Erika Orman
Student Affairs Professional
With a fellow Greek House Director and a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon.
"I was a student in Erika’s EDTL 4900 class during the first semester of this year. The class was aimed at helping incoming freshmen students adjust to the college lifestyle and become better acquainted with the university. Erika did a superior job overall with the course. She used a range of activities from group discussions to self-reflection that made the classroom a comfortable, friendly environment.
Also, many of the assignments in her course were helpful outside of her class. For example, she helped me craft a professional, accurate resume that I can now use in the real world.
Erika also pushed for me to become involved on campus, which was very helpful after making the transition to college. Without her encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone, I may have not have gone to campus events that I ended up truly enjoying.
Erika’s best quality, in my opinion, is her approachability. I always felt that I could ask her questions or advice whenever necessary. She was always willing to help, and she would even go out of her way to assist me and encourage me whenever she could. Erika is always a friendly face on campus, and I am extremely thankful to have had Erika as a teacher this year."
-First-year BGSU student
Student Learning & Development
Category: Proficient
Description: "The Student Learning and Development competency area addresses the concepts and principles of student development and learning theory. This includes the ability to apply theory to improve and inform student affairs practice, as well as understanding teaching and training theory and practice” (p. 28).
In this competency area, I have achieved the following:
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“Articulate theories and models that describe the development of college students and the conditions and practices that facilitate holistic development” (p. 28)
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“Articulate how differences of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender ide ntity, disability, and religious belief can influence development during the college years” (p. 28)
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“Identify the limitations in applying existing theories and models to varying student demographic groups” (p. 28)
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“Articulate one’s own developmental journey and identify one’s own informal theories of student development and learning and how they can be informed by formal theories to enhance work with students” (p. 28)
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“Identify and construct learning outcomes for both daily practice as well as teaching and training activities” (p. 28)
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“Assess teaching, learning, and training and incorporate the results into practice” (p. 28)
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“Construct effective lesson plans and syllabi” (p. 28)
Activities:
CSP 6020. Much of my knowledge of student development theories comes from one of the foundational courses in the CSP program, Theory and Assessment of College Student Development. This class was instrumental in my learning various theories of identity and cognitive development. Two assignments in particular, the informal and formal theory papers, helped me to apply these theories to actual real-life situations. In the informal theory paper, I assessed my own development prior to learning actual student development theory. During the course of the semester, I was able to draw comparisons from the undergraduate experiences I highlighted in the paper to the theories I was learning. The formal theory paper gave me an opportunity to assess a first-year student along several different identity and cognitive theories.
Teaching. I taught a 1-credit seminar course for first-year students during Fall 2014. This also helped me in my application of student development theories and assessment of student learning. I co-created the curriculum for the course with a fellow graduate student and was the sole instructor for two sections of it. We created desired outcomes for the course and designed the curriculum and syllabus to support those outcomes. We also conducted pre- and post-surveys to assess whether students had achieved the outcomes we set. Although we kept these elements consistent between our sections, I was responsible for all my own lesson plans and class activities. Overall, this was a great exercise in creating and facilitating opportunities for student learning.
Reference
ACPA & NASPA (2010). Professional competency areas for student affairs
practitioners. Washington, DC: Authors.