Confidence

The article Chelsee had us discuss this week was really interesting. Personally I really enjoy reading about science behind social interactions and behavior psychology but the whole time I was reading it I kept coming back to a TEDTalk I watched about body language by Amy Cuddy. When the article was talking about the mirror neurons and how the brain reacts to what it sees, instantly I thought about how the hypothesis of she presented about the importance of body language, not only picking up on others but also using our own to influence our own mind. 

In her Talk, Cuddy talked about how our body can trick our mind into thinking or feeling anything we want. Kind of like how if you force yourself to smile long enough you’ll start to feel happier. Mainly it covered the idea of a “power stance” which you can do before going into any stressful situation (such as a stressful interview) and it will help you project confidence. This can help you, as in the article, “leverage” yourself in the interaction. I’ve actually tried this technique a few times before tests and its actually helped me a lot. Confidence is key to get your mirror neurons the upper hand and hopefully help us next year in the classroom.

Here’s the video I talked about, its kind of long but a really great watch:

Diversity Event

     For my diversity event, I attended Professor Ann Taves’s talk on Mormonism. She talked a lot about different points of view on the religion but mostly focused on different ways to look at the Golden Plates found by Joseph Smith, which is a huge centerpiece for the religion.

      Although the talk was not what I was expecting from the description given on the lectures website, I thought it was really interesting. She presented a lot of information about how different groups can view the Plates in different ways. She had a lot of insight in this topic both from a sociological point of view but also religious studies view. Every event she talked about surrounding the Plates was presented from a believing and nonbelieving way and never discounted the claims of the religion.

       I learned a lot about the religion in a way that isn’t accusatory or converting, which I appreciated. I didn’t know a lot about the religion and definitely not what it was based on. All I know of the religion I’ve only ever come across from the stereotypes given to Mormons and my experiences staying with a Mormon family for a few weeks when I was in high school.

I would really enjoy hearing more from Taves and I’ll probably pick up the book the presentation was based on that she wrote to get more insight into Mormonism. 

Ethics

The book outlined a lot of great principles that as peer mentors we should look to when we are defining our ethics in the classroom in the fall. They are all important but some of them aren’t the easiest. Principle 6, about understanding personal bias and avoiding spreading the bias to others, is a huge one. We talked earlier in the semester about diversity and seeing that some things we say or do, although unintentional, can be seen as a bias or a judgment. I think this is an area I need to grow in.

I some times find myself perpetuating some stereotypes or saying oversimplified things that are inline with some biases that I hold towards different things or not stepping up and ending things I hear. There’s one big one that I want to work on is that I let people say things that imply or explicitly degrade certain majors. I know everyone on campus has run across these quips every once in a while and I recently had a friend push some stereotypes about business majors too far and I’ve really seen how these biases can hurt others.

I want to make sure that that behavior is not present in the classroom because this kind of stuff does get hurtful and can really limit points of views of the students. If they wanted to switch majors to something they’ve heard made fun of they might not do it even if that is the best fit for them.

Really thinking about the lines between what is right or wrong before stepping into the classroom next semester is going to make things go a little smoother and we will be more able to conduct ourselves in a manner we are happy with.

Using Resources

When writing the lesson this week, I found a lot of resources I still wasn’t familiar with that I had wished I knew more about. A few of the ones I didn’t think of that Allie suggested, such as Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support (ACCESS), I’ve noticed throughout my comings and goings on campus. I sought out a conversation about ACCESS with a friend to learn more about it. I think the most important thing for us as peer mentors is to be able to shed light on resources, especially ones that students might not hear about regularly. This way they have some sort of guide if they run across problems instead of just feeling lost.

We want to create trust in the group and between ourselves and the students so that they come to us if they have problems and we need to be able to point them in the right direction if the issues are above what we can help them with. Taking time to reflect on different resources on campus before the Fall can make tricky conversations easier because the last thing we’d want to do is inadvertently making them feel like this is not a normal problem or something that you’ve seen before, even if it is.

The book they suggested that as mentors we should role play how to refer students and I think this is a great tip. As it has been mentioned throughout the semester, there will be times in the next semester where you will be caught off guard and having a little bit of practice on how to deal with any information shared with you will be really important to keep level. It will cut down on processing time in the conversation and also be helpful in the some-what routine issues like roommate disagreements or studying problems to have a quick answer ready. 

