This week for the Hixson's they got to experience Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Although the students versions aren't as in depth as us mentors are, I still think that the knowledge that is gained from these reports are essential. The Myers-Brigg is just a test of questions that you pick an answer and from your choices it tells you more about your personality and preferences for doing things. There are four main clarity preferences you can fall into, and with in each there is two types. The first is where you get your energy, either Extraversion or Introversion. The next is how you become aware of information, either Sensing or Intuition. The third is how you decide or come to a conclusion about the information (Thinking or Feeling). An the last is how we deal with the world around us, Judging or Perceiving.
As for myself I am an ESTP. When I first read this, I didn't really know what it meant or how it effected me. As I read further into the packet and it got more in depth with each of my levels, I really began to understand the results. For example, although I am an E, Extraversion, which is totally me because I am a very energetic person an I love being round friends, I still have an Introversion quality which it actually identified and described me quite perfectly. I love to be around friends and family yet, I still have a private vulnerable side of me that is hard for me to share with others. I avoid talking about super personal issues and if I do, it tends to make me feel uncomfortable.
It literally just stunned me that this report could figure this out about me just from me answering some simple questions. While this report tells you what you are it doesn't mean that you always are this way. It may be just that day you answered the questions in that way. It also tells you how to improve yourself with the type that you are. As a mentor and being in a leadership position this is great help. It tells us how we like to communicate then gives us heads up on what we should try and do, seeing how everyone in the world is not our type. I really enjoy the Myers-Brigg because as a college student, we are in that stage of our lives where we are figuring out just who we are and who we want to become an this gives just a little insight to this.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Scavenger Hunt
Hope everyone had a great VEISHEA week/weekend! For this week in class Allie and Silas put on a scavenger hunt for us peer mentors instead of actual lecture. We were to go around with the list of buildings we were to find and take pictures of standing in front of that building that offered that a service on the list provided. Some of the listed buildings were like the Study Abroad Center, Thielen Health Center, Student Services, and Financial Aid Office. We also could take pictures with art, sculptures, and such also for points towards the scavenger hunt. While the hunt was for fun it also had a point. I felt that it was a good activity for us mentors to participate in because next year when we have our mentees they might have questions for us about where certain places on campus are and it would be great if we could lead them right to where they need to go or if we can't physically take be able to tell them where it is exactly. It was also good to just be able to bond with your group because we have to work together in our groups later on. With the hunt we had to figure out where everything was and manage our time to get back to the Hixson Building before the time limit! This our group pretty much did, but we were like 2 minutes late or so.
We also did some much needed filming tonight and I think the movie is coming along good. See you all Tuesday!
We also did some much needed filming tonight and I think the movie is coming along good. See you all Tuesday!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
World Religions 101
This Sunday I went to the my last diversity event, World Religions 101. For this event there was a board which was run by students of different religions which included Christianity, Atheism, Hinduism, and Islam. Each student then stood up introduced themselves and the religions they were representing. Afterwards then they went through and talked for about 10-15 minutes about what their religions was about and why they believed or didn't believe. While they were talking if you had a question for anyone concerning the religion or anything at all you were able to text in a question for everyone or just one person.
I can't remember names, but the first guy talked about how he was raised a Christian and how he was never very serious about it until college and he started believing more and getting involved with church things. The next guy talked about that he was Atheist and he was raised a Christian all of his life and when he got into high school he really liked science. Yet, since science is built off a lot of proving things he couldn't believe in something that couldn't be disproved or proved. While he would like to know the answer to if there is a God or not, for now he doesn't believe in anything. The third guy was a believer in Hinduism. He explained how Hinduism has four types, like Karma, and how as a religion it accepts all religions and thinks they are all right and trying to get to the same God, just in different ways. He explained that it is more important that you are trying to get to God rather than how you do it. The last guy explain Islam, he told how he came from Kuwait seven years ago and that he wasn't a hardcore Islam at first. He then told how he deals with having to pray five times a day on campus and explain that just because your Muslim doesn't mean your a terrorist.
I think the board did a really good job for the time that was allowed of them to explain things. While I think that one of its faults was that if someone had come there for real questions, they probably were not answered because of the lack of experience. Yet if you wanted to know just a little bit about it then it proved well worth it. Overall it was a good opportunity to broaden my outlook.
