Are we really done already!?

Phew! It’s our last blog post!! I can’t believe finals really start tomorrow this is crazy!! I’m glad I have a pretty easy final schedule, I’m REALLY worried for my math one on Wednesday that one is going to rock my world.   Also, cleaning my apartment before I move out is a lot of work, I did not know I had so much stuff to move out and clean up ahhh!  I really don’t want to get fined with anything either, they’re really strict on that at Freddy L

Anyways, I had so much fun Wednesday in class.  It was a good last class until the fall! Brady and I finally decided when we’re going to meet up and plan our lessons, and we’re pretty excited.  I’m looking forward to the point in time when we get to know our students and we can base our lesson plans on what we know they like to do rather than out first few lesson plans that are pretty much going to be a shot in the dark, I hope they like them!! Also, that game we played was a lot of fun.  I’M SORRY to my team, I couldn’t help but blurt the answers out…I didn’t even know I was doing it until I was like yelling and you all were like glaring at me and I’M SORRRRRRYYYY!!!!! But hey we won so no big deal right!? J

Well, I hope everyone has a successful finals week, and enjoy your summer whether it’s here in Ames or back home!  Can’t wait to see everyone for our retreats in August!  Have a wonderful summer break!

Peace out girl scouts! J

Semester really over already!?

Holy cow, I cannot believe it’s the end of the semester already!  Where the heck did the time go!?  I’m ready to be done and go home to kind of relax.  I will be taking summer classes unfortunately, but hey it bumps my credits so that’s good.

Anyways I had a lot of fun in class on Wednesday.  Being able to ask the previous peer mentors some of the questions that had been on our minds was really helpful.  It kind of made me nervous though because I will be taking 17 credits next semester plus having a job on campus.  I can’t afford to drop a class in the middle of the semester after I realize I can’t handle it so maybe it will be beneficial if I take one of the classes out and take it in the spring.  Either way, my schedule is probably going to always be packed between now and graduation after I had just switched my major again just a month ago.  It just makes me nervous and I’d rather not stress myself out too much. 

The whole time in class I was just waiting in anticipation to find out who I was going to be a co-peer mentor with.  The puzzle activity that they had a do was a pretty neat idea, probably better than just reading out names off of a list.  I think I preferred the hands on part of it!  I’m so looking forward to being able to teach a class with Brady in the fall!! We are all going to do a great job, and this makes me even more excited to start in the fall! J  I’m also really looking forward to deciding what to do for the retreat, we are going to make it a good year guys!  

Peer Educators/Reading Article

Finished filming today guys good job!! I feel like we definitely hit that last minute mark on the project but I can’t wait to see the finished product on Wednesday in class! Oh, and we’ll get to see who we’re pared up with, soooo exciting!! J

Anyways, this past week Tanner and Brooke led our last class with us mentors teaching! Man did it fly by, good job guys we all did great!  This time we had pretty much tied everything all of us taught all together and it was a good review because I honestly forgot what we had covered a few months ago, I may or may not have short term memory loss haha.  We focused on the peer educators we have on campus and as a class we came up with a very decent amount!  Some of them I don’t even think about we just use it, does that make sense?  We have it so good here with how many leaders/peer educators we can go to if we need help, I’m very thankful for that.

We also then discussed the article we had to read.  I never really thought about how important personality went into the decision process of hiring someone.  I mean I work for my parents and when they had asked about people from high school that they could hire I always told them pick this person they’re really nice and responsible and blah dee blah but I guess I just wasn't aware that I was doing that at the time.  I would prefer to work with someone who I can get along with and have a good time and still be responsible and get my work done than someone who just makes work utterly terrible and is always one of those strict bosses.  I hope I can remember this for when I start interviewing for jobs and hopefully I’ll be the person they’re looking for!

Ethics

Hello guys!  Tonight we had the etiquette dinner and it was SOOOOO much fun!! If you didn’t go you really missed out on a good time, good food and plenty of good laughs (mainly at me but it was goodJ ).  I really do like these random opportunities for us peer mentors to get together and get the chance to bond outside of the classroom environment!