Leading Groups Effectively

One of the things from this chapter that I want to really implement in the lessons for next semester is the different seating arrangement. Its very easy to just leave the tables in rows and have the students just occupy the first rows for class but as it was discussed in the chapter the way the room is set up can really influence the mood and attitudes in the room. Although I don’t anticipate having attitude problems within the section next semester, it’s a lot easier to do preventive actions than try to adjust throughout the semester. I think for the most part I would want to use the horseshoe set up. This should help with any situations when problematic personalities could come up. As co-leaders we can place students in an order that will facilitate better conversations and could help with building a great group dynamitic.

I found the interpersonal growth section of the chapter really interesting. Its going to be really important to create an environment where the students feel comfortable so that get the most out of the course and there time at Iowa State. As it says in the book, “A leader has responsibilities for establishing an ambience in which personal information can be safely shared and a process through which self-exploration and discovery can take place.”  The book touched on this but I think its really important to present yourself and be relatable. I think its appropriate to not only tell the students about the topics but also present examples, especially in our own lives, of how the topics have helped our success. I wish I had done this more towards the beginning last semester because my students really appreciated when my co-leader and I shared struggles and challenges we had faced. 

Knowing Your Learning Style

Knowing your learning style is probably the most important things in college in my opinion. With limited amount of time that no amount of time management can completely help, knowing the most effective way you learn in crucial to success in college. I’m pretty set in my Reading/Writing style and my roommate for the past two years struggles to understand it.

To study, I make notecards. I do it to chunk up the information and break it down and to rewrite it together to study it. People with R/W are usually told to write and rewrite notes and I’ve never had the patience to do that directly from page to page and I get frustrated with repeat material. My roommate on the other hand is very tactile and does a lot of different things depending on the course. She’s always been trying to tell me to do what she does to study because she doesn’t understand my system because to her it looks like a lot of wasted time making these cards especially since I only go through the cards two or three times before the test. Not to mention the waste of paper. But my method works for me and she’s come to accept it, even sitting watching me make them for four hours while watching movies with me even though she really wanted to say something about it.

Next year when working with the students, I think that having this background understanding of learning styles is really important especially if problems with studying comes up. We can’t automatically dismiss their ideas of effective studying but we need to look at their styles to try and find either a better fit or adjust their current efforts but never automatically tell them our methods are the best. 

ISCORE

I went to the session on privileges of US citizens. I found it really interesting and I really enjoyed how the presented their information.

One of the things they talked about was the image of undocumented residences and how most peoples view of “illegals” are instantly drawn to the view of Mexicans. They presented a graph showing the origins of undocumented people in America and 25% aren’t even from South America at all and the other 75% are from all over South America and NOT just from Mexico.

Another thing they did was talk about legislation about immigration from the past and especially the new Arizona laws that allow officers to stop anyone and ask for proof of citizenship, which the presenter brought up a very good question. Does the average American even carry the proper identification at all times to prove that we ourselves are citizens? I know I walk out of the house without my ID frequently and if I was just walking down the street and asked to provide proof I probably couldn’t. Also it was good to hear about laws from the past that I vaguely knew the outcomes of but I wasn’t aware of the laws themselves, such as the laws that provide education for any undocumented children up to the 12^th grade.

It was also interesting to hear and think about the fact that only 5-10% of undocumented children, most of which were brought here by their parents, go on to college because of the lack of finical support they can receive because they lack a social security number. Most finical support required SSN on the application so they don’t apply. And the average income of an undocumented family would be completely eaten up by tuition because students are either charged out-of-state tuition or in-state-and-a-half because of their status even if they’ve lived in their state their entire life.

It makes me really grateful for what I have in life and I’m really glad I had the opportunity to sit in for this session! 

Teamwork!

Kat and Tyler did a great job this week! I had a great time thinking about group teamwork and group dynamics with everyone!

I think teamwork is especially good to think about because, as it was brought up, we will be doing teamwork for the next two semesters. Even though we will be facilitating in groups of two, we will still be working with all the other peer mentors to help the students.

