Development of Educational Innovation to Promote the Leadership of Undergraduate Students: Integrated Identity of Kasetsart University and the 21st Century Skills

Abstract

The purposes of this reword were 1) to study Kasetsart University's undergraduate students
leadership characteristics, instructional activities and leadership enhanced student activities 2) to develop two aspects of educational innovations: instructional activities, and student activity prototypes to enhance students' leadership by integrating Kasetsart University's identity and the 21th century learning skills, and 3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational innovations. There were 169 subjects including administrators, instructors, educators, and students of Kasetsart University. To conduct the research, the body of knowledge about leadership development from previous studies, books and Web information were reviewed. Interviews with relevant stakeholders were used as the basis for innovative design. The quality of innovations was then evaluated by experts through the group discussion method. The innovations were piloted with the students to evaluate its effectiveness. The research results
were as follows:

1. The characteristics of leadership as the focus of undergraduate students of Kasetsart University covered 3 behaviors, including 1) commitment towards goals 2) collaboration towards targets, and 3) using creativity to bring about change. For instructional activities to promote leadership, teamwork which all members apply their full potentials to reach the goals. The student activities that could enhance the leadership should focus on working as collaborative team building network, by utilizing their specialized knowledge and skills to provide social services.

2. The first developed educational innovations in instructional activities used 4G LTE technique (Good Thinking, Good Acting, Good Speaking, and Good Discipline). This technique could be used for training students' thinking skills, idea expression, presentation, group collaboration,
discipline, and learning ethics leading to selfdevelopment in leadership. The Second developed educational innovations in student activity prototypes was the prototype project named “Returning Wisdom of the Land to the Land Project”. The project was an inter- and intra- university collaboration network and bring knowledge which students learned to provide targeted social services. The evaluation results for effectiveness by experts showed that, overall, the educational innovations in instructional activities were appropriate, flexible, easy to use and consistent with Kasetsart University's identity and the 21st century learning skills. In addition, the experts suggested that students should be involved in all stages of designing instructional activities in order to help them effectively develop their leadership skills. Overall evaluation of the student activity prototypes indicated that they were appropriate to use, but the involved parties should cooperate and assume clear and specific roles. There might be obstacles in the timing and techniques of the activities. The experts also commented that the
activities should be held in a mixed group without separating the batches because students with different abilities could learn together.

3. The results of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the educational innovations by piloting the instructional activities with the students, indicated that, at first, the students were not able to adjust themselves because they did not understand the approach and were unfamiliar with this kind of activity. Originally, the students had mainly experiences with lectures. After the
students understood the activities, they had fun, and were enthusiastically participating in activities with joy and confidence as well as understanding more about collaboration. However, during the teaching and learning activities, the instructor must work closely by describing the work process and planning together with the students during each stage to achieve the desired goals.