I can't remember names, but the first guy talked about how he was raised a Christian and how he was never very serious about it until college and he started believing more and getting involved with church things. The next guy talked about that he was Atheist and he was raised a Christian all of his life and when he got into high school he really liked science. Yet, since science is built off a lot of proving things he couldn't believe in something that couldn't be disproved or proved. While he would like to know the answer to if there is a God or not, for now he doesn't believe in anything. The third guy was a believer in Hinduism. He explained how Hinduism has four types, like Karma, and how as a religion it accepts all religions and thinks they are all right and trying to get to the same God, just in different ways. He explained that it is more important that you are trying to get to God rather than how you do it. The last guy explain Islam, he told how he came from Kuwait seven years ago and that he wasn't a hardcore Islam at first. He then told how he deals with having to pray five times a day on campus and explain that just because your Muslim doesn't mean your a terrorist.
I think the board did a really good job for the time that was allowed of them to explain things. While I think that one of its faults was that if someone had come there for real questions, they probably were not answered because of the lack of experience. Yet if you wanted to know just a little bit about it then it proved well worth it. Overall it was a good opportunity to broaden my outlook.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Goals
Hey everybody! Hope everyone got out and enjoyed the GORGEOUS weather we had this weekend! I know I did, went fishing, riding 4-wheelers, and golfing! Enough about that though, on Tuesday Karen and Zach talked about chapter ten: Planing and Problem solving. For most of the class period we spent our time talking about goals and how they effect us as students and mentors. Goals as a student and as an overall person are very important because I personally believe that if you go through life without ever setting goals, yes you may never be a failure, but at the same time you wont ever be a winner either. How would you ever know if you ever got anything accomplished that you wanted to, or made sure you did certain things that were important to you? While I feel goals are very important at the same time they can be very restricting. They can make you have tunnel vision by only focusing on that goal or making it something that you can never reach. That's why when making your goals its important to have a system that helps you set them.
To help with this system we talked about how there are also different types of goals as well. The two types of goals we talked about were the four M's and SMART goals. We were then asked to make goals for different situations and use one of the system. Doing this we really familiarized ourselves with these two systems. The four M's system is in my eyes more of a broader system that you can use for setting goals that are in the future. The steps to the four M's is Motivation, Make commitments, Modify environment, and Monitor actions. With these step's you can help develop a long term plan. With the SMART goals it is more detailed oriented and used for short term goals. For students I think that SMART goals are the right choice because you can easily tell if your on track with the goal and is something that is actually reachable. Just while in college you need to make smart goals so you don't let yourself down.
To help with this system we talked about how there are also different types of goals as well. The two types of goals we talked about were the four M's and SMART goals. We were then asked to make goals for different situations and use one of the system. Doing this we really familiarized ourselves with these two systems. The four M's system is in my eyes more of a broader system that you can use for setting goals that are in the future. The steps to the four M's is Motivation, Make commitments, Modify environment, and Monitor actions. With these step's you can help develop a long term plan. With the SMART goals it is more detailed oriented and used for short term goals. For students I think that SMART goals are the right choice because you can easily tell if your on track with the goal and is something that is actually reachable. Just while in college you need to make smart goals so you don't let yourself down.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
For this blog it really took me a long time to write it. For one I can't hardly remember what we did in class and two it was a pretty short one so please bear with me.
On Tuesday it was pretty nasty out and we had a lot of perilous weather going on so hopefully everyone made it home alright. In class Silas and Allie lead the way with the discussion about facilitation. We talked about a lot of good points including different types of intelligence, learning styles, and teaching methods. All of these are very important when it comes to being a facilitator. During class we talked about how intelligence is related to learning. There are different types of intelligence and although it does have to do with how smart you are, it also has to do with your capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. There are eight different types of intelligence which are Bodily/kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Logical/mathematical, Musical/rhythmic, Naturalist/adventurer, Verbal/linguistic, and Visual/spatial. All of these make for different types of people and different types of learning.
Intelligence is the link to learning styles. During class we briefly talked about the different learning style that people have. Some people learning more visually than verbally. Others may be more hands on type of people. No matter the intelligence or the learning style, it is our job as facilitators to incorporate a lesson plan or in our teaching style to be able to connect to our students in the correct way so that they learn the material and know what it is that is expected and wanted out of them.
