A little about me...
Hello, my name is Kaycee Anderson. I am from Mesquite, NV and am the oldest of four children. I am currently living in Cedar City and am junior at Southern Utah University. I am studying Elementary Education with a Language arts emphasis. I love soft pretzels, making people laugh, and Harry Potter.
This website will display my EDGE project. EDGE is a program at Southern Utah University intended to help students gain experience for their future careers. Because my plans are to be an Elementary School teacher I tried to incorporate working with children into my project.
Project Overview
For my project I worked with the committee in charge of the Children's Jubilee and STEAM festival. I helped organized the layout of the event and helped with any hang-ups that occurred day of.
The OSU Children’s Jubilee is an award winning
event held in Cedar City. The event is geared towards exposing more children to
STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math). The event is
well-known and there is great participation, however the committee hopes to
make it even bigger and better this year. Normally, members of the committee go
to various schools and promote the event. This year however, they are having an
event the day before the jubilee for children. At the event more of the STEAM
activities will take place. This is where I will be helping out the most. The
theme this year is “Aloha!” The concert being put together has been inspired by
the harmonies of the Polynesian islands. After the concert, students went around to different STEAM booths and learned about all kinds of subjects from space to rocks to theater. The activities planned will also go
with this theme.
Project Details
Goals
- Emphasis was placed on the Arts in the STEAM activities.
- Attendence was increased at the event.
- Music and the Arts were brought to low income and at-risk youth
- The College of Science and Engineering Leadership Board were involved with the event.
Objectives
Students were shown that STEAM events can be
integrated together and were given the opportunity to gain a greater
appreciation for STEAM. While I cannot gauge if every student gained a
greater appreciation for STEAM, there was simply too many students in attendance
to ask them all, the students I did meet with were engaged with and excited
about the activities. The opportunity was most definitely presented to them.
One outcome I had not considered that was met
dealt with me personally. My appreciation for STEAM integration was greatly
increased. I learned how to incorporate science into language arts lessons,
math into dance lessons, and many other combinations. This will be of great use
to me in the future. I did not consider this outcome because I did not realize
how much this project would affect me personally. My main goal was to help the
children and the committee succeed.
Deliverables
I have some of the many pictures that were taken at the event.
Most are of the students interacting with the STEAM booths. You can view them at the link below.
Project Reflections and Reports
This experience has taught me a lot about leadership in ways that I never expected. All of my previous experiences in leadership have been as the person at the head of the planning. In high school I was senior class president and here at SUU I have been president of the College of Science and Engineering Leadership board. These positions have taught me a lot about being in charge and delegating, but not as much on what to do when someone is delegating to you. That is the form of leadership that I worked with during my EDGE project.
My EDGE project involved working with a committee of individuals to plan and carry out an event. Because I was not the chair of the committee, I gave my input, but ultimately did what was asked of me. This taught me how important clear communication is in leadership. It is so important to make sure that your requests make sense when you give them to a person. If they are unsure what to do, it is a reflection of your poor leadership. I was fortunate enough to work with great people that clearly conveyed their expectations. They were strong communicators and are great examples to follow. Working with this committee also taught me the value of delegating. This was a huge event and if just the committee chair tried to pull it off it would have failed. There is a great value in working with others. Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking I am the only one that can understand my thinking, therefore I am the only one that can accomplish tasks. This is false. As long as there is clear communication anything is possible.
This project taught me a lot about myself and what I want to bring into my classroom as a future educator. I hope that in the future I will be able to embrace STEM activities with confidence and allow my students to learn in new and interactive ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment