Reframing Teaching: Interdependent Reflexivity for Developing Student Self-Awareness and EI Leaders

Abstract

REFRAMING TEACHING: INTERDEPENDENT REFLEXIVITY FOR DEVELOPING STUDENT SELF-AWARENESS AND EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS Developing self-awareness as a management instructor and modeling this process for students’ similar awareness has notable benefits on the overall learning environment in a classroom. In this paper, we reframe faculty and student selves in terms of usual roles and responsibilities, providing an iterative, holistic process of embedded interdependent self-awareness development with a flexible, changeable instructional design where students experience a sense of empowerment and control over their learning, integral to mutual success. Our experiences about teaching and learning draw on aspects of experiential learning, Gestalt psychology, and self-determination theory. We explore reframing teaching including the approach to designing a course, centering the autonomy of students, co-creating cultures of psychological safety, and the instructor’s use of self as a tool for creating an intrinsically motivating student-centered learning environment in an undergraduate leadership course. This evidence-based reflective paper uses three team profiles from one class, drawing on student reflection assignments. Each team developed self-awareness through different experiences, facilitated by their choices, which enabled their learning about self, group process skills, and emotional management for future success as emotionally intelligent leaders. The team profiles illustrate methods of modeling, use of self, and the importance of student and faculty reflexivity for self-awareness of patterns of behaviors, feelings, and thinking. Finally, we discuss practical applications, identifying reflexivity, psychological safety, modeling, iterative feedback, and student autonomy as key to the process.