THIS IS IT: The final blog post of the spring semester! This semester has brought a lot of good things to me as a student, and I'm so thrilled to end this semester with lots of good memories and a handful of new friends!
This week's 311 class was a lot more laid-back than previous Wednesday nights. The first half of the class was dedicated to creating our co-recitation leader agreements! I'm very excited to being planning the recitation for Jessica and me's freshman mentees, and to creating a fun yet productive environment in the classroom for everyone involved. We also agreed on a meeting time between us to organize things, as well when we should meet with Allie and Chelsee every week to update them on our progress throughout the fall semester.
The second half of the class (and MOST fun) was a variation of charades between the Wednesday and Thursday recitation sections! Us Wednesday people kicked butt, as was expected. ;) I've never played this version of charades before (every item to be guessed was a "couples" item), but it was a great way to get our first experience in working together as co-leaders! Jessica and I kinda struggled at first (Saved by the Bell - really?!) but got there in the end. I think our impression of David and Victoria Beckham was spot-on. No matter what anyone else said about my soccer imitation!
I'm definitely looking forward to the summer, but with the 2013 Hixson Scholars coming in the fall, I'll be wanting the Fall 2013 semester to get here pretty quickly before I know it. Very excited for what's to come!!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Week 15: April 28
Even though we are now done with peer-facilitated lessons in UST 311, this final week of regular classes turned out to be an eventful one as a Hixson Peer Mentor! We gained some valuable knowledge from former/returning Hixson Peer Mentors on their experiences and advice for success, we found out our co-leader pairs and recitation times for the fall semester, and we had our final Hixson Peer Mentor retreat of the semester today! A lot went on in the past week, but now only Dead Week and Finals Week separate me from SUMMER!! Woo!
The past peer mentor panel was definitely a great idea (by whoever came up with it!) to allow us to ask questions that only a former peer mentor would know. They gave us a lot of insight into their experiences last fall, including their most rewarding moments, how much time they realistically spent working on Hixson lessons/etc each week, and how they handled behavior problems in their respective recitation sections. They also each gave their advice on how we should handle our tenure as Hixson Peer Mentors.
I found out that my co-Peer Mentor for the fall will be Jessica! Next semester should be a good time; we'll both be taking around 17 credits (which after our talk with the former peer mentors kind of scares me) but I think we'll be okay and for sure organized enough to help our section become amazing Iowa State students! Also, we had our retreat today (Sunday). It was such a nice day, and a cookout at Allie's along with fun icebreakers was a great way to get outdoors and enjoy each other's company. Looking forward to the summer and next semester!
The past peer mentor panel was definitely a great idea (by whoever came up with it!) to allow us to ask questions that only a former peer mentor would know. They gave us a lot of insight into their experiences last fall, including their most rewarding moments, how much time they realistically spent working on Hixson lessons/etc each week, and how they handled behavior problems in their respective recitation sections. They also each gave their advice on how we should handle our tenure as Hixson Peer Mentors.
I found out that my co-Peer Mentor for the fall will be Jessica! Next semester should be a good time; we'll both be taking around 17 credits (which after our talk with the former peer mentors kind of scares me) but I think we'll be okay and for sure organized enough to help our section become amazing Iowa State students! Also, we had our retreat today (Sunday). It was such a nice day, and a cookout at Allie's along with fun icebreakers was a great way to get outdoors and enjoy each other's company. Looking forward to the summer and next semester!
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Week 14: April 21 (2 of 2)
My super stressful yet eventful week has come to a close, and another (probably even more so on both levels) is coming up starting tomorrow!
This week in 311, we discussed peer mentors in higher learning. Brooke and Tanner lead the discussion; although they did a great job, I thought that it was strange to have that topic at the end and not at the beginning of "Students Helping Students." Also, it was a differently-paced chapter. But, just as Brooke and Tanner correctly mentioned, it was nice to just kind of review all the topics we have discussed this semester (which is what the chapter sort of did in my opinion).
