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!