A good example of how the Hixson program is helping us with our facilitating skill is these blogs. While they may seem dumb and time consuming if you get right down to it these blogs not only make us step back and look at the material we learned for the week and what it means to us as future mentors, but it also is helping us at the same time with our communication skills in writing. This is a HUGE thing because not only will we most likely be in contact with our mentees by email, but you use writing skills in so many other places that it is a good tool to have in your arsenal. So I hope everyone does the best they can on these things because it will only help you in the long run. See everyone on Tuesday! Out
On Tuesday it was pretty nasty out and we had a lot of perilous weather going on so hopefully everyone made it home alright. In class Silas and Allie lead the way with the discussion about facilitation. We talked about a lot of good points including different types of intelligence, learning styles, and teaching methods. All of these are very important when it comes to being a facilitator. During class we talked about how intelligence is related to learning. There are different types of intelligence and although it does have to do with how smart you are, it also has to do with your capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. There are eight different types of intelligence which are Bodily/kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Logical/mathematical, Musical/rhythmic, Naturalist/adventurer, Verbal/linguistic, and Visual/spatial. All of these make for different types of people and different types of learning.
Intelligence is the link to learning styles. During class we briefly talked about the different learning style that people have. Some people learning more visually than verbally. Others may be more hands on type of people. No matter the intelligence or the learning style, it is our job as facilitators to incorporate a lesson plan or in our teaching style to be able to connect to our students in the correct way so that they learn the material and know what it is that is expected and wanted out of them.
A good example of how the Hixson program is helping us with our facilitating skill is these blogs. While they may seem dumb and time consuming if you get right down to it these blogs not only make us step back and look at the material we learned for the week and what it means to us as future mentors, but it also is helping us at the same time with our communication skills in writing. This is a HUGE thing because not only will we most likely be in contact with our mentees by email, but you use writing skills in so many other places that it is a good tool to have in your arsenal. So I hope everyone does the best they can on these things because it will only help you in the long run. See everyone on Tuesday! Out
Sunday, March 13, 2011
χρησιμοποιώντας αποτελεσματικούς ανακοίνωση.
Hey everybody! Hope the last week of school went well for everyone and is now enjoying your Spring Break! If your like me I didn't go anywhere cool or fun except back home :( Anyways, last week Chelsee and Brandon lead us in class about communication. It think they did a super job! I really liked the activity they did because not only was it fun, but it was also a good representation of how little things can get distorted a little bit from one person to the next, but by the the time it reaches someone else 20 people later the message can be COMPLETELY different. They also talked about how to use the communications skills we have now with our mentees and how to improve our weaker skills.
I personally am a people person so I like to meet with a person face to face because when your face to face things don't get lost in translation as easy. If they do get lost you can ask right then and there for clarification and I think it benefits all. You can also use many different communication methods while meeting face to face like pictures or hand motions. I also use my phone a lot of times to communicate on a daily basis with friends or family, but I think as a mentor you need to look at two things when deciding your communication method. I use a little trick that helps me to decided the proper method for the situation. One is who are you going to be telling this to. If it is a friends then your options maybe larger than if it is a possible employment opportunity. Second is decided how important the message is, is it something really important or just a reminder. With these two little trick and practice I believe as a mentor you can improve your communication skills.
In the book it had a lot of helpful hints as well. In one section it described the difference between communication as a mentor and other communication. I think this is important as well and can be evaulated in my little trick I described earlier. It also talked about ineffective methods of communication and how to over come a lot these like lazyness, burned-out, and being destracted. I think the last two I put are some of the most important to hit on because I know after mid-terms or when a break is approaching that even I feel a lot of these feelings. Yet you need to tell your mentees how it's important to finish strong and not just glide through.
I know that everyone will learn their strong points and weak points and do their best to improve both. Hope everyone as a great break! Out.
