You Just Got Taught

This week Brad and I taught our session on problem solving with individuals. It was fun doing this again. I had taught a group of freshmen all of last semester with my co-leader, so it was interesting to finally work with someone new. Brad was an easy person to work with. I feel this is because we share similar mindsets, but I do not think we share similar MBTI types. Based on experience, I know that my co-leader next fall might not be in the same mindset that I am. I think this is an important thing to remember for all peer mentors. Allie, Chelsee, and Debra try to match peer mentors, but we are such a diverse group of people, that it doesn’t always work out like that. The thing to remember here is that your co-leader and you might be two totally different people, but it’s important to meet them halfway. I think this class helps with that because it gives us a semester to bond with each other so that we feel comfortable doing this next Fall.

Another thing I liked from my session was that everyone was easy to teach and contributed something to the lesson. Again, based on my experience this probably will not happen next Fall. There might be some students who are quiet, and there might be some students who dominate the discussion. This is an important thing to remember when you teach next fall. How you engage the students will factor into your lesson plans and your methods of teaching.

As for utilizing our lesson for next semester, I feel that summative and formative evaluation as well as positive goals will help us and help the students next fall. Knowing the difference between positive and negative goals will help us academically, and it will also help us with our interactions with the students. For example, your co-leader and you could say that you don’t want student to fail their classes. However, this would be a negative goal. Instead, you could say that you want to recommend the student for a tutor. It would allow you to be a better mentor, and a student might adopt this strategy themselves. As for formative and summative evaluation, I feel that we will use plenty of this next semester. Allie and Chelsee have two-on-twos each work to check our progress. This seems like an example of formative evaluation. We will also use it when we check on the mentors during our two-on-ones. Perhaps, we will use this when we make our lesson plans each week. I think this is an important form of evaluation because it allows us to do checkups. We can see how we are doing while we are doing it. As for summative evaluation, we will use this at the end of the semester to see how the students liked our teaching and how they liked the class in general. This plan allows for end of the semester feedback, but if students have any issues during the semester, I feel like they are ignored.

This is all important to know for next semester. Here is a video from Office Space that features a form of evaluation.

Can I Have Some Advice?

During class this week, Coreen and Katie taught us all about interpersonal communication. They did a fantastic job. They kept me, and the other peer mentors engaged which I feel is something they need to do next fall. Also, it helped that Allie brought us ice cream which kept me energetic. During the class, we talked about the difference between advice giving and interpersonal communication. We broke off in small groups and talked about different scenarios. I noticed that when we came back together, a lot of the groups mentioned that for their scenarios, they could have used either advice giving or interpersonal communication. I think this is important to remember because next fall the students will come to us with various issues. It is our job to remember which method to use. Also, while it may seem like interpersonal communication is more thorough, sometimes a student just wants advice. I doubt they want to go into an in depth discussion about where to fix their computer on campus. Another thing that we talked about in class was the difference between helping a friend and helping a student. When you help a friend, you aren’t being very professional. You’re merely offering suggestions to them about their issue.  Most importantly, you can be very blunt with your friend and give your honest opinion because you have that type of relationship with them (hopefully). When you help a student, you have to have professional demeanor. The student is coming with a serious concern, so you have to be serious. Most importantly, the student is most likely coming to you for solution, so you are offering more than just suggestions in this case.  Understanding the difference between advice giving and interpersonal communication and the difference between giving a friend help and giving a student help will go a long way in insuring your success as a peer educator.

Allie and Chelsee mentioned referring students to them in class. I understand the importance of this, and I hope my fellow peer mentors do as well. We have an important role to play in the lives of our students. They will come to us with concerns, and we have to help them. However, there will be times when we cannot help them because their issue is far too big or because we do not have the training to solve the concern. I like to relate this psychology. If you are a counselor, and you cannot help a client with an issue due to inexperience, it is your job to refer that client to someone who can help. I feel that Allie and Chelsee are the more experienced counselors in this scenario.

In other news, we have the peer mentor retreat this Sunday. I am not presenting this time, but I do look forward to the various ice breakers that the other mentors are going to present. It should be another great chance to get to know the peer mentors and understand their personalities.  Most importantly, I get to present with Brad next Wednesday. I had fantastic fun planning our lesson, and I am interested in seeing how well it goes.

Easten, Culture, and a Link to Psychology

This week, Easten taught us all about enhancing cultural proficiency. During his lesson, he had us play a game called “All of my Neighbors.” This game allowed me to learn a little bit more about my fellow peer mentors, but I feel I didn’t learn enough. It was all general information like how many of them own pets or who lives on a farm. I am hoping by the end of the semester I can learn a little more information. I’m not asking for them to tell me their life stories, but I do want to tear down the walls that prevent us from fully getting to know each other. Where do my fellow peer mentors really want to go? Who are their role models? What is the best advice you have ever received and why? Another thing that Easten had us do was a dot connecting activities. I had done this activity in the past, but I had forgotten the exact solution until Easten had went through it again. His activity showed that sometimes you need to go outside of the boundaries or a box to find an answer or do important things in life. Applying this to culture, I think we can say that we have to leave what we are used to in order to accomplish our goals in life. I am from a small town with no real diversity, and in order to pursue my life goals, I had to come to a big city like Ames where I met a variety of people from different walks of life. And I can say that, so far, I believe I am better for doing so.

