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!