We also discussed social intelligence with our article that we read for Wednesday's class. We learned that the seven characteristics of social intelligence are: empathy, attunement, organizational awareness, influence, developing others, inspiration, and teamwork. For our blogs, we were to give 2 characteristics that we feel we excel in, and one trait that we struggle with or would like to work on. The two traits I chose that I think I excel in are inspiration and attunement; I chose inspiration because I'm generally a positive and optimistic person and I enjoy cheering others up or boosting morale, and I chose attunement because I believe that I am a good listener and I am capable of attentively listening to others' needs. The trait that I probably struggle with most out of the 7 is organizational awareness. With 100 students in the freshman Hixson Seminar, it's going to be challenging trying to combat 100 different personalities and learning styles, and trying to get them to work together to increase their chance of personal and academic success.
I definitely can't wait to see the final product for our digital story-telling project on Wednesday. I hope everyone enjoys it and finds it as funny as we did when we were filming it! I'm also very excited to find out who my co-Hixson peer mentor will be for the fall. No matter who it is, I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to make a positive impact on the 2013 Hixson Scholars and help them become successful Iowa State students and leaders!
This week in 311, we discussed peer mentors in higher learning. Brooke and Tanner lead the discussion; although they did a great job, I thought that it was strange to have that topic at the end and not at the beginning of "Students Helping Students." Also, it was a differently-paced chapter. But, just as Brooke and Tanner correctly mentioned, it was nice to just kind of review all the topics we have discussed this semester (which is what the chapter sort of did in my opinion).
We also discussed social intelligence with our article that we read for Wednesday's class. We learned that the seven characteristics of social intelligence are: empathy, attunement, organizational awareness, influence, developing others, inspiration, and teamwork. For our blogs, we were to give 2 characteristics that we feel we excel in, and one trait that we struggle with or would like to work on. The two traits I chose that I think I excel in are inspiration and attunement; I chose inspiration because I'm generally a positive and optimistic person and I enjoy cheering others up or boosting morale, and I chose attunement because I believe that I am a good listener and I am capable of attentively listening to others' needs. The trait that I probably struggle with most out of the 7 is organizational awareness. With 100 students in the freshman Hixson Seminar, it's going to be challenging trying to combat 100 different personalities and learning styles, and trying to get them to work together to increase their chance of personal and academic success.
I definitely can't wait to see the final product for our digital story-telling project on Wednesday. I hope everyone enjoys it and finds it as funny as we did when we were filming it! I'm also very excited to find out who my co-Hixson peer mentor will be for the fall. No matter who it is, I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to make a positive impact on the 2013 Hixson Scholars and help them become successful Iowa State students and leaders!
Week 14: April 21 (1 of 2)
This is my post about the Diversity Event that I attended for the Hixson Peer Mentor program! The session I attended was on Wednesday, April 18th at 8:00PM in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. Besides having to battle the rain before and after, it was overall a good time! The session was entitled "How to Be Black" and was given by comedian Baratunde Thurston.
This actually wasn't what I was expecting as a diversity event. I looked up the details of the presentation about 45 minutes beforehand ( lectures@iastate.edu ) and realized that this diversity event would not be so much a lecture as it was a comedy show. This presentation took a much more comedic and laidback approach to the topic than I would have previously expected. But there was plenty of heavy stuff (as can be expected when discussing racism and African-American history). The speaker focused more on his up-bringing than African-Americans as a whole, including discussing his family and his prior experiences.
He is also very active with social media, and has an apparently deep hatred of the "Twilight" film series. But seriously, who can fault him for that?
Overall, it was very hilarious AND well-meaning. I learned a couple of important things about diversity while feeling like I was at a show hosted by Comedy Central! That's a success in my book: learning something about diversity in as light-hearted a tone as you can!
This actually wasn't what I was expecting as a diversity event. I looked up the details of the presentation about 45 minutes beforehand ( lectures@iastate.edu ) and realized that this diversity event would not be so much a lecture as it was a comedy show. This presentation took a much more comedic and laidback approach to the topic than I would have previously expected. But there was plenty of heavy stuff (as can be expected when discussing racism and African-American history). The speaker focused more on his up-bringing than African-Americans as a whole, including discussing his family and his prior experiences.
He is also very active with social media, and has an apparently deep hatred of the "Twilight" film series. But seriously, who can fault him for that?