The question we were given to evaluate and discuss in our blog post this week is something that I hadn’t really thought of before.  Ethics is a very big issue with teaching others, and not crossing certain boundaries is very important.  The following five most important roles of ethics that are important for my role as a peer mentor would be:  

to know my limits (I don’t want to cross boundaries that I shouldn’t such as something with relationship problems), 

we talked a lot about emotional responses so that would be one too (be careful and aware of what emotion your giving off to others), 

don’t give advice to someone when you aren't really sure what advice you’re giving (suggest a person they could go to if they want to know more about something, if you don’t know what they need, it would help them more suggesting something else rather than steering them in the wrong direction),

be a responsible leader (these kids are going to look up to you, show them someone they can aspire to be), and lastly, respect all of the people around me (even though we may not agree on certain things you can still respect their opinion on whatever it may be). 

Alright guys that’s about it for the blog post about ethics.  I’m sure there are going to be many various scenarios that we are going to encounter in the fall and although it’s a scary thought that we’ll just be diving into it, it’s nice to know that we can always go talk to Chelsee or Allie if we ever need some help.  J

I hope you all have a safe and exciting VEISHEA!!! J

Resources

This past week was a very exciting one for me! Megan and I were teaching and of course that was my first time teaching the class and I was super nervous but everything seemed to go very well and you guys seemed to like the activity so that was a lot of fun! Thank you guys for being so awesome!!

Anyways, we were going over various resources on the campus that we have all personally used and I was surprised to hear some that I’ve never heard of before! But that’s just what we need to do in the fall is push those resources not as well known to the students.  I would have definitely used the on call nurse thing if I had known about it – good job Coreen for listing that because I think that was new for all of us to hear about (if not then it was just me haha)!

We thought it would be better to focus more on the resources available on our campus rather focusing on the book during our class time and when we did the quiz (I liked to call it jeopardy) everyone seemed to really enjoy it, and everyone got the answers correct with the hints so I would say I was very impressed, good job!

If class will be anything like it was Wednesday next year then I’m really looking forward to it now! J

Learning Styles

This week’s class was very interesting for me because I've never really known which learning style I preferred.  I know, I know it sounds silly but if you look at my results from the quiz we took in class I had two 5’s and two 3’s, so I suppose I prefer all four at some point, I'm not really sure what to think of it.  I remember when we went over this last year in our recitation class too and it was pretty much the same, no one style specifically stood out for me.  I like to think my learning styles are kinesthetic and visual because that’s how I learned best when doing my jobs back at home and at Hawthorn.  After I watch someone do something and then try it out for myself I feel like the more I do it the more I’ll get better at it and I like it that way.  I don’t think I can learn just by reading something, I feel like I work better when after if I do read it I apply it because doing whatever makes me learn better.  I like hands on activities. 

I’ll use a past experience as an example.  So when I was younger I used to dance, and when you’re learning a new routine we always watch the teacher and have them show it to us then we repeat what they do because just reading the whole dance on paper would be hard for all of us to pick up.  So I guess I’ve grown up with learning how to do that, watching someone do something then putting myself in their shoes and applying it myself.  I really hope that makes sense because it made sense in my head!

We did a certain activity last year in our recitation and I don’t remember literally everything but I want to try to do that activity with my students next year and hopefully they will be able to tell which learning style they prefer best.

Leadership

This week Brady and Josh led the class with the discussion over Leadership.  With leadership being such a broad topic I liked what we covered in class and how to go about this in the fall with our mentees.

One of the few things we discussed in class was seating arrangements.  I was taken aback by it because I have never really thought about how seating could affect our leadership but as we talked about it, it definitely made more sense.  I would say if I’m not presenting something and no one else is either my favorite seating arrangement(s) would be sitting in the circle or the living room one.  I like them because to me it seems like a relaxed environment and everyone can see each other and it makes discussion go very well. 

It was also brought up how we are to talk to our mentees in the fall during recitation and even the large lecture.  It seemed to be a touchy subject to use sarcasm with the mentees, but I’m a very sarcastic person in general so I think I may use it next year but use it lightly and be overpowering.  I know sometimes people don’t catch onto sarcasm as easily as others and maybe not take the people who use it as serious.  I hope I don’t get to that point, and if I do happen to use it, do it like Easton mentioned in class where he was doing it to call out certain people for not paying attention or what have you.

