Working with student leaders has made me realize how brand new leadership and advocacy is to young students. While we might consider a college aged student to be an adult (at least legally), they are still new to branching out in the world and their personal growth. As such, I want to provide an experience for the student government officers to learn not only their roles within student government, but how to be an effective leader. By the end of their training, the officers will understand their role within SGA and how to accomplish the tasks required of it, but also feel more comfortable in leading and advocating for their fellow students.
Immediately some students are going to come into the student government association (SGA) with more experience in leadership or even other SGAs. They are going to be ahead of other students in understanding jargon and in expectations. I have seen it numerous times at this point where students have no leadership experience and are afraid to ask for assistance until they are so far behind that their peers are wanting to remove them from office. I hope with this minicourse/training that they can understand their role quicker and feel more comfortable to have a set of tools to begin leading. It does not simply stop with this one training, but another side goal would be increasing the awareness that it is okay to not be experienced yet and to ask questions (more than likely this is by establishing a positive and trusting student and advisor relationship immediately).
The target audience of my minicourse will be community college students that are involved with student government. My college has a current average age of 22.1 and vary in race and ethnicity (CSM, 2025). For the student government leaders, their ages will usually range from 17 to 24, though students may be older or begin younger. With this age, most students will be freshly graduated from high school, or recently graduated, so their leadership experience and opportunities will be on the more limited end.
Students that commit to joining student government are required to be elected, or appointed if positions are not filled after elections. While the positions are advertised and the student government constitution is readily available on our school website, elections are not massively competitive at this time, so simply running either guarantees you that position or any open position if you lose. This is important as this shows the students to be particularly motivated in some regard for the position, whether that is experience for resumes/applications, wanting to create change on campus, or the monetary incentive (each position receives a scholarship).
To remain part of the Student Government Association, students must hold and maintain a 2.0 while in office and be registered for at least 6 credit hours. Any student that does not meet these requirements is subject to removal from their office. Going in, this is known by all of the applications and is checked prior to them being able to be placed on the ballot.
Overall, the target audience for this minicourse are going to be student government officers, with an average age between 17 - 24, with the potential for outliers. Students will have varying experience in student government and leadership, with the most experience coming from high school student government associations that will have different structures and abilities. These will be credit college students and will be enrolled at least part time each semester. With the structure of our SGA, they will have some motivation to be an officer. By the end of the course, we hope to have met them where they are at in their leadership journey and have them able to act as an effective SGA officer and budding leader. They do not need to be prepared to run the United States of America, but being able to host a meeting and use Robert's Rules of Orders, as well as identifying their leadership strengths and weaknesses and some strategies for themselves is an attainable goal at present.
I believe that my minicourse could fall into a few different course types depending on the route I ultimately decide to take. Step-by-Step works really well for understanding things like parlimentary procedure. This encapsulates everything from committee meetings, how to make changes as a student leader, and parts of their positions. Informational and How-To appeal as well in describing and teaching about leadership as a whole. But the type that appeals to me the most and fits best, in my opinion, is the Onboarding Course. We're looking to onboard the new and returning officers in student government into the SGA and their specific committees. This can include teaching them about leadership and advocacy. This will have them learn how to follow Robert's Rules of Order and what their positions require. They will learn everything they need by completing the onboarding course over the summer, then be able to receive more support throughout the year. This helps with the experience issue between each student, while we would focus on newcomers there can be adaptations to those returning or with more experience (and a refresher on all the procedures is even needed for my coworkers and I).
There was never a question with this design choice, the course would work best as a hyflex modality. While I would love to make it fully asynchronous for my own sake, we already have 3 meetings implemented into the summer that we can and should use for this minicourse. By offering the course in a hyflex modality, we are increasing the amount of students that can attend the trainings. It is important for the students to be able to meet and work in real time together as they will be working together throughout the year. They will share an office space, collaborate in their meetings and at events, and be looking to find their voices to best advocate for each other and other students.