Overall, it was very hilarious AND well-meaning. I learned a couple of important things about diversity while feeling like I was at a show hosted by Comedy Central! That's a success in my book: learning something about diversity in as light-hearted a tone as you can!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Week 13: April 14
In the thirteenth week of UST 311A, we learned from Haley and Cole about the importance of correct ethics when working with our mentees. This lecture (for me) brought back a lot of what I have learned in my education classes concerning professional ethics and how to handle myself in a teacher-student or a teacher-teacher situation.
The question that Haley and Cole posed to us for blogs that the end of their presentation was "out of the twelve ethical principles that peer educators should use, which five do you think will be most important in the fall and why?" This was interesting, since all are important to the success of a peer educator. The five I have chosen and the reasons why are in the next paragraph.
First, I chose "when in doubt - consult." This is fairly similar to the first principle "know your limits," and I think it is of vital importance to know where to draw the line with your mentee and know when it might be prudent to seek help from another source. For us, this would probably include referring the mentee to Allie and/or Chelsee. Second, I chose "maintain your client's privacy" because as an education major I have learned all about FERPA and other educational privacy laws - and confidentiality is probably the most important thing we will have to use with our mentalities. Obviously, we can't keep secrets that conceal a crime or harm to others, but hopefully a student will be able to come to us peer mentors with a personal issue without fearing that we will betray their confidence - again, assuming that whatever they're telling us isn't something that Allie and Chelsee would need to know. Third, I chose "act appropriately when dealing with persons for whom you feel attraction." As a peer mentor, I would deem any inappropriate mentor-mentee relationship absolutely unprofessional. Not only do we monitor their academic progress throughout the semester, but we are also a bridge between Allie/Chelsee and the students, and unearned bias could blossom from attraction and starting a relationship. Fourth, I chose "show respect and dignity for other individuals" for obvious reasons. And lastly, I chose "remember you are a role model," which accurately sums up everything: as peer mentors, we need to be able to represent the Hixson Program well both in the classroom and in public.
The question that Haley and Cole posed to us for blogs that the end of their presentation was "out of the twelve ethical principles that peer educators should use, which five do you think will be most important in the fall and why?" This was interesting, since all are important to the success of a peer educator. The five I have chosen and the reasons why are in the next paragraph.
First, I chose "when in doubt - consult." This is fairly similar to the first principle "know your limits," and I think it is of vital importance to know where to draw the line with your mentee and know when it might be prudent to seek help from another source. For us, this would probably include referring the mentee to Allie and/or Chelsee. Second, I chose "maintain your client's privacy" because as an education major I have learned all about FERPA and other educational privacy laws - and confidentiality is probably the most important thing we will have to use with our mentalities. Obviously, we can't keep secrets that conceal a crime or harm to others, but hopefully a student will be able to come to us peer mentors with a personal issue without fearing that we will betray their confidence - again, assuming that whatever they're telling us isn't something that Allie and Chelsee would need to know. Third, I chose "act appropriately when dealing with persons for whom you feel attraction." As a peer mentor, I would deem any inappropriate mentor-mentee relationship absolutely unprofessional. Not only do we monitor their academic progress throughout the semester, but we are also a bridge between Allie/Chelsee and the students, and unearned bias could blossom from attraction and starting a relationship. Fourth, I chose "show respect and dignity for other individuals" for obvious reasons. And lastly, I chose "remember you are a role model," which accurately sums up everything: as peer mentors, we need to be able to represent the Hixson Program well both in the classroom and in public.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Week 11: March 31
It's the eleventh week of the semester; this week in University Studies 311, we learned about resources on the Iowa State campus, as well as different methods of informing our mentees on all the on-campus ISU resources that they can take advantage of once they come here as freshmen.
Megan and Jessica led the discussion this week, and I thought that their activities were very relevant to how we'll have to act as recitation leaders in the fall. Their "resource recall" activity was a great way to refresh our memories on the numerous resources at Iowa State that we have at our disposal; I even learned about several more, including an all-hours on-call nurse for non-emergency medical situations! This was an especially important exercise, because as peer mentors we are going to be something of a resource ourselves; leaders who can point out the experts to help our mentees (with any of their problems including health, academics, registration, etc.).