I really enjoyed analyzing the video! I know Kat and Tyler were short on time but I think it would be interesting to discuss it further and see what parallels we could come up with. It was kind of what triggered me thinking about teamwork for us next semester when I sat down to write this. If we don’t all move and act together, the students might not take us seriously. A few times last semester when my co-leader and I had to alter lesson plans to fit our difficult group and our students called us out on it since they were in communication with some of the other sections and they didn’t take those days’ activities seriously which took us off guard since we assumed they’d like ours better. Move all together and everything being deliberate means no weakness!

I can’t wait until we practice our teamwork this weekend when making our video!

Problem Solving

Really great job, Sebastian and Bradley! I really enjoyed that we all got to put input and interact with one another this week. I liked how we addressed problem solving in the activities by getting to exercise our critical thinking!

Our weekly question was a good intro into the lesson and gave us a structured time to start thinking about problems we’ve faced so we can use past experiences in the lesson to give it more depth so it will be easy to pull the lesson when we are facilitating next semester.

Activity One, so wonderfully titled, gave us practice using resources (each other) to give insight to the problem we had at hand (identifying our locations). I usually struggle with these types of activities because usually the cards have really unfamiliar items on them so I’m glad they used campus locations because we are familiar with those, or at least we should be! This would also be a good activity when doing resources on campus as reinforcement for the students next year.

Activity Two was also really good to give us a chance to think about different goals and how we can best evaluate our progress. No matter how good goals are written, it means nothing if we can’t effectively evaluate progress on them. This will be especially helpful next year not only in evaluating our own goals and growth but also helping the students set and following up on goals they set or problems they face/come to us about. I also liked that we were placed in groups since group problem solving is something as college students we face regularly through group assignments and what we will experience next semester as co-leaders. 

Interpersonal Communication and Retreat

This week Katie and Coreen presented about interpersonal communication skills. I think it was really great that they had us role-play some situations we might face and really think about what we would do in those situations. Our little group had an instance of a student being homesick and coming to us because they are struggling with that feeling. Like in a lot of the situations we were given, and in real life, the situation called for both advice and problem identification questions. I think it was great we had some practice to reflect on some possible situations that could come up in the Fall.

Personally, this is one of the areas I really want to improve on. My instinct is to go to advice-giving right off the bat. Last spring I started using my friends and roommates as guinea pigs for working on developing ease when I need to use interpersonal communication and I think it helped a lot. I am still a long ways away from really smoothly using this in surprise situations, such as if a student came up to me after class, but I’m decent at it in structured situations that I know issues could come up, such as one-on-ones.

At the retreat I learned a few icebreakers that I really want to use this Fall. I think that we had a good spread of icebreakers that could be used for any mix of students. I don’t think I’ve played any of them before except the desert island one but in a much different context so it was nice change from my perceived notions of it. 

Cultural Proficiency

This week Easten led us in a discussion about Cultural Proficiency. We started off with a great game of All My Neighbors that went straight into a discussion on differences between us that aren’t on the surface. Obviously we’re all Iowans, going to Iowa State and are a part of the Hixson Program but even within our little group, there are a lot of differences.

I really enjoyed the worksheet as well; It gave us a lot to reflect on about ourselves. I enjoyed talking to Brad about thing that make us unique that could be misread until explained. I loved having the practice about articulating differences in a positive light and once you can do it for yourself, it’s easier to do so for others. I believe this can be useful in the classroom since not all the students are really going to know how to approach cultural differences appropriately, especially when discussing them.

Just as some of us faced, they aren’t going to have the largest knowledge base when it comes to cultural differences before coming to Iowa State and its going to be hard to articulate what they mean which will lead to stating things in a negative light. At one point last year we did a similar thing and one of the phrases that wasn’t always used positively is 'Farm Kid' which you wouldn’t think could be used negatively but it can be. “Oh, he’s just a Farm Kid and doesn’t know…” or something like that can come up in the classroom and if you can’t rearticulate that back to them or explain why that isn’t appropriate, it could be difficult for some of the students that do associate themselves as a ‘Farm Kid’. 

Mid-Year Institue and ISLE Sessions

I apologize in advance for the length of this blog post but I have a lot of things to talk about for each session I attended this past weekend!