Overall, I’m not going to be able to know how to go about doing things until I meet and get to know who I’m teaching and how I’m going to go about differences within the group.  But as I learn everything in this class I’ll be able to apply everything to the best of my abilities.  

Understanding Group Process

This past Wednesday Kat and Tyler taught class, and it was a very good time!  To be quite honest the activity they had us do was quite difficult to understand what we were supposed to do at the beginning!  But eventually we were all able to work together and finally get what we were supposed to do.  This goes to show that when we all work together we are able to accomplish what we need to do; if one of us was confused or multiple it wouldn’t have been able to work out as smoothly as it did.  Look back at what we were all doing at the beginning of the activity towards the end.  We were a mess in the beginning, but once we all started to understand what we were supposed to do we finally began to work together and we successfully accomplished catching each other’s sticks and then passing them to each other as well. 

This is going to be able to tie in greatly next fall and for our future.  Us as the peer mentors are going to have to be able to work together and successfully doing so we will be able to work strongly as a team and then that will carry onto our mentees that will see that and hopefully they will work strongly with their group members in and outside of the Hixson class.  Working as a group should also help us as well outside of this class.  Of course we’ve all had those good and bad experiences of working together in a group, and no matter what although we all wish those experiences were good we are going to come across those that are bad, even after we graduate college.  Hopefully with all of this knowledge that we are learning within this class and between all of the good and bad experiences we are able to distinguish what will be a good group and good teamwork but also we will know how to make it better if something goes wrong.

ISCORE

Today I had the opportunity to go to ISCORE, the Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity.  I honestly had never heard of this before seeing it in the syllabus and if I had clearly I wasn't paying attention because I don’t think I’ll be able to forget this experience.  I went to the opening message and a session right after.  I liked the beginning because we got to see and hear others experiences of NCORE which is the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity.  The video shared people’s experiences and what they had learned almost each day they were at the conference.  We also got to hear from President Leath (I spelled it wrong on twitter earlier, my bad!), and from Mary Jo Gonzales, whom has a PhD and was named as a Women Impacting ISU for her role in mentoring students and was honored for “cultivating a community focused on student success.”  She talked about how she grew up and how that has impacted her life, and how she got to where she is now.  One thing she brought up was an item of food and she said how when she sees it, has it, whatever it takes her back to her childhood and all the memories that came along with it.  She then had the people at the tables discuss what they’re favorite food from their childhood was and why.  In the end the connection wasn't necessarily the food item but the fact that your family was most likely together and happy during the time you were having said food item and that you cherish those memories of being together; that is what I got out of it anyway.  Those items obviously change being from different races and ethnicities.

After the morning address I went to the session Open Discussion on How A Central, Well-Funded Diversity Focused Office May Help ISU.  The majority of the people there were faculty and staff, very few students so part of me felt out of place.  However, our input was very important in the discussion because they wanted student’s views on some things.  We talked about how we could get the university together as a whole understand different cultures and how to go about teaching them and help them understand.  My group talked about having more activity fairs about diversity so others would be able to go and learn more about them and not just stick to judging and assuming things about people when in reality just because one person does it doesn't mean everyone does it.  I like to relate this back to how Europeans see Americans.  They think we all talk with a southern accent and talk about getting cheeseburgers and french-fries all the time.  We can’t just label people on what we see and hear from others necessarily, but actually take the time to get to know them and accept them for who they are.

Problem Solving With Individuals

I needed a little help to jog my memory of everything we did this past Wednesday from Sebastian, but as you all should now know we talked about formative and summative evaluation, and the differences between positive and negative goals.  Now, awhile back we did this activity with our smart goals and I do remember Sebastian and Brad saying to reference that when writing our blog and find out if those goals would be positive or negative and how we would change them.  Overall, this week was about having a problem and what we would do, how we would go about fixing the problem and that will help us immensely next year dealing with the mentees as they are going to have problems and seek us for help and we need to know how to go about helping them the best way. 

