As The End Draws Near

I am surprised that Chelsee hasn’t kicked down my door and grilled me for being such a bum with my blogs. In my defense it has been a crazy past couple of weeks.

Back on the 17^th I had the opportunity to meet with one of the donors who funds the trip I am a part of this summer. The next week I helped run Iowa FFA’s 85^th State Leadership Conference over in Hilton Coliseum. Then I jumped on a plane to Fairbanks, Alaska where I participated in their state convention. I spent dead week playing catch up as much as I could and now I am looking forward to getting through finals.

Having dinner with the donor reminded me of the dinner with Christina. I remember being super nervous that I would do something wrong or not use the correct utensil. I also remember how much fun it was. The woman has a great sense of humor and is never afraid to speak her mind.

The following week was a great reminder of what I love to do. I spent 36+ hours in Hilton Coliseum over three days so that over 4,000 members could enjoy their convention. I had this nifty little head set on and I could talk to everybody at one time. I told the spot lights when and where to point the lights, when to turn the music up, lights up/down, and when to play videos. It was super intense (like camping) but a lot of fun as well.

If you ever get a chance to travel to Alaska, jump on it! I got to do workshops with students judge contest and see some neat things.

I have to say that I am so proud of the peer mentors for their work on the digital story telling project. I made it to many of the filming times and it was great to see everyone’s enthusiasm and wiliness to get involved. I am looking forward to each of your sections videos being that they are going to have some awesome mentors to provide guidance and support.

As the semester comes to an end it is sad that I will not be seeing all of the peer mentors every Wednesday night. For those that are still in Ames this summer I hope we get to hang out! And to all taking finals this week, good luck and go get’em!

I don't know...

If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was about 9 years old, I would have had only one answer for you, a big brother. I wanted more than anything to have a little brother or sister. I wanted to show them how to play sports or beat up anybody who picked on my sibling. So I was more than excited when I found out I was going to have three little brothers. I was ecstatic to be the best role model for my younger brothers and to be a positive influence in their lives.

My brothers are ten years old now and are three of the craziest and most awesome people I know. I would do anything in the world for them and make sure they know it. And just like being a peer mentor, I want to be a model of what it means to work hard and make decisions. It was my brothers who taught me how important it is to help others. Just about anything my brothers ask me I am able to help them with. If I would have had sisters instead, that might have been a different story.

After being at Iowa State for a couple years now I have definitely learned a thing or two and I am more than willing to share my experiences. But I must also be aware that there are many things at Iowa State and in life that I do not know. We must be aware of the things we do not know, especially as a mentor to other students. It is important to stop now and again and check ourselves to make sure we are providing accurate information and those we are qualified to do so. And if we are not, the worst thing we can do is “wing it”.

Saying “I don’t know” to somebody who is coming to you for guidance or support may feel like your letting the person down. Know that you are still capable of guiding that person to somebody who is more qualified or knowledgeable so that they can get the proper help they need.

“Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.”

― Jeffrey Pfeffer

Have a great VEISHEA and make good choices!

             

Connecting Students to Resources

Discussing campus resources in class this week brought me right back to being a peer mentor. Everything from helping students with CyMail, AccessPlus, tutors and even CyRide was suddenly fresh in my mind. It is easy to take for granted how much we know about this campus and the services that it has to offer its students. Take it a step further and we make ourselves aware of other resources we weren’t even aware of and now we are tremendous resources to one another and to first year Hixson Scholars.  The challenge for us then becomes how well we can communicate these resources and have students actually take advantage of them.

            It’s easy to show students resources and easier yet to simply talk about them. We can spend hours lecturing about things students should be doing in order to be successful but I think we all know how impactful a lecture is. It can be tremendously more effective to actually demonstrate or have the group participate in an activity around the resources. Visiting the biofeedback center as a group or setting up time to take a student to the physical location.

            If we can think of creative and motivating ways to get students to take full advantage of what Iowa State has to offer its students then we can better serve them. There are dozens of resources on campus and it’s an integral part of our job to expose those resources to Hixson’s.

Learning Styles

This week we identified and discussed learning styles. More importantly we discussed the importance of different learning styles as it pertains to being a peer mentor. It is not only important to be able to identify they way in we learn best and also recognizing the learning styles of others. We putting together a lesson or doing an activity with a group we must remember to appeal to all learning styles within the group.

All of us have spent a class period listening to a professor talk at the group for 50 minutes. Unfortunately many students today do know learn well from this teaching method. Think of a class or lecture that you have attended that had a demonstration or activity that went along with the topics in class and how much more beneficial and engaging the lesson was. Some may learn best from simply hearing the material presented to them. For me personally I need to be doing or seeing something tangible in order to learn best. Learning styles can vary from person to person and can also depend on what type of material is being discussed.

As peer mentor, we prepare lesson plans weekly so that our student will gain particle information and skills in our recitation as well as the large lecture. By including a variety of delivery methods within a lesson more students will retain more information and thus be more successful in the course.  It is important to include some lecturing and discussion, but also activities that require students to talk with those around them and even move about the room.

Creating a resume for example. It is great to discuss all of the important pieces of information to have on a resume. But you can also have students bring in what they have so far and provide feedback to one another on improvement they can make.

It will be of the most benefit all around if we prepare lessons to appeal to different learning styles. Be careful not to favor your personal learning style when preparing a lesson because there will likely be someone who learns very differently than you.  

Leading Groups

I was facilitating a workshop at a leadership conference a couple years ago. We had groups of about 25 freshmen rotating through different rooms in the school. Between the first few rotations I had been hearing about a student who was being a disturbance during the presentation. I remember when the student came into my classroom he reminded me of Justin Bieber, he was a shorter kid with shaggy brown hair and he was wearing a flat billed hat. He was already chatting with the people around him and it was clear he was going to keep up his behavior from previous groups. We started the workshop by introducing ourselves as the presenters and then I immediately addressed the student who had been causing so much trouble in other workshops. I addressed him in front of the entire group and commented on his cool hat. I mentioned that I appreciated his since of style but I would be grateful if he would take his hat off being that we were inside a building. The student could have said no, could have disagreed but he didn’t. He took his hat off and was a totally different person than others had described him as. What was different? I leveled with the student. Instead of taking an authoritative position of power over him, I put the two of us on the same page. I used something as simple as wearing a hat indoors to address an even bigger problem before it arose. The student participated throughout the rest of the workshop and even had some good things to say about our topic. This is something I have always remembered throughout the workshops and presentations I have done as an FFA member and as Peer Mentor.