Diversity

Last week we had a guest speaker, Denise Williams, who spoke to us about diversity. She had such a great approach to the topic and she definitely made it interesting and fun. I feel like she opened my eyes so much to diversity and made me realize things I have never realized before. The activities she had us participate in showed us so much about stereotypes and how people are constantly prejudged because of their appearance. She told us it was a natural process that our brain just automatically does, but the difference we can make is to not act on these stereotypes and treat people differently just because they look a certain way.
Denise Williams was very enthusiastic and seemed very comfortable discussing this topic. she even gave us advice for how to deal with situations that may be offensive to myself or others around me. I know that all of this information will come in handy for us as peer mentors because, no matter what, we will encounter diversity, and it is important for us to know how to handle situations it may toss our way.
I never realized how stereotypes truly influence peoples' opinions of people, and it really makes me wonder what stereotypes are held about myself that I do not know about. This lecture was a great eye opener and I think everyone really enjoyed it, I know I did for sure.

Peer Mentor Retreat

Well, the semester is beginning to come to a taper and I have never been so busy in my entire life; however it is not all bad. While I have been spending overnights on projects and hours of my daily life studying, I got to attend the peer mentor retreat on this previous Sunday. It was actually a very effective day because we all met hours before the retreat to finish up filming for our digital storytelling project. Next we went right into the retreat, which I have to admit I was not necessarily looking forward to since I had so many projects nearing a due date, but the retreat was a really good refresher and break from all the havoc and it was actually very helpful.
We got to discuss a lot about our lesson planning, give us more of a format/layout to go off of which will be helpful in writing the final lessons for our portfolios. We also spent a great deal of time discussing the content areas we will be teaching, and got to share and discuss ideas we all had for how we would do so. I got so many great ideas from everyone and even came up with a few of my own that are not too shabby. I am looking forward to implementing our ideas with our students.

Week of Social Media

It has been a few weeks since our week of social media experience, but I thought I should touch base with that a little bit. Ever since the come about of twitter, I have only been a Facebook fan, but this week of social media really made me reconsider. Since we were required to tweet various times throughout the week, I decided to get a little more familiar with it all. I came to discover that a lot of my friends have it and even celebrities. I think it is a cool way to connect with people and since this week of social media, I have been hooked!
Not saying I am going to go on being a tweet-aholic, but it definitely gives me something to do in my downtime besides spend countless hours on Facebook. I am excited to see how well our peers like it during their week of social media. Hopefully they will enjoy it as much as me! :)

Week 8 Blog

I attended a session at ISCORE that was called, "The Power of a Single Story" and I went into it not really knowing what to expect. It turned out to be a really interesting session on an intriguing topic. It talked a lot about having different perspectives and not always looking at a story from only one perspective. In every situation there is more than one way to look at it. A point they tried to get across in this session was about diversity and how some people of differing backgrounds or characteristics can sometimes be shorted by a stereotype just because people are looking from only one perspective.
This was really interesting to me because it is something that not everyone thinks about. I definitely didn't realize how this occurs so often and can affect so many people. When you look at something from a different perspective the "story" can change tremendously, so I think it is important to make people aware of these "single stories" that exist because it makes for a lot of overlooking in certain areas.
Another point that stuck out to me was that stereotypes are incomplete. A stereotype does not define a person and who they are so it is important to be aware of these preconceived notions and stop yourself from overlooking and appreciating the diversity. No one person is the same, and stereotypes attempt to categorize people, which is disappointing in the society we live in today.
Overall, this session just brought a lot of things to my attention that I did not realize before, and I am definitely happy I am aware of the single story now. The session was really interesting and helped all of us look at things from a completely new perspective.

