ARP 610: Educational Leadership

Course Reflection and Summary of Learning

Danny Oliveira
San Diego State University

COURSE REFLECTION: ARP 610

My learning in the Educational Leadership course has been best

reflected in the Leadership Challenge Consultation Group Project. I not only
learned and applied many concepts and theories discussed throughout the
course, but also reflected on my own leadership strengths and areas for
further development as well as many aspects of peer collaboration and
problem solving through the completion of this project. Two of my
classmates and I collaborated in using leadership theories and concepts to
create a leadership development plan for one of the SDSU Aztec Football
team captains to address an adaptive leadership challenge. He was a
passive leader in his assigned leadership role as team captain. He believed
that his responsibility was to lead by example as a hard working teammate
and star player on the football field. Through our assistance he learned that
by taking on more responsibility as the team leader in developing his
emergent leadership behaviors, he became a much more impactful leader
through some practices of transformational leadership that we learned in this
course.
This was a challenging project that took some time and effort on behalf
of our consultation team. The end result was quite rewarding in that we
were successful in applying what we had learned in the course to a practical
context that benefitted the leadership growth of a student athlete, which in
turn benefitted his football team to succeed in ways that may not have been
actualized without his participation in our project. This was a direct
connection to my personal and professional goals of working directly with

COURSE REFLECTION: ARP 610

students in a mentoring role to affect their personal development in positive

ways. We were effective in helping this student reach his full potential as a
leader.
This project connected with many of the student learning outcomes for
the course as well as the program student learning outcomes. We identified
effective leadership practices in postsecondary education. We articulated
basic principles and assumptions of current and emerging leadership
theories and frameworks and applied them to an educational context. We
identified the adaptive challenge using Bolman and Deals concepts of
assigned leadership vs. emergent leadership which describe how leadership
and position are not synonymous. We used Kouzes and Posners Five
Practices of Exemplary Leadership in the creation of our leadership
development plan to bolster our student leaders Transformational
Leadership approach.
In my reflections after the completion of this project, I realized that I
need to further develop my initiative and active leadership role when
working in a collaborative group. There were times when I was passive in
deferring to my teammates when I should have taken the lead in writing the
final paper for example. My strengths in writing skills may have improved
our overall project score.
This project directly connected with the final student learning outcome
for this course in which we demonstrated effective self-reflection, peer
collaboration, problem conceptualization, observation, and presentation

COURSE REFLECTION: ARP 610

skills. Our collaboration was effective in conceptualizing the problem at hand

for our student leader and developed an effective plan to address the
problem. We observed our student as he developed and refined his
leadership skills. We made an effective presentation of our findings and
results of the project. We communicated our ideas and concepts effectively
in written and spoken word. We applied our research to practice, which
made the project very worthwhile and effective in understanding the
leadership concepts.
I thought the course was excellent and I appreciated the collaborative
approach of the instructor and teaching assistant. They were extremely
effective as facilitators of class discussions, which clarified and personalized
the concepts discussed each week. These discussions were effective for
both the active participants as well as the active listeners such as myself.
The only recommendation that I might offer is to make assignments due at
the class meeting time rather than at noon or midnight. Other than that, I
sincerely enjoyed this course as my first college course in over eight years.