A Case Study of Youth Learning to Lead: The Power of Iterative Cycles of Situated Learning

• In Event: 31.075 - Troubling Youth Leadership: The Complexities of Youth "Empowerment" Programs

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework

Leadership is a cultural practice, developed through active engagement in authentic contexts. Given the complexity and messiness of real-world contexts, repeated experiences are required to learn the nuanced situational and strategic variations of the practice (Brown et al., 1989). This case study examines an exemplary youth program that provides rich affordances for situated learning of leadership.

Data Sources and Methods

Nutrition Rocks engages youth ages 13-18 in planning and leading nutrition camps. During the school year youth develop, test, and revise a set of games to teach healthy nutrition. During the summer, they run 10 camps for children of different ages. This structure provides youth with dozens of learning cycles over a year, plus repeated long cycles for the many youth who participate for 3-4 years. The two highly experienced program advisors have progressively refined the program over 7 years. We interviewed the advisors and 12 representative youth (10 African American; 9 female) at 4 times points; 5 observations were conducted. Grounded theory analysis focused on the correspondences between staff and youth’s accounts.

Results

We started with youth’s accounts of what they were learning. Analysis documented youth’s learning in six domains of leadership, including instructional strategies, adapting strategies, anticipating problems, motivation, behavioral management, professional behavior.

At the heart of our work, we analyzed the data to identify correspondences between program design features and affordances for youth’s learning.

Program Design and Staff Practices & Affordances for Youth Learning

1. Youth work in groups to plan/run games; groups pair novices/veterans - Learn collaboratively

2. School-year: low stakes learning cycles - Practice anticipatory thinking, game execution, and problem solving

3. Camp: high-stakes/real-world learning cycles - Practice adaptation of games to different children
4. Structured reflection after all learning cycles - Analyze causes of problems/ successes and revise strategies; learn auto-criticism

5. Advisors view diverse experience as a resource; embrace learning from mistakes - Take risks

6. Youth encouraged to draw on own experiences as children - Use their funds of knowledge, e.g., children’s motivation

7. Staff model “expert” practice - Learn from adults’ modeling, guiding questions, and labeling of leadership challenges and strategies

Significance

Nutrition Rocks provides intentional structures in which youth have rich opportunities to learn leadership from purposive action. The full paper includes specific examples of how the repeated youth-driven cycles of leading and self-assessment – supported by the artful skills of the advisors – provides powerful learning experiences for youth. Findings demonstrate design principles for learning within messy, real world contexts (Herrington & Oliver, 2000) and the role of iterative cycles in scaffolding youth’s development from novice to expert practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991).


Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge.

Authors

• Lisa Diaz, University of Illinois

• Reed W. Larson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Jessica Armstrong

• Cole Perry