Week 7 Blog

Last weeks class was definitely one of the most interactive, fun sessions we have had thus far. All the activities gave us a really good insight into the importance of communication in group work. I also think that it is all very valuable information that we can utilize as peer mentors. These are also great skills to be able to pass down to our peers that we will be teaching.
The first activity we did with the blindfolds and getting through the obstacle course by communicating with our partners was a great activity that showed us how important effective communication is in being successful when working with others to achieve a goal. Next, we went on to the blanket activity that proved to be a challenge. However, everyone in the group communicated efficiently and achieved the goal of flipping it over.
All the activities gave us a look from another perspective about group work and how to be successful in it. I enjoyed the class a lot and feel like I took a lot away from it.

Week 6 Blog

Well, judging by everyone's blogs it seems like class last week went really well. I am sad i missed out on all the fun. I did read through the chapter however and still got a lot of useful information out of it. There were a lot of useful strategies in this chapter about goal setting, action planning, problem solving and much much more. The section on goal setting was a really large and focused section, and it seems like that topic has been coming up a lot this semester. I have really been noticing the the importance of it too.
While reading this chapter, I felt like I could relate to it a lot too. I am in my third year of the teacher education program and I noticed a lot content in this chapter that I have been taught to think about previously in my classrooms. I was glad to see how these strategies carry over into many different situations, and I feel like I really am getting some great experience that will help my future in teaching too.
I look forward to moving through the rest of the semester and seeing what everyone is coming up with for lessons. See you all tonight :)

Interpersonal Communication

Last week Dylan and I got to teach a lesson about interpersonal communication and advice giving. Since we were actually teaching the lesson, I got to really dig into the chapter and take a lot away from it. I never realized that there was actually a term for interpersonal communication. I always thought advice was advice, whether its about something simple, or something extremely complicated.
I took a lot away from the chapter that will be useful to all of us as peer mentors. I learned a lot about interpersonal communication and how it is not just telling someone what to do in a sticky situation. It is not just telling someone what they should do about it, its helping to guide them to make the decision the right way on their own.
One point I would also like to make is that, the chapter did not say that advice giving was bad and should not be used whatsoever. It showed us that in some situations, advice giving would be more appropriate as well. That is one of the points I wanted to stress in the lesson we taught too.
Overall, teaching was a great experience, and I thought it went very smooth. I am excited to continue planning lessons and getting in as much experience in teaching as I can.

Learning Community Annual Conference

A session I attended at the learning community event we attended this past Friday was, "Using Gallup's Strengthsfinder for Leadership Development". At first, I had no idea what this was going to be about, but as soon as I got in there I found all the information presented to be really interesting. Gallup's Strengthsfinder is actually an assessment that is taken and tells the participant all of their strengths, well it gives you your top five at first, but you can purchase the entire list if you wish to do so.
Following the assessment, people utilize these results in their academics to recognize talents, themes, and strengths. While we were discussing this assessment, it reminded me a lot of our MBTI surveys that we did, even though they are not exactly the same type of assessment, but they are both used to help further our knowledge of who we are and qualities we hold.
Reflecting back to the talents, themes, and strengths; we discussed a lot about strengths and what those actually are. One point that was made that stuck out to me was that strengths are built upon talents using knowledge, skills, etc. They stated that when you have a consistency to perform, it is a strength. I think that is an important statement, because we can all be good at things and that is considered a talent, but being consistent is the key to making it a strength. Therefore, I think it is important to stress applying meaningful efforts to develop talents into strengths.
There were students who had taken this assessment and received their results that spoke at this session as well, and it was interesting to hear how they applied their results to improve in areas where they wanted to. They made it a point that they were getting the same tasks accomplished, but doing it in a way that works best for them based on their individual strengths.
I found all of this information to be really interesting, and what I got out of this session is that knowing ourselves more in depth is a great way to change what we want to change and improve what we want to improve.

