Buies Creek, N.C.—Campbell University’s cohort of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows gained first-hand experience when they helped preside at a professional development conference sponsored by Campbell and other N.C. Teaching Fellow universities Meredith College and North Carolina State. The conference, “Critical Strategies for Critical Times,” was held Feb. 4-5 at Meredith College.
Campbell Teaching Fellow Brittany Bowen said the students served as presiders at the conference, helping out in any way that was needed.
“After one presentation, I was even asked to give feedback to the presenter,” said Bowen, an elementary education major with a middle grades math extension. “I really enjoyed talking with the presenter about what she had to share.”
Sessions ranged in scope from making class engaging for students, marketing yourself as a teacher, using music and children’s literature to teach science and classroom management and community building.
“After leaving the conference, I became really enthused about my future career,” said Bowen. “While I have always desired to become an educator, learning about new and creative teaching strategies that I can use in my own classroom just really got me excited!”
Dr, Carolyn Maidon, director of the N.C. Teaching Fellows program at Campbell, helped organize the conference with program directors Jan Hargrove, of Meredith, and Michael Clinkscales, of N.C. State. The conference was held for both Fellows and other teacher education students from all three institutions and from North Carolina Central University.
“This was an excellent professional experience for our teacher education candidates,” said Maidon. “As presiders, they were able to introduce and thank the presenters and truly feel a part of their chosen profession—the main goal of the conference. It also provided an opportunity for inter-campus collaboration between both the directors and the students from education programs. Campbell was well represented with 77 of our students out of a total of 186 student participants.”
The North Carolina Teaching Fellows program strives to provide academic and cultural enrichment beyond the classroom, encourage the development of leaders and decision makers, provide opportunities for building and understanding the educator’s place in a social context and improve the image of teacher education candidates and programs campus-wide. Selected upon the basis of academic and civic achievement, each Teaching Fellow receives a $6,500 scholarship annually from the state with, at a minimum, matching funds from private universities with the program.
“The mission of the Campbell program is to create teacher leaders of academic excellence as problem solvers with compassion who possess a sense of dedication to the profession and service to others,” Maidon said.“This conference is a good example of how we try to fulfill this mission.”