Learning Communities Mini-Institute

Hello everybody. Here's my first entry for the U. ST 311 blog!

This past week I attended a session both at Iowa State Leadership Experience and at the Learning Communities Mini-Institute. The session I attended at Iowa State Leadership Experience was about running virtual meetings, although all of the rules applied to face-to-face meetings as well. Although I haven't had too much experience with virtual meetings, I have plenty of experience with face-to-face meetings. An interesting thing I noticed was the meetings I attended that went well actually followed the rules set aside during our brainstorming sessions. The organizations I'm apart of that had meetings that didn't really follow these rules aren't quite as effective. I am the co-facilitator of meetings as part of my obligation of being Vice-President of Maple, so I will definitely try to implement these strategies during meeting facilitation.
Today I also attended a session at the Learning Communities Mini-Institute. I wanted to attend more than just one, but unfortunately I had a residence hall tour at 11 am I had to give, so I was only able to go to one session. The session I went to was about Kolb's Learning Theory, facilitated by Craig Zywicki, an employee of the Academic Success Center. Although the session was kind of awkward at first because everybody in there besides me were student affairs professionals/in a professional advisory position of some sort, I quickly become acclimated to the session. We filled out a brief assessment on learning preferences and I found out I am primarily guided by experience and emotion, which places me on the Activist spectrum on Kolb's learning theory. This is very consistent with the way I actually am. I don't like to plan things ahead of time, I'm just spontaneous and jump right in. I rarely write rough drafts or plan for papers...I sit down the night before and just write it out, usually with great success. When giving a presentation or speech I prefer to just wing it as opposed to being too prepared. I don't become too concerned with minor details and prefer to spend time on meaningful tasks....I don't like to waste time and always want to be doing things. However, lately I have had to delve more into my planning side. I am currently the Mass Gatherings/Facilities Chair for a potential conference, which requires a lot of organization and planning. I am also involved in several other leadership positions and work as a Cyclone Aide, all of which require a lot of planning and attention to detail and interpersonal dynamics. Although I can still function quite well in other moods, I still find when given the choice, I prefer to just jump right in. As a Peer Mentor, always going with this approach could be problematic. Some people could find my direct attitude offputting. I need to learn to plan a bit ahead of time before approaching a situation, so I don't just start talking and potentially say the wrong thing. Throughout the semester I hope to work on this, both for the benefits of my fellow Peer Mentors and Mentees, and to help me improve my performance in other areas as well.
I look forward to Peer Mentor training this semester, and actually being able to put it into practice next fall (I'm an Activist, so obviously I can't wait to just DO it. :)) I hope I can help my mentees in anyway I can and improve myself in the process. Here's to a good semester and good Peer Mentoring experience!

-Austin