Leadership and Pop Culture…That’s a Class?

• In Event: Leadership Education Reimagined: Becoming Creative in Curriculum Development

Short Description

The strategy of integrating current events and popular media into the classroom is a much-utilized teaching method (public pedagogy), but developing a whole course based on the application of leadership theory to pop culture is an atypical approach. This presenter will discuss how a course was developed, the concepts covered, and how the students applied their knowledge.

Detailed Abstract

Turbulent times call for innovative approaches to leadership education and development. The combination of understanding leadership in our complex world and the learning style of the millennial generation has led to leadership educators to develop new strategies in the classroom.

One of these new strategies is integrating public pedagogy into leadership programs. Public pedagogy is described as the assimilation of current events, including popular media, into the formalized classroom (Wright, 2007). For most learners, the contextualization of abstract concepts is imperative in the learning process. Combining leadership theory and public pedagogy allows students to directly apply leadership concepts and build crystalized cognitive structures to retain knowledge (Williams & McClure, 2010).

Integrating public pedagogy strategies in the classroom is a much-utilized teaching method by many leadership educators, but developing a whole course based on the application of leadership theory to pop culture is an atypical approach. This course is a senior-level course targeted to students majoring or minoring in leadership at [university] who have previously taken courses in personal leadership development, leadership theory, and leading change. With the established knowledge of leadership philosophies, models, and theories, students are able to apply, analyze, and deepen their leadership knowledge.

The course is structured to incorporate multiple genres of pop culture in order for the students to understand that leadership is truly around them at all times and in all situations. Table 1 lists the broad pop culture topics covered in this class along with assignments dedicated to the topics.

Table 1. Course Topics and Assignments
Topic
Assignment/Activity
Defining Pop Culture
Pop Culture Research Paper & Presentation
Are Celebrities Leaders?
Leader Analysis
Photography
Finding Your Leadership “Lens”
Television (regular and reality)
TV Analysis
Art
Art Exhibit Field Trip
Social Media
Twitter Activity
Sports
Guest Speaker
Movies
Field Trip to Theatre
Politics
Field Trip to Presidential Library & Guest Speaker
Literature
Fiction Book Analysis
Technology
Innovation Analysis
Music
Sing, Sing a Song Activity

This course has been taught in three different semesters. Student feedback, both formative and summative, has been collected. Formative feedback from the first to the second semester suggested adding more guest speakers and field trips to allow experiential learning to occur. Between the second and third semester, students suggested adding a research piece to more deeply understand the concept of pop culture.

Summative feedback collected showed a positive impact of the class on students’ learning. For example, one student wrote
This class allowed me to apply lessons, theories, philosophies, etc. from previous semesters to topics discussed on pop culture. Also, I was able to refresh my memory and gain a better understanding through this class. The class is very effective in the application and leadership studies and is definitely recommended!

Another student discussed how pop culture held an important part in the lives of students and finding leadership in “unexpected places” was an added bonus. Finally, an additional student wrote that he/she “Really, really liked this class. It really helped me understand the models and theories of leadership by comparing it to things in our lives.”

Participant

• Jennifer Strong, Texas A&M University