P.S. If you were wondering what my title says, it is Greek for "Using effecitive communication." It thought it was kind of cool to show different communication :)
I personally am a people person so I like to meet with a person face to face because when your face to face things don't get lost in translation as easy. If they do get lost you can ask right then and there for clarification and I think it benefits all. You can also use many different communication methods while meeting face to face like pictures or hand motions. I also use my phone a lot of times to communicate on a daily basis with friends or family, but I think as a mentor you need to look at two things when deciding your communication method. I use a little trick that helps me to decided the proper method for the situation. One is who are you going to be telling this to. If it is a friends then your options maybe larger than if it is a possible employment opportunity. Second is decided how important the message is, is it something really important or just a reminder. With these two little trick and practice I believe as a mentor you can improve your communication skills.
In the book it had a lot of helpful hints as well. In one section it described the difference between communication as a mentor and other communication. I think this is important as well and can be evaulated in my little trick I described earlier. It also talked about ineffective methods of communication and how to over come a lot these like lazyness, burned-out, and being destracted. I think the last two I put are some of the most important to hit on because I know after mid-terms or when a break is approaching that even I feel a lot of these feelings. Yet you need to tell your mentees how it's important to finish strong and not just glide through.
I know that everyone will learn their strong points and weak points and do their best to improve both. Hope everyone as a great break! Out.
P.S. If you were wondering what my title says, it is Greek for "Using effecitive communication." It thought it was kind of cool to show different communication :)
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Diversity
Hey everyone, I have a lot to talk about and just want to thank everyone for listening and joining in. First off, let me just apologize for the activity because after we were done it seemed we got a lot of negative feed back and if it offended anyone at all I am TRULY TRULY TRULY sorry. We took the activity from a professional speaker who used it so what Jenna and I thought would help everyone see that no matter what you do in life there will always be stereotypes about yourself and others and as a mentor you should try to minimize those by not taking part in and or showing that those stereotypes can be hurtful to others and really get drilled into people over the course of the day. We didn't pick the things on the card out of spit or to try and be mean and mock them nor did we purposely put the cards on people. About 98% of what we wrote on the cards was what was actually used by David Colemen himself so if you took the activity the wrong way I'm sorry that you either
A) Didn't understand its purpose of it or
B) Was hurt by something that was wrote on a card so automatically thought it was meant in a negative way.
Either way I'm still sorry for the confusion. It was meant to be educational and yet fun for all which is how it was used by David Colemen. I will be honest, when people started saying a lot of negatives things about us and our activity it really upset me and I'm all for constructive criticism, I just felt as if Jenna and I were being personally attacked so it upset me greatly which is why I chose to leave. I'm not upset about it now so it's all fine, no hard feelings anyone.
For those of you who enjoyed the activity, I'm really glad you did and I hope that you really learned something about diversity and how it isn't just race or sex. It is an overall being of a person and can be used positively or negatively. Some people may chose to be identified with somethings, while others aspects they don't have a choice. No matter the cause you need to be courteous, respectful, and be accepting. Diversity is just a topic that a lot of people don't really wanna talk about and is one that is really difficult to try and teach someone with out coming off in a bad way. I'm sure everyone will do great when teaching their mentees about it themselves. Hopefully everyone has a good week before spring break has a good spring break. Be safe and see you all next week.
A) Didn't understand its purpose of it or
B) Was hurt by something that was wrote on a card so automatically thought it was meant in a negative way.
Either way I'm still sorry for the confusion. It was meant to be educational and yet fun for all which is how it was used by David Colemen. I will be honest, when people started saying a lot of negatives things about us and our activity it really upset me and I'm all for constructive criticism, I just felt as if Jenna and I were being personally attacked so it upset me greatly which is why I chose to leave. I'm not upset about it now so it's all fine, no hard feelings anyone.
