The teaching project I decided to conduct consisted of discussions and several activities, taught to the ladies of Alpha Xi Omicron. As a member I felt confident in sharing what I have learned over this past semester with a group that would use the information constructively. The activities were centered on the themes of re-humanizing homeless and identifying both social and individual factors straining the eradication of homelessness issues. I set up the discussion at the Alpha Xi House in the hopes the girls felt it was a safe space to share their perception of the homeless community and a free environment to grow from sharing any and all other knowledge.
My event took place on Thursday April 5th, at 8pm. I advertise my event on the social media pages of Facebook connected to our organization. I also spread the word when I saw my sorority sisters out and about, throughout the week leading up to the event. My preparation and materials for the event consisted of research for the activities, poster paper I acquired from SLIC, sharpies, extra pieces of paper, and my laptop. My plan was to do three activities that would last about the maximum of an hour, as to keep it instructive but short.
My three activities consisted of a discussion based critically thinking activity, a participatory instructed activity, and a video. My idea was to initiate a conversation of what everyone knew about the topic before we got into things. Then to do an activity to showcase the hardships of being low income, budgeting for not only yourself but others under the strenuous conditions. Next, to watch a video on re-humanizing people without homes and what being homeless is politically identified as. Finally, to wrap the event up, going back to our initial thoughts and comparing what are thoughts were after the activities. I am not a certified teacher; I was nervous and unsure about what I was about to present. However, I knew my sisters would help me out and not ridicule me if I slipped up, instead would support me if I started to trail off in my confidence. This knowledge of support created an excitement for the discussion.
Overall I think the teaching project was a successful one. An experience where everyone had the chance to contribute his or her own experiences, thoughts, and questions to each other’s learning. Everyone participated, enough so I barley had to facilitate the discussion. At the end I asked if people felt like they might have learned at least one thing, I got great feed back. For future teaching projects I feel like I could have made it more structured and maybe have done more of an extensive activity on a more specific topic. However, although what we discussed was a range of topics, we also went into directions that most interested my audience, making it instructional for both them and me. I appreciated everyone that came and all their input and I definitely learned to teach something new, something I am not completely comfortable teaching.