Key Insight 1

 

Using Concepts of Africanism to help Co-Facilitate Presentations

 

Throughout my time in grade school, I traditionally preferred to work on projects such as papers and presentations alone. I liked doing things my way because it allowed me to not only talk about the things I wanted to discuss, but also allowed me to express and insert my creative thoughts onto something without interference from someone else. I had hoped, that while in college, I would have more independence and freedom to work on assignments and projects by myself. Simply put, I was wrong. As my “college career” as I like to say comes to a close, I have learned that the value of others input greatly enhanced my education.

 

During the spring semester of my junior year, I was enrolled in PSYC 330: Psychology and the African American Experience. That class quickly became one of my favorite’s classes taken during my time at USC. The purpose of the class was to explore a range of topics that illuminates the embedded and varied nature of the experiences of African slaves and African Americans in the United States. A concept we learned in class was Africanism. We learned the values and traditions of African culture. Through Africanism we analyzed how African slaves used togetherness to survive in a new world. Upon a few weeks we were put in groups of 3 to 4 and were assigned to teach the class for a day. This was referred to as Co-Facilitation. The Co-Facilitation is a within the classroom group project. As you can see, I was not excited about this assignment at first. I dreaded the thought of having to work in a group. I pondered on the reason my professor wanted us to work in groups was because like African slaves like it or not, they had to work together with each other. While I dreaded the idea of working in groups, the Co-Facilitation was an amazing idea to get closer with my classmates. In the past, working in groups usually was a difficult task for me. Some things such as time management, availability, and having enough information in a slide was overwhelming. There were some setbacks within the Co-Facilitation project which included availability and time management. Through all the setbacks, we managed to give each other feedback about each of our slides. I was given the feedback of adding more colors and to have less words in my slide. This would allow the other classmates to focus more on what I had to say rather than reading a bunch of words on the screen which would lose the attention span of the students. We communicated thoroughly through this project to make sure everyone understood the assignment and the task at hand. This experience has been meaningful and insightful for me because I managed to do something out of my comfort zone. Even though this assignment was not a choice of mine, it turned out to be a great opportunity to share with the classroom what we have learned in class. Because of this Co-Facilitation experience within the classroom, I managed to develop and master collaboration and presentation skills and to note that teamwork enhances better outcomes. Pictured below is my within the classroom experience of my group's Co-Facilitation Presentation. I was tasked with slides 9-12, 14. 

 

 

In my last year as a student, I enrolled in PSYC 498, AACP Undergraduate Research. I have taken it for fall 2022, and now spring 2023. Almost everything we do, is outside of the classroom. As someone who wants to be a future clinical-community psychologist it is important that I gain research experience. While enrolled in this class, I started to learn and understand more about the research aspect of psychology. I will admit, I had no idea that research was a big part of psychology prior to majoring in it. This class has helped me to shape my ideas and areas of research surrounding African Americans. One thing that separates this class from all the others is the professionalism. I wanted to talk about this because this is something that I was told that is very important in the academia world. According to the Oxford dictionary, professionalism is defined as “the competence or skill expected of a professional”. My professor for this class and lab mentor Dr. Pamela Martin expects each of us to attend meetings and encourages us to attend professional conferences and presentations. A big part of professionalism is collaborating with others. I plan to present at Discovery USC in the spring of 2023 to showcase one of the research projects I am involved with under Dr. Dawn K. Wilson. This presentation will be centering around the (LEADS) Management Trial for Health and Promotion in African American Families. Working on this presentation has been a lengthy process of continued feedback. I hope by presenting, this will allow me to network with people outside of school and to showcase my skills as a researcher. I believe that working on this presentation will allow me to showcase collaboration and teamwork skills that I picked up while working on the Co-Facilitation project in a more professional way. Having exposure to this type of experience done will be vital for me when applying to grad school. Pictured below is a draft of my poster presentation for Discover USC 2023 which serves as a beyond the classroom experience. 

Overall, the experiences from these classes have been nothing but beneficial not only personally but academically wise. On one hand I got to work in groups within the class and present the topic to the class which prepared me for my role as an undergraduate research assistant in the real world working with actual professionals. In the professional world, especially in the clinical-community aspect of my specific field, teamwork from all who are involved is important to the scientific community.