For those of you who enjoyed the activity, I'm really glad you did and I hope that you really learned something about diversity and how it isn't just race or sex. It is an overall being of a person and can be used positively or negatively. Some people may chose to be identified with somethings, while others aspects they don't have a choice. No matter the cause you need to be courteous, respectful, and be accepting. Diversity is just a topic that a lot of people don't really wanna talk about and is one that is really difficult to try and teach someone with out coming off in a bad way. I'm sure everyone will do great when teaching their mentees about it themselves. Hopefully everyone has a good week before spring break has a good spring break. Be safe and see you all next week.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Role Models
When I say role models what comes to your mind, is it your personal role models? Or is it how you can become one/better one? Or maybe its even the movie Role Models. Well personally I hope it's not the movie because that movie portrays horrible values of a mentor. While the movie is quite hilarious I hope that no one acts like that with their mentees. While reading the chapter for this week it gave eighteen values that it thought was important to have as mentor. Not only is it important to have them, but to also try and to pass them along as well. In class as an activity Amy and Rachel would write three of the eighteen values on the board and we had to first go to the side of the room which represented the value we thought was our strongest out of the three, afterwards we would go to the corner that was our weakest. I thought this was a really great exercise cause not only did it get you thinking about the meaning of the values, but also why you thought you were weak or strong at them. It really forced you to think within yourself and about your values and how you were strong at them or weak and how you can become better at them. I thought it was also great to see how the other mentors compared or contrasted with yourself and made me think that if I needed up on one of the values then you could always talk to them about how they got to have it as a strong value. I really thought that Rachel and Amy did a great job on leading us and can't wait to see them lead again.
This chapter, whilst it was short, still held a lot of depth and meaning. It really is about teaching us how to become an overall better person and to reflect and teach this to our mentees. It also made us think about who we admire the most and why. What can we do to become more like them or what qualities do we already posses that make us like them. I hope everyone has a good week, it's suppose to be warmer so enjoy! Get ready for me and Jenna coming at you on Tuesday! Out!
This chapter, whilst it was short, still held a lot of depth and meaning. It really is about teaching us how to become an overall better person and to reflect and teach this to our mentees. It also made us think about who we admire the most and why. What can we do to become more like them or what qualities do we already posses that make us like them. I hope everyone has a good week, it's suppose to be warmer so enjoy! Get ready for me and Jenna coming at you on Tuesday! Out!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
What does self-awareness mean? To most people it just means to be conscious of your actions and what is going on around you, yet to a mentor it means much more. To a mentor yes it does mean this, but it also means to know this and with this knowledge, use it to help others. For mentors, self-awareness is a necessary tool because to help others, you must first understand yourself. In the reading for this week it talked about how understanding yourself can not only improve how you feel about yourself, but can give you a sense of empowerment as we realize that we have the ability to improve or own circumstances. With this there are six types of self-awareness: intellectual, resource, physical, emotional, social, spiritual. While all of these are important, mostly one is more important to a person and is a big driving force. It also talked about the self-system and how self-esteem, self-concept, and self-efficacy are all related and effect each other. With all these tools you may ask well how do I use these to help myself change or improve? The answer to this is that most everything that we do as humans is out of habit. The way to improve or change is that once we are self-aware of our actions and etc, we can use them in everyday situations to help get practice. Over time we will change, its almost training yourself.
While in class we talked about a lot of these subjects. We all went around and shared some insight about ourselves and where we get our drive in life. A lot of these stories were quite private an I want to thank everyone for opening up and sharing. I don't know for everyone, but for me it was actually quite hard to open up about mine, it was an emotional time for me so telling everyone made me a little emotional about it. In response to the blog question, my role as a mentor and helping them become self-aware is to lead them down the right path. A lot students may come in already knowing themselves yet others will have no idea. I feel like I can help them by talking with them and telling my story and tell them how it changed me. I can ask them simple questions that will get them thinking like, what is it that is most important in your life? What would you do to keep that thing in your life? Questions like this can really make you think about your life and what you want out of it. I want to thank Anthony and Beth for doing a great job. Thanks for reading! Have a good one, out.
While in class we talked about a lot of these subjects. We all went around and shared some insight about ourselves and where we get our drive in life. A lot of these stories were quite private an I want to thank everyone for opening up and sharing. I don't know for everyone, but for me it was actually quite hard to open up about mine, it was an emotional time for me so telling everyone made me a little emotional about it. In response to the blog question, my role as a mentor and helping them become self-aware is to lead them down the right path. A lot students may come in already knowing themselves yet others will have no idea. I feel like I can help them by talking with them and telling my story and tell them how it changed me. I can ask them simple questions that will get them thinking like, what is it that is most important in your life? What would you do to keep that thing in your life? Questions like this can really make you think about your life and what you want out of it. I want to thank Anthony and Beth for doing a great job. Thanks for reading! Have a good one, out.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Relationships/Anyone wanna be my Valentine?