Mid-Year Institute

Resume Session

I learned a lot in this session. As always when you’re in a resume workshop, you talk a lot about wording in your resume but the presenter also covered something I’ve never had the opportunity to work on in a workshop: using descriptive language in conversation. With the career fair coming up soon, I thought it was really interesting and he had us talk to our peers about our leadership using some words most people reserve for their written resumes. I’ve never thought about needing to be able to smoothly incorporate these buzzwords in talking about myself before, nor really had the experience of talking about myself with these terms outside of an actual interview situation so I appreciate the practice. One thing that came up in the Q&A is where it is appropriate to place our experience as peer mentors. We’re not directly getting paid but it’s a lot more than being in a club. My question for everyone is, where do you think Hixson Peer Mentor should be listed? Job or involvement?

Social Media Session

I thought this was a really informative session. Obviously we’ll be using social media in the fall for Social Media Week but the women presenting really gave a lot of insight into what platforms we could be using as a communication tool within the classroom. I got a lot of tips to improve my use of social media with my students. I really liked their suggestion of asking the students before class starts or at the beginning what platforms they use to find a good middle ground. With that we could create a Facebook group or start a Twitter account separate from our personal accounts for classroom related information and reminders. They also gave the really great suggestion that I hope to use in the fall of using Google Calendars. It’s a great place to organize all the dates and its able to be shared with everyone since it’s the one platform every student will have through ISU. Another great thing they talked about was their use of Google Drive. Not only for the collaboration aspect but also an accountability approach. If the students are required to write assignments in Drive, they’ll always have it and it can elevate excuses for why they don’t have a particular assignment to turn in. No more “I forgot it” or “My computer crashed”. Either they have it done or they don’t. The only problem I can see is the fact that our classrooms are not lab-based but it could be useful.

ISLE

Group Dynamics Session

I went to this session hoping to get a lot out of it, which I did. My section had a little bit of a problem with dynamics last year and I thought it would be a great thing to get some insight. One of the things the presenters stressed was self-awareness, knowing how you communicate and what kinds of things could prevent you from communicating effectively. I think this fit perfectly with our lesson this week and getting to know our MBTI types and this class in general! Another thing they brought up was the idea about setting expectations. When the session started, ground rules and expectations were laid out and I think this is a great idea considering my experience. My co-leader and I did not set many expectations at the beginning of the semester and only did so when we ran into problems. I loved the more psychological and sociological approach they took to discussing it. I’m more of the type of person that finds motivation for actions more interesting then straight up being told what to do to control actions.

Emotional Intelligence Session 

I was drawn to this session because in my management courses we’ve talked a lot about EI and the managerial implications of it but I wanted more of the student level approach. You wouldn’t think that EI in the workplace and in a peer group would be different but they really are and should be. Even within different types of peer groups, EI needs to be approached completely different.  Emotional Intelligence is basically the ability to assess and supervise your emotions and thoughts. “Leaving it at the door” is a great example of it. If you walk into a room and let your crappy day affect you, the people in that room are going to pick up on that feeling as well. Although the presenter didn’t talk a lot about techniques to improve your EI, she did present some interesting things about why EI is important when dealing with people from our generation (Gen Y). For the most part we are highly computer literate which can also lead to having less developed interpersonal skills from hiding behind a screen, we are highly skeptical and want validation and proof of things before believing or supporting anything, and we negotiate everything and aren’t afraid to challenge others to get the information we want. These are things we’ll need to keep in mind when communicating and dealing with not only our students but also our peers outside of the classroom. Knowing what we are dealing with can help us regulate and keep composure along with knowing the appropriate communication style to approach any situation. This was really interesting to me because, as I mentioned before, I’m a motivational psychology junkie.

I know that was a lot to read and if you did it, I’m so proud of you and you deserve a hug! I can’t wait to read everyone else’s experiences and lessons they learned at MYI and ISLE!

ISFJ!

I’m just going to say it but us six introverts got to stick together in this group! I think it was great talking through the MBTI exercise questions in class. It was really great being able to talk to everyone and seeing how we view things similarly and differently.

