Key Insight 1
Education is EVERYWHERE
Having a minor in education has benefited me in more ways than just aiding in my understanding of how to effectively teach high school students. I have been fortunate enough to be able to observe the benefits of how educational models that have been taught in several of my education classes, are utilized in workplaces and leadership roles. Education is all about meeting individuals where they are, taking curriculum and finding a way to allow every person in the room to engage with it, and then give them the tools to succeed with their inherent skills. I would argue that this is the same goals that many business, healthcare entities, and leaders strive for.
Teaching Middle and High School English (EDSE 547) prepared me to step into this role and my future career path of speech-language pathology in several ways. The class was formulated in a way so that it inspires us as future educators or even employees/employers to understand the importance of effective teaching. Often, we do not fully comprehend how often we utilize teaching methods. Whether that is in the workplace, at home, at an internship, in community service, or in a leadership role—we use it more often than we may perceive. During this class we worked to curate lesson plans to fit certain curriculum and standards and then ultimately teach for a class period as well. We built a teacher website (linked adjacent) where all our supplemental materials, calendar, and lesson plans could be found as well. This required extensive planning and organization to ensure that both students and caregivers would be able to access this information in an efficient way. Teaching the class was also somewhat intimidating because you were teaching your peers who were also going into this career field. This was a great experience for me though to learn how to engage an adult audience effectively and be comfortable with the occasional silence and offer an opportunity for questions to be asked. I learned a lot about how to ask questions to engage the audience as well. For example, instead of saying “Any questions?” you can instead say “What questions do you have for me?”. This frames the question so it asked in a way that encourages a space where people can engage with material instead of it being asked as a “concluder”. I have found this method to be the most efficient way to keep listener engaged but it also offers a for learners to speak up in a space that may be intimidating for some. Through my leadership experience in Tri Delta-Alpha Lambda I can say with confidence that these methods apply to leadership roles as well.​
WTC Artifact-Primary: Linked
Having the opportunity to serve as Tri Delta’s Vice President of Chapter Programming and Development (VPCPD) has been so fulfilling and has aided tremendously in my understanding of how to teach and work with people from various backgrounds. Having a minor in education has assisted in many areas of my life, work experience, and collegiate experience but I have seen the most effects take place within my leadership roles.
Serving as Tri Delta’s VPCPD has allowed me to connect with almost every single member of our 472-person chapter. I started off last year as our Director of Risk Management and Wellness which gave me great insight into how the chapter functions, how to communicate with event personnel, ensure the safety and wellbeing of each member, and strengthened both my organization and communication skills. Now having moved into the vice president role, I have witnessed how much I much I have grown as a leader thanks to this chapter and the other leaders I serve alongside. Additionally, I have been fortunate enough to attend Tri Delta’s Collegiate Leadership Conference (2024) in Dallas, TX where we are able to meet with Tri Delta chapters across the country and receive training on how to best fulfill our roles in the chapter. I also attended Tri Delta’s Biannual Convention (2024) where I was able to once again receiving training with other chapter presidents across the nation, network with alumna, engage with prestigious keynote speakers who were also Tri Delta alumni like Doris Goodwin, and preside as the voting member for the national bylaws for the next biennium. All these opportunities have strengthened not only my leadership skills but my ability to communicate and support phenomenal, intelligent, women not only here at the University of South Carolina, but across the United States.
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Presenting each week in front of 472 members is no small task and ensuring that your message is heard and understood is imperative to overall chapter success. My role has been a combination of overseeing three directors (academics, ceremonies and rituals, and risk and wellness), working on the overall development and organization of our chapter and executive team, working with the university and Tri Delta Nationals to ensure billing is accurate for each individual member based on their roster status or if they are on a meal plan reduction or not, overseeing the conduct committee, facilitating wellness checks with members who are in need of physical or mental support, implementing and scheduling all chapter programming events, and sitting in as the presiding officer during selection committee slating interviews for the next executive board. In all, the VPCPD position is a very versatile role that is able to have positive influence in multiple sectors of the chapter. I have been fortunate enough to note just how influential my educational background is through the development of our chapter programming while implementing events like Behind Happy Faces and BodyImage3D which are two of our national programming initiatives (linked adjacent-BTC Artifact). These developmental projects have also been adapted to have both in person and virtual options with feedback forms following each to ensure that members are satisfied and feel that the programming was impactful in some way. Similarly, education encourages planning and organization in order to ensure success. This past semester I moved our chapter over to an app called Flare, which is essentially GroupMe, Event/Chapter Check-In, and point tracker all in one place. Previously we had several apps that we used and several of our New Members expressed that they felt out of the loop and confused due to inefficiency within the apps we used and limited organization of information. Due to this being a large transition, especially for a chapter of our size, I made a "tutorial video" that we posted on our chapter's private Instagram account in order to ensure that members who were not able to stay after chapter on Monday's to ask me any lingering questions, they could refer to the video as a resource as well. Like the chapter programming, I then sent out a feedback form after the first two weeks of using Flare to ensure the majority of members were enjoying the app so far. This was yet another tool that we were encouraged to use in my EDSE 547 class--feedback is crucial for classroom success and satisfied learners who know they are being heard and valued.
BTC Artifact (Primary)-Link Attached
Flare Tutorial Video (Click to View)-Supplemental
Volunteering at "Hers" Campaign here in Columbia-Supplementary Artifact
Attending Collegiate Chapter Leadership Conference in Dallas, TX: Supplementary
Chapter Programming and Development Team-Supplemental
Photos with my Pi Chi Group and Round Reminders I sent out for them-Supplemental
In the same way I have been able to support and engage with my chapter as a leader, I have also been blessed to offer the same guidance within the Panhellenic Community as a Pi Chi Recruitment Counselor. In this role we are typically paired with one additional existing member of another Panhellenic chapter. I was incredibly lucky and was able to be a part of our only "Pi Chi Trio". We all worked incredibly well together because we discussed our strengths and weaknesses so that we would know how to best support each Potential New Member (PNM) as they went through their recruitment experience. My two main strengths that I wanted to contribute was 1) being able to have emotionally vulnerable conversations thanks to my training both within my Tri Delta position and through my education classes and 2) sending out graphics each round with reminders and motivation for the PNMs in our group (displayed adjacent). This ended up being extremely helpful and my pi chi partners were equally as amazing with organizing logistic spreadsheets to ensure we knew when a PNM would be in chapters, or done for the day, and also were the perfect people to talk to when PNMs needed a good laugh. Team work is just another way that education prepares you to work and support others.
This is true of almost any setting. People value being heard, seen, and understood. Ultimately having the experience of learning how to be engage an audience through education, organize material in a way that is most palatable and easily understood by both large and small entities, has helped me support my chapter in immeasurable ways and will continue to inform my professional decision making and leadership style as I move into graduate school and eventually work as a speech-language pathologist.