Well first off I just wanna say I had this blog done, then realized I wrote about the wrong subject so I deleted what I had then also realized I could have saved the one I just wrote for later but its to late for that now....eff my life haha. Anyways lets get started, for this weeks blog we are talking about establishing and maintaining relationships. This chapter could possibly be one of the most important chapters in the book because when we meet our new mentees it is very important that we establish the right kind of relationshiop with them. We need to be trusted by them yet also not to far into the friend area where lines are crossed into the unprofessional area. You can think of your relationship as more of a partnership than friendship. In the book it talked about how there is stages of a mentors relationship. It starts with asking question about where you are in the stages, and by your answers it helps to tell you just where you are in the relationship. I thought this was a really good thing because sometimes you can be close to the person or so called "project" and may not even realize til you take a step back where you are. This can then help you to make corrections and or move forward.
In class Deb and Joey did a really good job with their presentation. They really got the class involved and called upon our acting skills, like Greg who played the great role of a young lady. The part that I liked about the skits we did was that they were real life situations that we could encounter next year. It actually got me thinking that if I'm out an about next year that and I see a mentee I still need to be professional about the situation and handle it in a way that doesn't reflect poorly upon myself and the University. I hope for every ones sake that no one gets in a situation that makes them feel super uncomfortable and if you so I have the up most confidence that everyone will handle it in the most professional way possible. Hope everyone has a great and enjoy some weather that is -28! Out
In class Deb and Joey did a really good job with their presentation. They really got the class involved and called upon our acting skills, like Greg who played the great role of a young lady. The part that I liked about the skits we did was that they were real life situations that we could encounter next year. It actually got me thinking that if I'm out an about next year that and I see a mentee I still need to be professional about the situation and handle it in a way that doesn't reflect poorly upon myself and the University. I hope for every ones sake that no one gets in a situation that makes them feel super uncomfortable and if you so I have the up most confidence that everyone will handle it in the most professional way possible. Hope everyone has a great and enjoy some weather that is -28! Out
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Being All You Can Be
Hey everyone, I know you all are just as sad as I am bout not having class on Tuesday and not being able to see every ones bright and beautiful faces, hope everyone can survive til next week. Anyways, this weeks blog is a combination of a couple things, chapter 3 reading and the leadership sessions we attended. Last week on Friday, we all had to attend a session, I choose to attend the session about Biofeedback: What your mind is telling you body. While my initial guess of what the session was going to be about was that it was to be based on the science of how your mind makes your body react to things and etc, it turns out the session was actually about how you can control the involuntary actions your body does and how this can help you. At first I thought it was going to be SUPER boring and stupid, but as the session went on it got really interesting about how simple things can elevate your heart rate and cause a Fight-or-Flight reaction in your mind. Once your mind does this it pretty much shuts down the frontal lobe of you brain, which is in charge of problem solving, analysis, judgement, and even memory. This effects us because if you consider yourself a bad test taker it turns out your body is probably reacting in this manner. With biofeedback you can learn to control your heart rate and mind and calm yourself down during a test and be able to rock it. Pretty cool I thought
On Saturday we had to attend another leadership session. The main speaker, David Coleman, was a really good speaker with a lot of great information. The movie Hitch was actually based off him and his job. In his speech he talked about how today while our generation is incredibly smart that a lot of people don't know how to talk to people in person or be leaders. He also brought it to our attention just how sick our generation is with taking so much on our plate that a lot of times we will just skip eating or something so we can get more things done. David brought up the point that most companies say it is only as strong as its weakest link, but he thinks this is a load and that a company is actually only as strong as its strongest link. He said he would bet everyone in the room was probably a good person, but just how good? We did a little exercise that showed us while we are good people, we still do things we shouldn't like deliberately litter, talk about people behind their back, etc. After his talk I decided to go to his small session as well. There we learned that even though you may not treat someone who is different from you much different, over the course of the day if everyone does that then it just gets beat into them and they notice that they are different. Overall he did a great job talking and to anyone who missed him I feel bad for you.
