May 10, 2024
Shawnee State University’s Lauren Carter presented the results of writing conferences she conducted during her student teaching placement during this year’s Celebration of Scholarship conference. The Adolescent-to-Young Adult Language Arts Education major received the Excellence in Humanities Award for her work on “Investigating the Effects of Student-Teacher Writing Conferences on Student Ability and Attitude”.
“I am very honored to receive this award for my research project,” she said, acknowledging the great quality of her fellow presenters in her award category. “Winning this award solidifies the importance of educational research, and not just for those in the field, but for other professionals as well.”
In her research, Carter conducted one-to-one student-teacher writing conferences with a group of eleventh grade students at her student teaching placement. After having conversations with her mentor teacher about students’ struggles with their confidence toward writing, she wanted to see how one-on-one interactions could aid the students in their abilities.
“As an Integrated Language Arts AYA major, writing is very important to my instruction, however, building close and meaningful relationships with students comes first,” she said. “In observing my mentor teacher, I noticed how much she emphasized fostering trust-based, sincere relationships with her students. I wanted to translate this passion of mine into something that could impact students’ ability in writing and confidence toward writing effectively.”
Working with students in her own teaching placement, Carter was excited to see how her participants responded to their sessions and how it impacted their overall feels toward writing.
“Students respond well to one-to-one personalized feedback and all nineteen participants reported that the conferences improved their confidence in writing,” she said.
Presenting for the conference’s annual Excellence in Humanities session, Carter decided early in her senior year that she wanted to participate in the conference and share her research with others on campus.
“I am not the most confident individual, or speaker, and I set the goal to participate in Celebration of Scholarship early on in my senior year – if not for anything else except to prove to myself that I could do it,” she said. “The anxiety of public speaking is very real, and powerful, but I feel stronger and more accomplished having completed the process.”
To learn more about the annual Celebration of Scholarship conference at Shawnee State University, visit shawnee.edu/cos.