“Learning by doing” will be the name of the game for up to 150 students, faculty and staff who will participate in the second annual Team Blast activities the Center for the Development of Leadership Skills (CDLS) will sponsor on Sunday, April 2.

CDLS students, Westminster Choir College Emerging Leaders, Cohort 2 of the Sanda students, guided by interested faculty, staff and advanced CDLS students, will test their leadership skills in simultaneous activities scheduled from noon to 5 p.m. throughout the Bart Luedeke Center and outside on the Campus Green.

“Team Blast is a leadership training event that encourages students to put their learning into action,” said Dr. Carol Watson, CDLS director. “It can best be described as a 10-ring circus, a rock concert and a leadership training program all wrapped up into one event.”

Team Blast, based on the tenets of experiential learning theory, draws students into the learning process as active participants in creating knowledge. The activities move students back and forth between opposing learning modalities of action and reflection, thinking and feeling.

Executive Edge, Inc., a firm that provides creative, fun and effective team building and leadership development programs, designed the event. Since 1989, it has worked with numerous companies such as Ernst & Young LLP, Foot Locker, Pfizer, Applebee’s Restaurants, KPMG and Moen. “We want to have a fun, interactive program that is customized to achieve Rider’s learning objectives,” Dr. Watson said.

Those objectives are: mastering the CDLS’ core leadership skills of communication, influence, and team leadership. Mastery of the core leadership skills will help young people become confident and effective leaders no matter what their chosen field of study.

“Most of all, we want students to observe and practice leadership skills in a highly interactive yet structured program,” said Dr. Watson. “This event provides a way to engage students actively in examining, testing, and integrating their knowledge and beliefs about leadership.”

Dr. Watson said there will be 10 teams of up to 15 people per team. Teams will rotate through five activities and track the number of Rider Pride Points they are amassing. To emphasize the importance of working for the common good, they must also collaborate with other teams as they rotate through activities. No one team can win unless all teams have worked together to build sufficient Rider Pride.

This year, weather permitting, teams will be building and shooting off bottle rockets as one of the highlighted competitive activities. Last year, teams competed to build spaghetti bridges that could withstand 10 pounds of weight.

As the event progresses, teams begin to understand the need for cross-team collaboration and sharing best practices. Teams are rewarded for successfully completing activities, sharing best practices and reflecting on what they are seeing and learning about leadership.