Now to the reading, in the reading for this week its main goal was to help us understand defining our roles as mentors and how to do that. In the book it talked about how there is kind of a check list that you can try to use to help yourself be a good mentor like using: First impressions, charisma, courtesy, gratitude, etc. Now that I'm in a leadership position where I have to lead and teach others, I understand better just how hard it will be to try and convey the message that I'm trying to get across. It actually kind of made me open my eyes to just how hard a teachers job probably is. Trying to get 300 people to understand the material your teaching probably super tough. I just hope I can convey the good advice I have to my students. Have a good one everybody. Out
On Saturday we had to attend another leadership session. The main speaker, David Coleman, was a really good speaker with a lot of great information. The movie Hitch was actually based off him and his job. In his speech he talked about how today while our generation is incredibly smart that a lot of people don't know how to talk to people in person or be leaders. He also brought it to our attention just how sick our generation is with taking so much on our plate that a lot of times we will just skip eating or something so we can get more things done. David brought up the point that most companies say it is only as strong as its weakest link, but he thinks this is a load and that a company is actually only as strong as its strongest link. He said he would bet everyone in the room was probably a good person, but just how good? We did a little exercise that showed us while we are good people, we still do things we shouldn't like deliberately litter, talk about people behind their back, etc. After his talk I decided to go to his small session as well. There we learned that even though you may not treat someone who is different from you much different, over the course of the day if everyone does that then it just gets beat into them and they notice that they are different. Overall he did a great job talking and to anyone who missed him I feel bad for you.
Now to the reading, in the reading for this week its main goal was to help us understand defining our roles as mentors and how to do that. In the book it talked about how there is kind of a check list that you can try to use to help yourself be a good mentor like using: First impressions, charisma, courtesy, gratitude, etc. Now that I'm in a leadership position where I have to lead and teach others, I understand better just how hard it will be to try and convey the message that I'm trying to get across. It actually kind of made me open my eyes to just how hard a teachers job probably is. Trying to get 300 people to understand the material your teaching probably super tough. I just hope I can convey the good advice I have to my students. Have a good one everybody. Out
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Who are you?
Hey everyone, hope classes went well for everybody and everyone is keeping up on homework. Well this week in class we did the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, otherwise known as MBTI. In this survey it ask you a bunch of questions and from how you answer them it gives results telling about your personality. Although most of us have already done one of these, this one was step II which means it was the super cool one and was more in depth. Instead of just having your results come back in 4 different areas, now within each of the 4 areas was five more things per area. This meant for a more accurate reading of our personality. As we went through the report in class and got to see where everybody else was, I thought it was really cool not only because you learn a lot about every ones personality if you don't know them, but you also learn a lot about yourself and I think the focus was to learn more about yourself. Because if you don't know yourself and who you are, then how can you help others?
Now my results say I'm a ESTP (Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving), in the main summary it says and I quote "ESTP's try to make life fun and often enjoy material possessions as well as physical activity. Their attitude is that life is to be lived, not analyzed in depth, and thus they are not ones to sit still. They focus on the here and now" end quote. When I read that, I thought that was hitting my personality right on the head which is really cool. Along with other things it goes on to say I'm gregarious (pronounced greg-a-rous, just in cause everyone was wondering), enthusiastic, traditional, concrete, tough, spontaneous, casual, and others. I thought this was a really cool thing and can be used to help us better understand ourselves and how we can best help others in the future. Well that's all for now, hope everyone has a good week.
Cory out
Now my results say I'm a ESTP (Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving), in the main summary it says and I quote "ESTP's try to make life fun and often enjoy material possessions as well as physical activity. Their attitude is that life is to be lived, not analyzed in depth, and thus they are not ones to sit still. They focus on the here and now" end quote. When I read that, I thought that was hitting my personality right on the head which is really cool. Along with other things it goes on to say I'm gregarious (pronounced greg-a-rous, just in cause everyone was wondering), enthusiastic, traditional, concrete, tough, spontaneous, casual, and others. I thought this was a really cool thing and can be used to help us better understand ourselves and how we can best help others in the future. Well that's all for now, hope everyone has a good week.
