evaluation feed into institutional decision making and how external sources inform institutional evaluation and assessment. On the program level questions explore how conceptual frameworks inform the assessment of learning outcomes and program evaluation, how formative assessment and evaluation is incorporated into the ongoing assessment of outcomes, what the identified fields of practice are and how they might inform the evaluation of program outcomes, how summative and formative assessment of student learning might inform the evaluation of program outcomes, what evidence might exist for organizational learning on the program level, and how the chosen outcomes might inform the implementation of the leadership education program. Finally, student level questions explore how competency and growth of students might be assessed.

 

The full text of Guiding Questions can be found at http://ilaguidelineslc.pbwiki.com/.

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