Week 3 ISLE

Overall, I think the Iowa State Leadership Experience was very beneficial. It made me think about a lot of the little things that could impact my leadership role that I would not usually think about. The sessions I attended composed of content about diversifying your leadership style and making sure our meetings measure up.
The diversifying your leadership style session discussed good practices to improve our leadership roles. Some of these practices include exploring personal values and goals, recognizing sources of empowerment and encouragement, better understanding of ones "self", and recognizing how leadership fits into our daily lives. They also discussed leaders that were not practicing good leadership skills, and described these leaders as sometimes self absorbed, not going out of their comfort zone, and at times seem to be burnt out.
The next session I attended was "Do your meetings measure up? A recipe for success." This session discussed a lot about goals and how to construct "SMART" goals, making sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. We also came to an agreement that a goal is a subdivision of an outcome. This session also went into detail about agendas and how to construct a good one.
I thought these sessions were very beneficial, and have given me more to go off of in guiding my leadership experience. The sessions were very informative and I liked how they enabled us to share our own opinions on topics, so we were not just sitting and listening the entire time.
I learned that there is a lot more to think about when taking this role, it is not just being there, it is a lot more planning and thinking involved then one might initially assume.
One question I am not left with is what can I do to personalize and enhance this experience to make it more beneficial for both myself and other students I will be mentoring. I think the information I gained in these sessions will be able to guide me in the right direction towards achieving this goal.

Week 2 Blog

In last weeks class, we spent time discussing the problems and challenges our students could be facing in their first year at Iowa State. We all responded to questions that could very well arise in our peer mentoring experiences. While doing this activity, I glanced back a lot at my experiences as a freshman in a whole new school with all new people. I remember how frightening it was, not knowing anyone or where anything is. I believe these exercises we have been doing in class are bringing us back and reminding all of us that we have been there, and in a way, it brings us down to that level so we can relate more to the students we will be working with.
I can honestly say, that my first year in college was amazing, and the best year of my life, but I cannot go into this role thinking every student will feel the same way. It is really important to remember that each student will have their own experiences and are coming from a different place emotionally and physically. The exercise we did with the questions was helpful in seeing all the different possible problems that our student could be facing. I don't think we need to know the solution to every single problem that could arise, but we should be knowledgeable of the other sources of information that we can refer our students to and even accompany them as they look for those solutions.
Glancing back at my freshman year, I am still thankful for my own peer mentors and the help they gave me. I hope that through our peer mentoring experiences, students will be saying the same about all of us.

Blog #1 Peer Mentors

Chapter one of "Students Helping Students" focuses on peer educators and the different characteristics they withhold and services they provide to their peers. The chapter states that the involvement of undergraduates in peer assistance roles is occurring in more than 75% of all higher educations. Peer educators have been around for years staring with residence halls peer educators in the early 1900's and tutors since colonial times. There has been a rapid increase of the use of peer educators in the last 20 years in many different aspects of college and college life. Many different strategies and delivery methods have also developed, that I feel have improved the quality of peer educators in all the different areas. Over the years peer educators have helped develop more supportive campus communities and as a new peer mentor, I am excited to take part of these new developments.

Through reading the chapters I learned about the many different services peer educators provide. They provide crisis intervention services, perform diversity training, help with financial management, academic advising, making referrals, and much more. Peer educators prove to be valuable because they are experienced with the campus, are economical to college budgets, and as students, they can easily relate to other students of which they are educating.

While there are many benefits peer educators provide, there are also many benefits peer educators gain, such as learning new skills, gaining relevant practice and experience, and contributing to the community. Being a peer educator can also improve our leadership skills, interpersonal communication skills, and increase in self-esteem and personal health behaviors.

Chapter two focuses more on the impacts of the students and their maturation through their experiences with peer educators. The chapter defines many different states that students may be going through with the changes that accompany the college life. New students experience many emotions because new environments can create anxiety. It is also important to remember that individuals develop at different rates and there are many aspects that affect development. These aspects can include that persons amount of involvement, cultural expectations, social influences, impacts of the environment, compatibility between student and institution.

Overall, I feel this weeks readings have opened our minds to prepare us for all the information we will be learning throughout the semester. I am excited to notice a transformation in myself through this training, and I look forward to what the future of this program has to offer all of us as peer educators.