Students learn how to be a leader and how to develop their leadership capacity as they participate in shared experiences or learning communities, many of which are facilitated by student affairs professionals through campus activities programs. For large numbers of college students, their first learning community, and subsequent path to future…

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent responses affected students of all ages academically, mentally, and emotionally. As leadership educators, we felt compelled to respond by adjusting our programming and pedagogy for a post-pandemic era. This study aimed to explore the experiences of the thirty college of agricultural science students who engaged…

This study examined a change in delivery (in-person and virtual) for a pharmacy student-learning community within the context of ongoing program assessment during 2019-2023. First and second-year pharmacy students (n=145) reported their perceptions of the learning community's impact on academic success, professional development, and social…

Outreach initiatives are typically framed as informal learning environments that provide an opportunity to increase the participants' interest in science. Research on chemistry outreach has primarily focused on designing and implementing demonstrations for outreach. Recent studies indicate student organizations are at the forefront of chemistry…

This qualitative study at the University of Minnesota--Twin Cities, USA, investigated leader identity emergence of study group facilitators. There is a gap in the professional literature regarding study group programs and identity emergence of the student paraprofessionals who facilitate the study sessions. This study built upon previous studies…

Institutions of higher education espouse the importance of developing future leaders, although limited research assesses undergraduate leadership programs from the alumni lens. Interviews with alumni from a student affairs leadership program revealed the importance of incorporating leadership experiences, learning community, formal learning, peer…

This paper argues that creating intentional interfaith communities of practice on college campuses can encourage interfaith cooperation on campus and help form students to be interfaith leaders. Through analysis of the work of theorists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger on situated learning within communities of practice, the author explores the…

Discipline-based educational research (DBER) has shown that three instructional techniques--Supplemental Instruction (SI), Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL)--can be effective ways of improving student performance in chemistry courses at the K-12 or college/university levels. The goal of this paper…

In this chapter, the former and current directors of adult education at the Arab American Association of New York (AAANY) discuss strategies from their shared process of fostering community, student leadership, and empowerment in AAANY's community-based literacy program. Amid the challenges for learners and the program connected to the 2016…

In this article, we explore features of a summer program intended to support the personal and academic development of non-dominant high school youth. We focus on one particularly robust practice in the program known as encuentros -- daily gatherings intended to build community and collective sense-making. We draw on field notes and videos to…

The growing interest in the role of student agency within schools, as well as the need for effective professional learning, supports further investigation into initiatives aiming to develop meaningful and sustainable student involvement in school improvement approaches. This article explores the role of student leadership in professional learning…

Learning communities (LCs) can provide authentic, social learning experiences but require an extensive amount of time and effort to orchestrate, often more than instructors can provide in typical university courses. Extracurricular, undergraduate, student-led learning communities (SLLCs) overcome this cost through volunteer peer-instructors.…

This article explains a program design and planning process using the Value Creation Framework (VCF) developed by Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat (2011). The framework involves identifying types of value or benefit for those involved in the program, conditions and activities that support creation of that value, data that measure whether the value was…

The researchers employed qualitative methods to evaluate first-year female students' definition of "leadership" through involvement in the Women's Learning Circle. The findings revealed that students defined leadership in two dimensions: traits and behaviors. The qualitative findings explore a multidimensional approach to the voices of…

This chapter showcases a program that involves college student leaders to teach about the civil rights movement to K-12 students in local public schools. Voices of a student leader and high school teacher speak to the program's impact on them personally and professionally, and provide broader lessons for cultivating student leadership through the…