So, looking at my smart goals I don’t necessarily think I have any negative goals on there like ‘I don’t want to fail this class’ they all seem pretty positive in helping me get where I need/want to go.  However, I can reference something from last year that will help.  Sebastian and Brad had us break into groups and read the scenario and what kind of evaluation that was.  I remember connecting with what was on our piece of paper because it’s exactly what I did last semester.  I was dreading taking this econ class and I figured that the midterm would help me know if I wanted to stay in the class or drop it; whatever my grade ending up being I would decide to stay or go.  Unfortunately, he didn't post midterm grades so I was totally unclear as to where my standing was in the class.  I guess I was using both of the evaluations for my grade formative because I was tracking it till the midterm and the midterm itself but summative because I was summarizing everything altogether and going to decide to stay or go off of that.  I hope that makes sense, it made sense in my head! 

I know I'm not going to be able to handle everything that is going to be thrown at me next fall, and it will be hard to not be able to help everyone because I want to try my best.  Hopefully, if a student is in the same position as me I'll have a chance to offer extra help, I'll be there to check up on them with their work if they want it, suggest a tutor, talking to the professor and just try to be there anyway I can for them.

Helping Students

Reading over chapter four and then having Coreen and Katie teach class was very beneficial for all of us to learn about how to communicate with our future income freshmen.  Coreen and Katie had us do an activity where we were given a piece of paper with a scenario on it and we then had to describe how we would go about that situation.  I was able to connect what the piece of paper said for our group with a friend of mine and I knew that I would be able to handle the situation if it ever arose.  I can’t fully remember what our piece of paper said but overall it was good to know I knew how to approach the situation.  It’s also good to know that you can’t say things to your peers like you can to your friends.  Like if I told my friend they were being stupid for liking someone, or doing something I found stupid.  You can’t go about that with the freshmen because you want them to look up to you.  Yeah, your friends still look up to you but they also expect you to be honest. 

In the book it also lists of many things as to what a helping relationship means.  I feel like most of these are common sense but it’s still good to look over because like I said before you can’t just be totally blunt  with your freshmen like you can your close friends.  You want to make sure you’re there for them and that they know that.  I want to be able to have the kinds I teach know that they can talk to me about whatever and I’ll be there to listen and give helpful feedback if they want it or just an open ear if they just have things to get off of their chest.

Cultural Influences

This past Wednesday we had a fellow peer mentor, Easton, teach the class.  When he started he had us do an ice breaker that I had remembered from my first recitation freshmen year and I actually really enjoyed it then so I was really looking forward to doing that activity!  Of course the game only allows us to get to know basics about each other, but it was still fun and I really enjoyed it so hopefully I’ll be able to do that ice breaker next year with my students!

After the ice breaker we did a little talking about different cultures and what can make them diverse.  Afterwards we were sent to go back to our seats and do another activity and then talk to the people next to us and share however we felt about said question.  At first we had to list things that were our personal cultural influences so one of the things I chose to write was my religion.  We then had to say why it might be difficult for someone else to appreciate our influence.  It’s one of those things that people don’t really like to speak about because people judge so quickly when they hear what your religion is and how you feel, and yes I’m guilty of doing that.  I’m open to hearing your thoughts and ideas about whatever you feel and I don’t want to be one of those people who shove their religion down your throat, so I try to understand where they’re coming from but I can’t help that judging aspect; we all do it we aren't perfect.  Anyways, my religion has made a huge impact on who I am and what I’m doing with my life.  In the past I've gone on many mission trips to the inner city of Los Angeles, down to skid row in L.A, and Tijuana, Mexico, and it’s a very amazing experience and I would definitely say it’s changed me to be a better person and not take things for granted.  I wish everyone was able to go on at least one and experience what it’s like to help out, not just for a day like volunteering but for two weeks being totally out of your element and seeing how those people get by day to day.  That would probably be my way of them seeing where I’m coming from in a situation and hopefully they would learn something from it.

MBTI

I’m going to start with either Extraversion or Introversion.  I most definitely knew I was an extravert because I consider myself a very outgoing, enthusiastic, and loud/expressive person.  That definitely fits the bill for an extravert.  I grew up with three older brothers so I had to learn to be loud and I was very active with them as well running around the house with them messing around, rough-housing it around.   I do feel like they are a big part of who I am today.  I’ve never really been a shy or quiet person making new friends only with the exception of the people who REALLY intimidate me. 