Their ending activity was a variation of Jeopardy to test our knowledge of ISU's on-campus resources, including a couple I had never even heard of! I love incorporating this game into lessons; I added it to my own "ISU History and Traditions" lesson plan for the fall, because it is a great way to increase the students' interest while still allowing them to learn something relevant to their experiences as an Iowa State student. I wish we would have had more time to finish the game, but it was nevertheless a nice change of pace to just have fun and unwind in the middle of class!
Megan and Jessica led the discussion this week, and I thought that their activities were very relevant to how we'll have to act as recitation leaders in the fall. Their "resource recall" activity was a great way to refresh our memories on the numerous resources at Iowa State that we have at our disposal; I even learned about several more, including an all-hours on-call nurse for non-emergency medical situations! This was an especially important exercise, because as peer mentors we are going to be something of a resource ourselves; leaders who can point out the experts to help our mentees (with any of their problems including health, academics, registration, etc.).
Their ending activity was a variation of Jeopardy to test our knowledge of ISU's on-campus resources, including a couple I had never even heard of! I love incorporating this game into lessons; I added it to my own "ISU History and Traditions" lesson plan for the fall, because it is a great way to increase the students' interest while still allowing them to learn something relevant to their experiences as an Iowa State student. I wish we would have had more time to finish the game, but it was nevertheless a nice change of pace to just have fun and unwind in the middle of class!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Week 9: March 17
Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody!
It's the ninth week in my experiences as a Hixson Peer Mentor (Nine weeks?! Wow!), which means another week in University Studies 311A has come and gone. This week we continued with student-led lessons, and this week we heard from Shelby and Stephanie about academic success and how it relates to peer educators and their mentees.
I thought that the icebreaker and activity were very well-executed; either of these activities could be used in any club or organization in order to evaluate the strengths of the members. The first activity we did was an icebreaker in which we were given three cards (each having a trait or interest on it), the object being finding other people and trading cards so that you have the three cards that most suit you. My three cards fit me to a tee: teaching (my passion and my planned future career), social (I'm a huge people person, and I love meeting new people), and organized (if you saw my planner, you would understand this trait completely; hint: lots of labels).
The second activity involved a personality assessment that evaluated our individual learning preferences. The four types were visual, kinesthetic, reading and writing, and audio. I've known I'm a visual learner ever since learning about Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, so it wasn't a surprise that the same rang true with this quiz (although hands-on learning/kinesthetic was a near second).
I loved the fact that these two interactive activities were something that could be carried on to our mentees in the fall, as well as in other organizations or even in my teaching career (knowing my students' learning styles just might be helpful!).
That's all for this week! On to Selection Sunday and the rest of my spring break! I can't wait to see my Cyclones in the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and to fill out March Madness brackets!
It's the ninth week in my experiences as a Hixson Peer Mentor (Nine weeks?! Wow!), which means another week in University Studies 311A has come and gone. This week we continued with student-led lessons, and this week we heard from Shelby and Stephanie about academic success and how it relates to peer educators and their mentees.
I thought that the icebreaker and activity were very well-executed; either of these activities could be used in any club or organization in order to evaluate the strengths of the members. The first activity we did was an icebreaker in which we were given three cards (each having a trait or interest on it), the object being finding other people and trading cards so that you have the three cards that most suit you. My three cards fit me to a tee: teaching (my passion and my planned future career), social (I'm a huge people person, and I love meeting new people), and organized (if you saw my planner, you would understand this trait completely; hint: lots of labels).
The second activity involved a personality assessment that evaluated our individual learning preferences. The four types were visual, kinesthetic, reading and writing, and audio. I've known I'm a visual learner ever since learning about Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, so it wasn't a surprise that the same rang true with this quiz (although hands-on learning/kinesthetic was a near second).
I loved the fact that these two interactive activities were something that could be carried on to our mentees in the fall, as well as in other organizations or even in my teaching career (knowing my students' learning styles just might be helpful!).
That's all for this week! On to Selection Sunday and the rest of my spring break! I can't wait to see my Cyclones in the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and to fill out March Madness brackets!
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