Adding an asynchronous option to allow for additional training and support for those that are less experienced would be a good move as well, making this more hy-flex/blended. By allowing for the students to have asynchronous work outside of the hy-flex meetings, they can have real world examples to gain experience and comfort in their committees, gain some comfort in their position/role, and see some of the examples students have brought to the SGA before so they can learn how to handle inquiries or suggestions. I believe realistically the course would rely on hy-flex the most with the augment of asynchronous work being added (possibly over time).
By the end of this course, student leaders will be able to:
Create their definition for leadership and advocacy.
Identify and describe their preferred leadership style/approach.
Demonstrate their definitions and style in real-world simulations/scenarios.
Create actionable goals for themselves and their campus officers to complete over the next year.
Operate within their positional roles and responsibilities as defined by the SGA Constitution and Bylaws.
Actively participate in Student Government meetings using Robert's Rules of Order.
Explain the purpose and structure of student government association and campus associations (aligns with CLO 1 & 5)
Define leadership and advocacy (aligns with CLO 1)
Describe different leadership styles (aligns with CLO 2)
Employ Robert's Rules of Order during meetings at both the campus and student government level (aligns with CLO 5 & 6)
Presentation: Students will attend a breakdown of the student government association and campus associations, built to give them their basic understanding of the structures and purposes of both, and how they can grow as student leaders within these positions. This will additionally serve as their primer on Robert's Rules of Order (SGA is inseparable from these rules). Students will then be asked to discuss with their peers the structure, ask any questions for clarity, and have the opportunity to describe SGA, the CAs, and Robert's Rules in their own words. (Supports Objective 1 & 4)
Peer Teaching: After learning about SGA and student leadership, students will have homework to research leadership and leadership styles to come ready to present within their peer groups their findings. A base definition will be provided to them at the end of day 1, but the expectation is to expand upon this. Students will come and work in their groups to explain their new definition and preferred leadership style, learning and expanding their definitions more and possibly finding a more appropriate style (Supports Object 2 & 3)
Simulation/Scenario: Students will engage in a beginning level simulated SGA meeting, where they will practice all of the parliamentary procedures as set forth in Robert's Rules. During this meeting, educators will be providing prompts and assistance with procedure. Culmination of this will will result in the first SGA meeting occuring. (Supports Objective 4)
Quiz - Formative Assessment: After the introductory presentation, students will have to complete a quiz/knowledge check. This quiz will be graded in real time and be able to provide immediate feedback, students are expected to answer questions on basic SGA structure, purpose of SGA and CA, as well as general leadership questions, all stemming directly from their presentation. If not passed with a score greater than or equal to 70%, they will have the opportunity to review any notes and test again. (Aligns with activity 1, learning objective 1 & 2)
Peer Discussion and Evaluation - Formative Assessment: Returning from researching leadership and styles, students will discuss with their groups what they learned and assist in each other's growth. During these discussions, peers can pass feedback to each other and work to relate what they have learned to each other, possibly through the lens of another student's research. (Aligns with activity 2, learning objective 2 & 3)
Simulation - Authentic Assessment: After their lecture/presentation and peer teaching, students will be tasked with taking up a mock SGA meeting, where they will be expected to begin applying their leadership skills and learnings of Robert's Rules of Order. Gentle guidance will be provided since this is the first steps into official meetings. (Aligns with activity 3, learning objective 4)
Lectures/Presentations: Within the scope of my minicourse, there will be presentations to be able to help instruct the students. From teaching the basics of the student government constitution and bylaws to working with Robert's Rules of Order, these have been and will be taught through a presentation at first, that way the students will all have a base knowledge of them. This will align with "actively participate in student government meetings" and "complete their positional roles and responsibilities" as both will be taught during this time.
Discussions/Debates: Students will have discussion about most things during the different presentations, during meetings, during their committees. Specifically some instances though that will be important early on in student government and their leadership development will be discussing with their peers the goals and scopes of what SGA and their campus associations will be doing over the next year. Identifying what is important to them and what their perceived campus needs, having friendly debate about this if necessary, will help them learn how to work together and develop their team. This aligns with "create actionable goals" and can touch on most of the other goals depending on the discussion.
Simulations/Hands-On Activities: Running simulated meetings to allow for practicing roles and Robert's Rules of Order will be integral to the students actually being able to learn these. Whether the simulation is a SGA meeting, a committee meeting, or even hands on activities with creating events or materials, the students will be tasked with interacting with their positions within SGA and learning what it means to be leading. This will align most with "actively participating in Student Government" and "complete their positional roles."
