Toolbox Helps Adults Return to School

“This course is the most tactical approach to degree completion that you will encounter in education,” is how instructor Marilyn Edwards describes Leadership 301, the first course in the TWU BA in Leadership. This is an excellent course for anyone going back to school because of its modular focus on leadership, learning, and self. Understanding oneself, setting goals, managing one’s time, and applying what is learned are significant elements of LDRS 301.

This unique course uses its leadership theme to train adult learners how to study efficiently and achieve academic success. It teaches them effective reading, research, and critical thinking skills and provides a writing “tool kit” with resources specific to producing a well-structured paper that is clear, concise, and coherent.

Edwards, along with Linda Long, Executive Director of TWU Extension, guides students toward three main achievements during this course. First, they will discover how to become authentic leaders, grounded in character and guided by a moral compass. Each one will practice and succeed in becoming a master student through the assignments and course activities targeted for their learning success. They will establish a greater sense of self as they determine and build on their five key strengths or core talents.

Edwards believes that education is one way to build on that core. Just as in an Olympic sport, the player who seeks to become more knowledgeable in that sport and practices to improve will achieve a goal that the equally-talented player will not.
Edwards says that LDRS 301 teaches adult learners to operate from their strengths, rather than focusing on their weaknesses. And through this course these students will experience the joy of reaching for their goals with the wind in their sails instead of wasting their time paddling upstream.

Despite the diverse backgrounds of the students in each cohort, they will all have a chance to explore beyond their current status, whether related to business, work, volunteer organizations or relationships.

“It’s a delight to work with them,” says Edwards.

The leadership principles that students learn can be applied at home, work and church. All course content and learning is directed to a practical end. Each class or cohort is comprised of a small group of adults who have committed to learning and want an accelerated path to achieve their goal to complete a degree in the next two years.
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Marilyn Edwards has a Master’s in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University. She has always loved working with the written word and has taught students of all ages, from kindergarten to university. In addition to experience in business and leadership, Marilyn lived in Taiwan for five years, teaching English Literature at an international high school as well as English as a Second Language. While in Busan, Korea, she taught ESL at Dong-A University, preparing senior students for study abroad. Prior to teaching in the Adult Degree-Completion program, Marilyn has led undergraduate and graduate English language support programs for international students at TWU.