One thing I did since Wednesday was take note of all the times I acted out of preference. I’m very aware of when I’m acting introverted and so on but I’ve never really noticed when I was out of preference. Debra was very right when she said we all use all the different types of personalities everyday. One notable situation I experienced this week was regarding a group project step due on Thursday for me. Me and four other people needed to fill out a sort of thesis worksheet explaining the basics of our project to turn in and we have been passively trying to get a time all set up to meet up and fill it out for a few weeks. So the J in me decided to get everything really set in stone and just flat out asked everyone to send me their availabilities; I sent out an email to remind everyone about the change in direction we determined after speaking to the professor. Both actions are nothing out of the ordinary for me. And then I did something that normally would be seen as very ‘judging’ and asked everyone to meet up on Saturday (because the F in me was empathetic to people not wanting to meet up on Super Bowl Sunday). As I think everyone knows now, I do not do the early starting thing. So technically I was acting more in my J but it was completely shocking to me after I pushed send. Who is this person? Getting stuff done early?

I also did a lot of introducing of myself this weekend but I think I was in my E zone after all the sessions at the Mid-Year Institute and ISLE that made me interact with people I didn’t know. It was a good change!

I also found out while surfing some MBTI-based Tumblr blogs that the character Samwise Gamgee is considered to be ISFJ. He’s always been my favorite anyway!

Knowing Your Strengths and Weakness + MBTI Excitement!

On Wednesday we did a great exercise where we looked inward and identified what will make us great peer mentors but also some things that we want to improve on. I really like doing these types of activities, especially in the context of a class. For most of our school courses we walk in knowing what we want to learn (or what we're required to learn!) but for a leadership course there is such a broad focus: To be better leaders for the Hixson Program. I love this course because its not like Calculus or English; This course is not to just learn skills but to grow as a person. There's nothing better then being able to identify what you think you need to improve on to be successful and finding a goal for yourself and having a place to really sink your teeth in to do it.
Next week we're doing MBTI and I'm really excited! I love listening to Debra talk about personality types because every time I learn more about myself and what I can do to be more successful. I wish I had paid more attention to it when I was a freshman because I changed a lot of how I do things last year and its helped me a lot because I took the time to really reflect on it which I unfortunately did not do three years ago.
I think the best thing any leader can do is know where their strengths lay but also their weaknesses. I know a lot of people that are great leaders but have taken on a challenge that end up horribly because they weren't aware of their weaknesses in the context. I'm a person that needs deadlines to get things done (thus why I'm posting this right on the deadline!) and I struggle on projects even when I love what I'm doing when told "Just have it done soon". I try to avoid things like that and if I can't I try to get a deadline out of whomever I'm reporting to. I have to do this at work a lot and I'm pretty sure my boss thinks I'm crazy every time I keep asking when she wants things finalized. It's worth it though!

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest"
-Confucius

Reflection, Leaving It At The Door, and Fish

One of the things that I still haven't mastered in the last year is the concept of 'leaving it at the door'. I consider it one of the best things I aspire to do because I think it does a lot of good to create a really good focus on what is at hand. But I still struggle with it. I consider myself to be a very optimistic person and I don't let a lot of things get to me. This is normally considered a good thing but since I don't have a lot of practice in managing lots of little issues that come up its very hard to leave it at the door when these big problems pop up. I've sat down about five times tonight to write this blog but I keep opening new tabs and Googling solutions to the numerous car problems I discovered tonight. I'll probably return to that quest when I'm done with this post but right now I'm pledging the next few minutes to this and only this. Little steps lead to great lengths!
We went around and shared what we were most looking forward to this upcoming semester(s) and I'd like to add 'having the opportunity to focus on the smaller details' to my answer. These details are the little things that I neglected when focusing on the big picture last year. Now I have the basics down and its time to focus on learning the little things that will make the student's first semester the best introduction to Iowa State they could receive. Looking back at the fall semester I see a lot of things I could have done better or could have done without in the lessons and a whole lot of moments I could say 'I wish I knew then what I know now'. I think watching FISH! was a great reminder of what we, as peer mentors, can accomplish when adjusting a few small things on how we approach something. I hope that as a returner I can help everyone else master the big picture sooner so they can focus with me. I'm looking forward to the next semester and beyond. I have a really good feeling about it!