For the next week, we had to read the chapter on interpersonal communication skills in our book. I particularly liked this chapter because the various aspects of interpersonal communication also are related to the aspects of being a psychological counselor. For example, the peer mentor relationship and the counselor-client relationship involve mutual consent. A peer mentor can’t help a student if neither party wants help. Furthermore, a counselor cannot help the client if the counselor feels uneasy about helping the client or if the client does not want to be in therapy. Another way these two positions are the same is that they are designed to produce change. The change in our peer mentor relationship is that the student is happy at college and feels safe here. The change with the counselor-client relationship is that the issue that the client came to counseling for has been resolved, or they are working to resolve it. The model for successful interpersonal communications is similar to the traits that make for a successful therapeutic relationship. Both involve attending by listening and making the person you are helping feel like they are being heard. They also both involve responding to the person you are helping by summarizing what they are saying or by interpreting what they are saying to make the issue clearer. Finally, interpersonal communications and the therapeutic relationship both involve knowing limits. It is possible that you may not be able to help your student as a peer mentor, and you may have to make a referral to a higher authority. As a counselor, the issue that a client is going through may be too difficult for you to handle, and you might have to have a more experienced therapist take over for you. Ultimately, I believe that my experience as a peer mentor will help me as a counselor in the future. I also believe that my desire to be a counselor is what helps me to be a great peer mentor.

MBTI Salad

Also in class this week, we discussed MBTI. My personality type is, of course, INTJ. I’m fairly sure that I am an N, a T, and a J, but the I is still something that bothers me. I do have many traits that make me an introvert such as disliking phone calls, I can sometimes be seen as shy by those who don’t know me, and I am not someone who likes to work in a group. However, I also feel that I step out of my introvert shell on occasion and lean towards extroversion. For example, last semester, I had to be a bit more extroverted in order for me to interact successfully with the students in my recitation. In addition, I have a tendency to go crazy when I am around those who I know. Perhaps this is why my report has labeled me a gregarious and enthusiastic INTJ type.

Also in the MBTI report, it offered change managing tips for my multiple facets. For example, for my planful facet, it noted that I have a tendency to plan as far in advance as possible, and I do. I believe in planning for every possible outcome in the future because I like to be prepared for everything. The report pointed out that to enhance my change management skills, I should allow for the unexpected in my plans because the unexpected can happen. This makes sense and seems like an important trait for a peer mentor to have. Next fall, we will be making lesson plans, and it is wise to plan for the unexpected in these lesson plans in case your co-leader is sick or if one idea doesn’t work with the students. Another idea that the report noted was that in the grand scheme of my personality, I like to use intuition the best. This would make sense because I tend to like thinking in the abstract and contemplating possibilities. Understanding this and the facets of the other peer mentors will allow me to gain a better understanding of them, and it will help if we ever clash on ideas.

Overall, the most important thing I learned this week was that what works for me probably isn’t what works for another person. I often find myself thinking that the way I do things is the best. This is problematic thinking because I fail to see how other approaches could work. When Chelsee explained that she finished a 60 page paper in four days, which averaged to about 15 pages per day, I thought she was crazy. However, I realized that this worked for Chelsee. Her personality enabled her to do this and still be successful. I like to think about a saying I heard once: “If it seems stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.” Knowing all of this will allow me to better interact with the other mentors and my co-leader next fall.

And here is a video of a group of people with very different personality types.

Conferring at Conferences

This week, I went to the learning community institute and the Iowa State Leadership Experience conferences. They both provided me with a great deal of information that I can use in my social life, in academia, and next fall in my recitation section. At the learning community institute, one of the events I went to was about time management and study groups and taught by Carrielle Cofax. I learned some pretty important ideas about studying at this event. I learned that when you study, you should take a break every 20 minutes in order to stay focused. This seems counterintuitive because you would lose important ideas while writing a paper or you would never get important projects done. However, I have realized that I tend to study and do work for hours on end which may inhibit my ability to retain information. Perhaps taking a break would allow me to improve my studying. This information will be very helpful for my recitation next fall because I can help students identify what kind of studying works best for them. Another event I attended at LCI was the Nature of Science in an English Learning Community which was taught by Jenny Aune. I found this session to be very informative. Jenny presented information regarding her research which was about how she incorporated the nature of science and misconceptions about science into an English 250 class. Most of the information presented was about how science could be biased, and that it was not perfect. In most of my classes this semester and last semester, we are just beginning to discuss these ideas. I feel that if I had learned this freshman year, I could have brought a whole different perspective to each of my classes. While I don’t see us peer mentors being able to apply these ideas to our recitations next fall, I do believe that freshman could learn a whole lot more by having a specific class devoted to this idea. Perhaps the university could create a class for this purpose.

At ISLE (pronounced Izzle), I found the keynote speaker to be very interesting. During his speech, he had us form to circles and talk with various people about important events in our life and ask questions about those events. I feel this is important because it is one thing to be proud about an accomplishment, but it is another to ask why you feel proud and build on that. Another event I attended was Positive Conflict which was taught by Michelle Boettcher and Brad Freihoeffer. This was interesting because it brought up different conflict management styles. I found that I have a competing conflict management style which means that I see conflict as a win-lose situation. This is important to know because it will influence how I handle my interactions with other peer mentors and with my students next fall. I will have to keep myself in check to insure that I pay attention to the styles of everyone else to avoid aggravating the conflict. As the instructors said, conflict is going to happen, but combat is optional. Finally, the other event I attended was the Johari Window which was taught by Carolyn Duven. The lesson from this was that a group dynamic is influenced by what is known by yourself and what is known by others. We want to increase what is known by everyone while decreasing the unknown areas. This means that it is important to ask questions otherwise groups will never be fully cohesive.

I’m sorry for the essay of a blog post. I learned a lot from these conferences. I hope that I can successfully apply the knowledge I have gained to every aspect of my life.