This new student experience provides incoming elementary education majors with an opportunity to make new friends while learning how to maximize their potential as students and leaders in classroom settings and campus related organizations and activities. The experience also contains a service learning component which introduces them to the real world of teaching by working directly with children in a classroom setting throughout their first semester on campus. Woody discusses how students handle conflict on the playground. Kim enjoys hearing how students have been using their new communication skills learned in Project Self-Esteem. The course includes trust-building activities, discussions, guest speakers, interactions with students enrolled in other orientation groups, day trips to the beach, a boat trip to Smith Island, and opportunities to meet other faculty and University staff.
Students get to know themselves and others better as they engage in trust-building activities.
Everybody loves pizza. Diversity guest speaker, Beltran Navarro, teaches the students about the Latino culture. Traveling by SSU bus to the elementary school each week provides time for laughter as well as a bit of last-minute planning.