Oklahoma Christian University seniors chosen to present at nationwide education conference

Senior Elementary Education majors Natalie Little and Kyleigh Marquez were chosen to present their award-winning Day of Excellence poster presentation at the annual conference for the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.

October 9, 2019 - In the spring of 2019, many students presented their projects, research, and ideas at Oklahoma Christian University’s inaugural Day of Excellence. For two elementary education students, their presentations led to participation in a national conference.

Natalie Little and Kyleigh Marquez volunteered to create a poster presentation on Associate Professor of Education Kelli Dudley’s education research in peer coaching for OC’s Day of Excellence. The students won “Best Poster Presentation” in the College of Liberal Arts and were given the opportunity to present to the OC Board of Trustees. 

Following the Day of Excellence, Marquez and Little submitted their poster presentation to the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators biannual conference; their work was one in just a few that were accepted. 

To generate their research, Little and Marquez had to engage in peer coaching with each other through their teaching practicums last fall. They were each assigned a classroom to visit and teach five times in the course of a semester. During this time, the girls sat in on each other’s lessons and provided feedback on their performances.  

“The point of the study was to see if participating in peer coaching would increase self-efficacy, which is essentially your belief in your ability to teach,” Marquez said. “Going in to teach is super scary, and every classroom is going to have different situations. Some things might work for [Little’s] classroom that may not work for mine. When we were coaching, we were in completely different grade levels, so we were able to see each other teach and take it into our own classrooms.” 

Both Little and Marquez talked about how peer coaching helped them become better educators. Marquez remembered the first lesson she gave and how peer coaching after her lesson helped her to keep improving. 

“We have to learn how we can be effective before we can actually be effective teachers,” Marquez said. “The process is trial and error, and my first lesson completely flopped. I was being supervised by [Little] and my practicum supervisor. After receiving their feedback,  the next lesson I gave was so much better, and it was so encouraging.”

To learn more about OC’s education program click here. The NAECTE is a national convention of educators all over the country. Click here to learn more about the organization.