What is LeADERS?

Learning through Active Discovery, Engagement, Reflection, and Showcase, or in its shorthand LeADERS, is a program offered by Old Dominion University that encourages students to seek opportunities for growth through high-impact experiences. These experiences are then expanded upon through presentation in an ePortfolio to provide the opportunity for reflection and consideration of skills learned that are valuable in a chosen career field. The LeADERS' high-impact experiences are divided into notable categories comprising the acronym. For the high-impact categories, the acronym stands for:

L - Leadership

e - ePortfolio

A - Academic Internship

D - Diversity

R - Research/Writing

S - Service Learning

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When I first heard of LeADERS I was immediately intrigued, the name alone was an instant draw-in. I value opportunities that help me grow as a leader because I feel leadership skills are important on a personal level as well as in the context of my desired profession, teaching. From there, I realized how compatible the LeADERS program was with my major of biology with a concentration in teacher preparation and I was encouraged to push myself to fulfill the other requirements. This was for two reasons: I would be gaining more out of my time at ODU by participating in more growth opportunities, and I would gain more out of the courses I was taking and my extracurricular experiences by completing the final ePortfolio. 

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At ODU, experiential learning is defined as, “the process of applying knowledge to practice in a relevant setting.” ODU’s goal is for students to gain practical experience, self-awareness, and transferable skills. I participated in five LeADERS categories that provided experiential learning: Leadership, Applied Work-Based Learning Experience, Diversity, Research/Writing, and Service Learning. Reflecting on these experiences now, I recognize them as being some of the most valuable experiences I had at ODU. In many of these experiences, I was interacting with experts in my career field or experts in areas of leadership. Learning from experts was something I studied in my undergraduate education program from the perspective of being the expert for my students. I learned to recognize the difference in how experts think compared to novices and saw how experts can use their perspectives to guide novices to understanding. LeADERS allowed me to be the student learning from the expert, benefiting from the wisdom of people in positions I want to be in one day. 

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I developed a lot from my LeADERS experiences. I learned how much I value reflection, so much so that I want to incorporate it regularly into my classroom practices. Some topics of reflection I gained from LeADERS experiences were self-care, teaching approaches, my teaching practices, my writing and presentation skills, and so much more. I also learned how important personability is to learning, whether that be for myself or my students. All of my LeADERS experiences required me to either give information on myself for the experts to use to teach me or required me to gain information from those I was teaching to better teach them. I learned how vast the world of teaching approaches is and recognized that the only way I will be a successful teacher is by always being willing to learn new ways to do things.