Peer Teaching: While learning leadership and styles, the students are going to resonant with specific ideas and styles more than others. By having them research these and sharing their findings with other students while in groups, they can share their knowledge and help each other to have a greater understanding of the material. Being able to explain and teach about a topic can not only help other students learn more about the topic, but the student doing the teaching can achieve a higher understanding as well. This would align most with the outcomes of "define what leadership" and "identify and describe their leadership."
When considering other subject matter experts and resource, I would first look internally. My college has numerous resources to be able to rely upon; including leadership academies and cohorts to discuss the topic of leadership, as well as instructional designers that could assist in course creation and provide invaluable advice. Both of these would be vital to get additional perspective and voices in making the best possible minicourse, all while aligning with our college's mission.
Outside of my organization, a simple immediate resource for assistance in understanding Robert’s Rules of Order (and to integrate as an example) is watching congressional hearings (and general instructional videos). Especially in today’s online world, I have begun seeing and noticing these rules taking place when seeing videos of senators or representatives speaking, having these as a resource to better understand the why and to show as examples is fantastic. General instruction videos on Robert's Rules, or leadership, are all great resources and YouTube has so many available (though I have personally seen most of the congressional hearing videos on Twitter/X)
Lastly, there are numerous conferences for professionals and students to be able to attend, most have their own publications or can be used as a resource to find publications from members. Our college is looking to participate more in conferences, so gathering journal articles about leadership from ACPA or NASPA is a good way to gain more expertise. Getting advice and trading/sharing resources with individuals at these conferences would be invaluable towards minicourse creation.
I feel that there are two models that I have felt align the best with my minicourse and the reality of how I would have to development it within my own life for usage; Understanding by Design and Successive Approximation Model. If I have to select just one, I would likely go with Understanding by Design.
All models will ultimately end up aligning with learner needs. They either have a focus on the analysis or have all been described as iterative, so I can't use that as a deciding factor anywhere. What I like most about Understanding by Design is the backwards design nature. Starting with the learning outcomes/results is what I have already done, and this would be something my institution would align with doing too. We would define what we want our student leaders to gain from the course and take with them going forward. This model has a focus on understanding rather than "rote memorization or surface-level learning" (UMGC, 2024a). This is important for a course that is focusing on something like leadership and advocacy, real world skills that you would like the students to form a clear understanding of and take with them going forward.
I do like Successive Approximation Model and if I can implement both into my minicourse, that would be my ideal. The rapid approach and the way the iteration is implemented into the phases really seems to align with what I could make happen. With our structure for student government, we could have multiple groups to be able to look at prototypes and provide feedback, as well as getting those learning materials through the alpha -> gold pipeline. The involvment potential of the learners is something that I appreciate and would be how I want to hold any type of course if possible. Additionally, since my students will be changing every year, this model really seems to help alleviate the troubles that might cause.
Throughout this course, I have come back to my favorite of the learning theories discussed during LDTC 600, Constructivism. This is the theory that makes the most sense to me when working on building a course for college students learning leadership, where it allows for us to help them create a foundation (or utilize their previous knowledge) and build off of it throughout the course. Since we are wanting the students to interact with SGA and gain a skill in leadership, focusing on having them actively in the process. Students are going to take what they begin learning and process it through their own experiences, which is a potential issue we can run into with differing experiences, but the nature of the course is meant to help guide them and create opportunities for active engagement to create experiences through which to process and grow (Brau, 2022). Learning has a social component, our students will be interacting with each other and engaging in discussions, peer teaching, and ultimately practicing their learnings through simulations in group scenarios. All of this makes me feel that I align closest with constructivism, though there are some cognitivism thoughts in there as well since the two have similarities.
References:
Brau, B. (2022). 3.3 Constructivism. Education Research: Across Multiple Paradigms. https://open.byu.edu/education_research/constructivismy
College of Southern Maryland. (2025). College of southern maryland student characteristics. CSM.
UMGC. (2024a). Strengths and limitations of ubd.