The second one is either Sensing or Intuition.  I consider myself a practical and traditional person.  I’m not one to think of imaginative things, I like facts and things that I can prove.  I scored a 5 on both of those things and it makes sense because I’d rather do something that I know will work and usually not something where I won’t know the end result.  I don’t want to do something that won’t work out in the end because that means I just wasted time on it when I could have been doing something else possibly more important.  Also, I also do take people’s feelings into consideration before a say a comment.  I really don’t like to hurt others feelings so if I happen to, I apologize.

Onto the third is Thinking or Feeling.  According to the test I am a Feeling kind of person.  My highest scores on this accepting and compassionate.  I would agree with them because I don’t want people to feel left out and if I happen to do something I try my best to include them.  I’m also the kind of friend that someone can come to and confide in and I’ll be there to listen and they can trust me to keep it between us and help them if they ask for it.  Between tough and tender I happen to be right in the midzone, and I would have to agree with that.  Sometimes you can’t always be tender hearted to people and you have to tell them what’s up and I’m the one to do that.  I don’t want to see someone suffering and sometimes you need to be tough on someone to get that through as well.

Lastly, between Judging and Perceiving it says I’m perceiving but I’m on both sides for this one.  I like to be pretty organized, and follow a schedule a lot.  If I don’t I kind of freak out and I’m not really sure what to do.  The schedule helps me know what I need to get done and what time I have to wait before I get something done.  On one end I’m very easygoing and I’m relaxed, but once something happens to mess up that schedule of mine I may get a little frazzled.

When we had started going over the MBTI in class I had thought I was something else rather than what i got which was ESFP.  Looking over what the MBTI says I can agree what it says that I am.  Everyone is every one of these at some point so I can see where I fit in with the others as well.  I understand where I am in every situation and I’m able to connect certain situations with everything on here as well.  I really did like this experience and seeing everyone else's in class too!

Iowa State Leadership Experience

Friday I was able to attend two sessions for the Learning Communities Mid-Year Institute.  The first session I went to was about bullying and what to do if you witnessed it happening and how to prevent it from happening.  I wanted to go to this session because I wanted to know other possibilities to look into if bullying occurs and if I’m not able to take care of it, being the little ol’ me that I am.  The room was probably set up for at least 20 people however only 5 people in came including me, but I liked it because it felt more interactive.  They mentioned different scenarios that would happen and asked us what we would do about them; this helped a lot because it had me picturing what could possibly happen, although I hope I don’t have to encounter it, and what I would be able to do about it. 

Say if guys are playing flag football and out of frustration someone says the three letter F word.  The best thing to do if you happened to be on a team with the person who said it would be like “dude, that’s not cool don’t say that.”  That has a huge impact on people only if it is a few simple words.  They said silence = acceptance, so if you don’t stop that from happening they’re going to think it’s okay to say that and keep saying bad things that shouldn’t be said.  So step up and just say that it isn’t cool, and hopefully to whoever you’re saying that too looks ups to you and understands that it’s not okay to say that.  I also went to a time management session, and we talked about how to better manage your time, and where to study and how to better yourself as a student.  I’m in the process of working on that for myself.

Today, I went to two more sessions for ISLE and the first one was very helpful for me.  It was about what to do with groups and we talked a lot of ice breakers, but he preferred to use the words team builders.  He gave us many options to start with our students next year in the fall.  Some of them obviously we won’t be able to do the first day because some team builders are a lot more intimate about our personal lives rather than asking what you like to do in the free time.  There are many different team builders that we will be able to use next year and they will help us tie into the real lesson we will be doing and hopefully then they will be able to tie into what the team builder was and the lecture or whatever we happen to do.  Overall, all the sessions were very helpful for me to help the incoming freshmen I mentor next fall and I’m really looking forward to get started with their Iowa State adventure.  

Diversity Event

Thursday night I went to the MLK Legacy Series talk given by Michael Eric Dyson.  He is a Baptist preacher so when he first came out he was very energetic to say the least and he seemed very comfortable talking to us.  It made me feel very comfortable and excited to hear what he had to say.  He started off saying basically everyone used to be a racist because if you talked about race you were a racist.  I was a little thrown off by that but it has always been a big issue especially since when our parents and our grandparents were younger.  He also said MLK Jr. said racism is wrong.  Obviously we know that he was strongly against racism. That’s what he fought so hard to get rid of; to get people passionate to step up for themselves and finally create equality.