Cory out
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Road to Success
Hey everyone,
In this weeks blog I'll be talking about how to help your mentees make the transition into college a little easier. While reading this section I felt like a lot of what the reading was talking about, was also talking about how my first year went. One part of the reading that really stuck out in my mind was about the students situations it talked about. One was about a girl who played sports in high school and got a scholarship. When she went to college, here grades started to slip because in high school she always had someone on top of her making sure she had her homework etc done and she is having a hard time balancing her social life with her school life. I feel like this kind of applied to me because in high I always had my mom asking me about homework after I would get home from sports. Also our teachers were very considerate with our problem about being in sport. When I came to college, I had to make sure I was spending enough time studying and not on my social life and making sure I was getting my homework done on time.
In the reading it also talked about how high school is different from college. To most of us that pretty much is a no brainer, but as a freshmen I can remember coming here all star-eyed and scared like a spooked bunny, not sure what to expect. Luckily for me, I was living with a hometown friend who was a senior and who was also a Hixson scholar. He really kind of took me under his wing and guided me and really helped me succeed my first year. He taught me good study methods that worked well for him and also was there to help me on other problems I had.
During class when we were lead by our classmates, we talked a little about the Schlossberg Transition Theory. We also read about it it the reading. It talks about the 4 S's, Situation, Self, Support, and Strategies. As a mentor we can try to understand each students individual situation and offer our support and strategies to over come it, but we need to realize that even though me may "understand" we will never truly understand.
When I become a mentor I hope I am able to do the best I can to help my students overcome their problem and hopefully take them under my wing and guide them has I was guided. Thanks for reading, Cory out.
(the last part is now my sign off cause I thought it would be kind of cool haha)
In this weeks blog I'll be talking about how to help your mentees make the transition into college a little easier. While reading this section I felt like a lot of what the reading was talking about, was also talking about how my first year went. One part of the reading that really stuck out in my mind was about the students situations it talked about. One was about a girl who played sports in high school and got a scholarship. When she went to college, here grades started to slip because in high school she always had someone on top of her making sure she had her homework etc done and she is having a hard time balancing her social life with her school life. I feel like this kind of applied to me because in high I always had my mom asking me about homework after I would get home from sports. Also our teachers were very considerate with our problem about being in sport. When I came to college, I had to make sure I was spending enough time studying and not on my social life and making sure I was getting my homework done on time.
In the reading it also talked about how high school is different from college. To most of us that pretty much is a no brainer, but as a freshmen I can remember coming here all star-eyed and scared like a spooked bunny, not sure what to expect. Luckily for me, I was living with a hometown friend who was a senior and who was also a Hixson scholar. He really kind of took me under his wing and guided me and really helped me succeed my first year. He taught me good study methods that worked well for him and also was there to help me on other problems I had.
During class when we were lead by our classmates, we talked a little about the Schlossberg Transition Theory. We also read about it it the reading. It talks about the 4 S's, Situation, Self, Support, and Strategies. As a mentor we can try to understand each students individual situation and offer our support and strategies to over come it, but we need to realize that even though me may "understand" we will never truly understand.
When I become a mentor I hope I am able to do the best I can to help my students overcome their problem and hopefully take them under my wing and guide them has I was guided. Thanks for reading, Cory out.
(the last part is now my sign off cause I thought it would be kind of cool haha)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Journey to Becoming a Mentor
What does it mean to be a mentor? What separates a mentor from a friend or tutor? While reading the first chapter of the Peer Mentor book I learned the difference between these two and many other things. The journey to becoming a mentor is not a short easy one, you have to be dedicated, hardworking, and willing to be able to change things about yourself that may not be the best. While reading the book I read that the first step to becoming a mentor is finding yourself and your strengths and weaknesses. Once you have identified this you can better prepare yourself to becoming a mentor by imporving your weaknesses. I also learned that when your a mentor you need to be able to find a happy medium of keeping your realationship not to formal and not to friendly. You do this so your trusted yet also respected. That way it helps you to be effective when helping your student or students
While in class we also discussed a little more about what it takes to become a mentor and the amount of effort you need to put in. When I got the syllabus I was a little surprised, I didnt realize that the amount of work we needed to put in was gonna be this big, but I am willing to take on the work load with a positive attitude and ready to become the best mentor I can be!
While in class we also discussed a little more about what it takes to become a mentor and the amount of effort you need to put in. When I got the syllabus I was a little surprised, I didnt realize that the amount of work we needed to put in was gonna be this big, but I am willing to take on the work load with a positive attitude and ready to become the best mentor I can be!
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