Sitcog and Stugov...Practical Leadership Learning!

For some reason, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about my student government group as I’ve examined this week’s readings on Situated Cognition and Metacognition.  I know that I am supposed to look at the theory from the learning perspective in the classroom, but I can’t help but think about how these topics connect with the learning goals I establish for my group.  Student Government is just as involving as the regular classes I teach.  I am responsible for 28 students from all grades. We have a learning plan to which we use guiding principles to set the foundation for our organization, and students are asked to participate with the understanding of these objectives.

The Driscoll reading suggests that knowledge is conceived as a lived practice and learning is activated through participation (Driscoll), while Artino highlights that knowledge results from “human interactions with the world” (Artino, 2013).  Stugov’s purpose may be to protect the interests of the students, advise the faculty on student body matters, and coordinate activities; however, it also serves as an opportunity for students to learn how to collaborate, understand leadership responsibilities, and foster communication between their school and community.  Sitcog emphasizes that learners are not focused on what they know from memory, but how they learn from adapting to their environment, the experiences that they are connected to, and they perceive based on peer interaction.  Sitcog’s emphasis on “all learning should be situated in authentic contexts” (Artino, 2013) gets me thinking about how I help my students to understand what it means to be a leader.  My greatest challenge with stugov is trying to support these student leaders without doing the job for them (something that’s so hard to do!); learning through real-world, authentic challenges, balancing life and responsibility, and discovering how to be effective without popular support.  These are life challenges that may not be connected to traditional content of a classroom, and cannot be learned from a textbook, but through the challenges of real-time connections to their environment. 

 

Driscoll targets the concept of a learning community as a way for students to come to task with different interests and experiences.  In stugov, we have a plethora of students with various talents that range from interest in community service, to spirit, and communication. Students are taught to embrace their skills; they “pose questions, make hypotheses, suggest solutions, and contribute information” based on their own areas of expertise (Driscoll). 

 

This week’s topics have caused me to reflect more than any of the others. When I took this role of stugov advisor, I didn’t think about my role as a teacher that supports individual student growth as community leaders; I looked at what we could do as an organization for someone else.  I think that situated cognition’s concept that learning is a shared process connected to exposure to realistic situations, perception, and action provides an interesting perspective to how I do my job, not only in the classroom, but as a mentor for future leaders.