He also mentioned the black community stepping up and becoming just like one of us.  When Jackie Robinson (the first black ball player in the major league of baseball) joined the baseball world that was a huge step up for the African American community.  He was there to show people that they can do what they set their mind to; to be anything they want to be.  That strongly helped in the some of the major steps for the African American community.  In our lifetime and in our parent’s lifetimes there have been many major steps, and there have also been many firsts that have been achieved, and barriers broken.

He also mentioned something that I had never heard of or even thought of before.  When he was talking about slavery he said slavery had never been as viscous until Christianity got involved.  Christianity was a strong faith to have among many slave owners and of course going to church and reading the Bible had been very important to them.  I don’t know word for word what it says in the Bible but he mentioned something about those who do wrong should be punished and at least in the old testament it was okay to have slaves and or servants.  Since slave owners had a strong Christian faith a lot of them could be like people we would now look up to such as lawyers, teachers, and doctors.  You just wouldn’t be able to tell back then because it was just the normal thing to be able to have slaves.  Going to this presentation was an eye opener for me in a way and I’m very glad I was able to hear what he had said about MLK Jr. and slavery because some things I had never even known.

In class on Wednesday I really liked the activity we did when we got that little piece of paper with the various scenarios on them that the incoming freshmen next year have.  It was helpful to play it out with each other and get a sense of what we should do and how to go about a certain situation.  It was also pretty neat when we went around the room and just listed off different situations that freshmen can encounter in their first year of college, and if we’re being honest I probably hit every one of those at one point freshman year.

It’s definitely hard and it’s stressful transitioning from going to high school where it’s easy to get by and you really don’t have to do a whole lot of work, then coming to a university like Iowa State where yes, you actually have to do your work to be able to know what’s going on and actually read the texts for a class.  That was probably one of my worst things to get used too.  Reading wasn't really my thing in high school and procrastination was and boy did I bring that to college with me, and I feel like some of you can agree to that.  I’m getting better with some of the readings, especially this past week when I had to read something for my Criminal Justice class.  It’s nice when you’re actually intrigued by what you’re reading and you want to know and learn more about it. 

That’s something that I want to pass on that it’s going to be hard work in the beginning especially with gen ed. classes, but as you start taking classes that are more linked in to your major you will enjoy those classes.  All the hard work would be paid off and you’ll be able to reward yourself with doing something you actually love/want to do. I hope the freshmen will see that they've been given an amazing opportunity to be able to go to college and pursue they’re education and I really hope they remember they when they feel like times may be getting hard.

First week of class

Meeting the new group of Hixson Peer Mentors for next fall was really exciting to see who I'll be spending a lot of time with this semester and next fall.  It's also slightly nerve racking meeting new people, but that's like it is in any situation.  I can't wait till everyone becomes comfortable with each other and we can bond and be friends not only in class but outside of it as well.  Our group seems to get along very well and I'm excited to see what we can accomplish within the Hixson program this spring and in the fall.  

The activities that we have done in class so far I feel have been very helpful in getting to know one another.  Although some people get tired of icebreakers they have been nice and help with opening up about different things.  It helps with different ideas so then we can better understand what we need to do next year during our recitation classes.  Along with that, I find it helpful with most of us being first year peer mentors that we have other peer mentors from the previous year.  It’s good to know that they liked it and had so much fun that they wanted to do it again!  That makes me excited to look forward to this semester and the fall to see what great opportunities and experiences we will have together.

I also really like that the previous peer mentors can helps us with what we are going to go through.  They know where we’re coming from as being students and having to juggle all the class work with the majors and the Hixson program.  It will be helpful to ask them questions about being a leader and recitation class because they have already gone through it and they will give us a better idea of how to go about everything.  If I decide to be a peer mentor after next year I hope I would be someone that the incoming peer mentors would be able to go to too because I would like to be able to help out anyway I can because I would’ve been in their position just a year before.