Developing Leadership, Interpersonal, & Communication Skills through Mentoring in Education

This course explores the importance of educational capital and opportunities, and the role that mentoring can have in that process. In those explorations, students are exposed to leadership development, theory, and skills.  During activities like tutoring at mentoring at the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women, a college preparatory school and the community partner for the course, PSU students will be challenged to use and develop communication, relationship-building, and leadership skills.  Each student will mentor at the school for a minimum of 20 hours for the term and using those experiences as a foundation for discussion and reflection will explore issues like educational capital, social responsibility, communication, and leadership.

Senior Capstone courses, including this one, are designed to build cooperative learning communities by taking students out of the classroom and into the field. Students from a variety of majors and backgrounds work as a team, pooling resources, and collaborating with faculty and community leaders to understand and find solutions for issues that are important to them as literate and engaged citizens.

Primary course goals:

  • To provide students with an understanding of leadership and mentoring as applied to PPS (Portland Public Schools) students;
  • To facilitate linkages between leadership theory and practice by providing practical experience in mentoring skills used in working with PPS students;
  • To encourage students to develop their own responsible ‘working theory’ of leadership.
  • To facilitate understanding of the importance of educational capital and opportunities in today's society.

 

 

Project

Developing Leadership, Interpersonal, & Communication Skills through Mentoring in Education

The format of class sessions is based on the understanding that students actively construct their own learning.  Class sessions will emphasize active and collaborative learning, including discussions focused largely on assigned readings, student experiences at the community partner site, interactive lecture, and in-class projects.

Reflective essays: A series of reflective essays will be utilized to synthesize the various course components.

Community service activities: Informed community work comprises this portion of the grade.  Students are expected to spend approximately 2 hours per week (or at least 20 hours total for the term) engaged in activities at Tubman Leadership Academy.  The types of activities vary based on students' choices (see class handout or posting on Blackboard).  Students will keep a log of their time at the site, to be turned in at the end of the term.  Logged time includes attending orientation with the Academy Administrator, activities and contact with students and teachers, and other projects as arranged.  

Community final project and class presentation:
Students will work in teams on a final culminating project for the school--details distributed in class.  

In-class final: Students will be asked to respond to s series of questions and write a mini reflective essay on the content covered in the class over the course of the term.  Notes and materials can be utilized during this writing exercise, which is to reflect on the integration of the Universities Studies goal areas (communication, diversity of human experience, critical thinking, and ethics and social responsibility) in the course and work with the community partner.