What does an engineering course titled “Cognitive and Psychological Foundations of Effective Leadership” look like? What’s it like to teach it? This is a story about a teacher who inspires her students to not just excel in class, but find meaning and happiness along the way.
Dr. Robin Sacks wears two hats at ILead. She serves as Director of Research for the Engineering Leadership Project and instructs four leadership courses at the undergraduate and graduate level within the Faculty.
Dr. Sacks’ courses are a madhouse for exploratory thinking that get results. Students leave knowing more about themselves as individuals and as engineers, empowered to be more effective in their personal and professional lives. Former student Rebecca Vaddadi writes, “I feel I have become a more confident person. The most important lesson I have learnt from APS1010 is to change my perspective and realise that most of the things that I believed to have been facts were actually negative beliefs.”
When asked about her own leadership journey as an educator, Dr. Sacks writes:
“I never teach the same course twice—main concepts have stayed constant over the years, like mental modelling, communication, and self-exploration—but I’m always trying out new ways of getting students to learn these things, to become students of themselves.
“Every time I raise the bar and challenge my students, they surprise me with their insight and results. It pushes me to be more and more creative so I can push the next group of students even farther.”