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

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 :)

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.