Campus Resources and VEISHEA Week!

So this week's class we covered campus resources. I already knew about all of them pretty much due to past training, but the sheet with a list of all the office locations and phone numbers is very convenient to have. It's going to be important to not only be aware of all of the resources available for students on campus, but also to be able to communicate exactly what they are for the incoming class of Hixson Scholars. I think it would be really beneficial to give personal experiences with resources if we have used them, as opposed to just talking about something we may not necessarily ever have used.
I met one of the workers at Taco Bell earlier who pretty much perfectly embodies the FISH philosophy. Normally when I go to fast-food restaurants (rarely), the workers there just seem really depressed and don't want to be there at all. The guy working today was really happy to see everybody, kept checking up on people to see how they were doing, and told jokes to pretty much everybody that walked in. It's amazing what just being happy and actually having a conversation with people can do.
Next week we have our Portfolios due...pretty much a compilation of all of the work we've done this semester and everything we've learned. I actually look forward to completing it just to see how much I've benefited from this semester, and using the material in the Portfolio for the actual class next fall. I REALLY want to get started on Orientation this summer, planning and executing Destination Iowa State, and helping to acclimate the new Hixson Scholars to Iowa State. Another reason I look forward to next fall...is I found out my room in Helser next year is the largest CA room, it's the only one with air conditioning, a private restroom, plus the current CA is including an extra storage unit and futon for me...for free! It's pretty much the best room in the building, besides the HD apartment obviously!
This past week has been a pretty fun week. We performed twice for Dance Marathon, once at Greek's Got Talent, and then for the Lip-Sync finals at Scheman auditorium. It made me miss performing like I used to in high school and my first year here before I became too busy. Next week it's going to be VEISHEA though which is going to be a really interesting week! Two exams, Transfer Orientation, Portfolio's due, Leadership Recognition Ceremony, DM performances, and marching in the VEISHEA Parade for IRHA. I remember VEISHEA being one of my favorite weeks last year, and I intend on that being the same for this year. I hope everybody has a fun, safe VEISHEA, and I'll see everybody in class Wednesday!

Teamwork

So this week's class was probably one of my favorites...since we were semi-outside and the weather on Wednesday was absolutely amazing. The activity that Matt and Chelsee planned was very interactive and is definitely something I'd consider trying with my students next semester, since it really did a lot to engage learning. I also liked the perspective the Decision-Making Assessment brought to us. Like I said in class, I scored highest on Intuitive and Spontaneous equally, and then second highest on Rational, which actually does make a lot of sense for me. I like to live in the moment and oftentimes make quick decisions just based off of my feelings, but I don't entirely disregard the facts and I do consider situational factors as well that may influence my decision. So while I do make quick decisions, I do have some rationality behind them most of the time. My lowest were Dependent and Avoidant. Like I said in class, I don't really rely on others for help much and I'm fairly independent. I will provide support and guidance to others and like to spend time with lots of people pretty much all of the time, but when it comes to making personal decisions, I like to be very independent. I guess it comes from never really looking up to too many people when I was young. My second lowest was Avoidant, even though there are some things (like a five page research paper that's due tomorrow...that I started and finished today) I will wait a while before doing. Although I don't consider myself a procrastinator...I don't necessarily put it off, I just need pressure before I can do certain things, such as writing a paper.
The two questions we were asked for accountability were in what positive ways do we contribute to groups we are a part of, and what's a way we can improve. I believe the best way I contribute to a group is through enthusiasm and positive attitude. During my Cyclone Aide overnight retreat when we were writing positive qualities on everybody's back, my most consistent feedback was stuff like "Great energy" "Love the enthusiasm" "Your positivity and enthusiasm are contagious". I always try to be enthusiastic about everything (although it can be a bit overbearing for some people). One way I could improve is by allowing others to contribute or share their ideas. As I've shared before, oftentimes I have a tendency to take charge and overshadow people who may not be as dominant or might not be as willing to verbalize their ideas. I know as a Peer Mentor next year I'll have to make extra effort to include students who might not necassarily want to speak up right away.
Yay! I actually did my entry before Sunday ended. VEISHEA's coming up next week. Who's excited? The semester's nearly over. I can't wait for this summer and then next fall when we get to welcome the 2010 class of Hixsons!

Lesson Planning and Hixson Retreat

So...once again, I am late with this post. Don't worry. I'm going to make myself do 20 laps around the Hixson building to punish myself, so it's all good.
Our lesson this past Wednesday was on writing effective lesson plans. This area is probably one of my biggest weaknesses because I'm the type of person that doesn't plan ahead and just "wings" it, a technique which I've used successfully in the past and oftentimes with humorous results, but when it comes to facilitating a classroom, it may not be exactly the best method. I'll also have to keep in mind that in order for it to be an effective classroom, the students will be doing more of the talking as opposed to the instructors.
This weekend we had our Peer Mentoring Retreat, where we went all around Ames and ISU and took a bunch of crazy pictures for a scavenger hunt. Our group seemed to have a recurring theme of having me elevated in every picture, so it'll be funny to see all of the pictures Lisa took. I kind of experience some of the Experience Iowa State guests out...I was still in my STARS uniform when we were by Carver Hall taking pictures with the statue and I was kind of...climbing on the statue at the time holding peanut butter. Needless to say the guests were confused and we left kind of quickly. It was pretty hillarious though. We met at Perfect Games to play bowling and I reaffirmed just how HORRIBLE I am at bowling although I did get a spare and imprvoed immensely the second half. (My goal was 50, and I got 71 so that's not too bad.) We played lasertag and I ended up getting 7 out of 9...I probably would have gotten higher if I didn't happen to be Heath's favorite victim! (Allie, if you are reading this, you are now my favorite grad. assistant.)
Hope you all have a nice week and I look forward to Wednesday's class!

Guiding Values and Hard Topics

I thought the way Cody and Lauren did the class discussion was great. Typically we do TTYP, which I still think is pretty effective, but it's good to avoid getting into too much of a pattern and mixing things up a bit. All of the guiding values we talked about are important, and I liked how we were all given the opportunity to elaborate on one of them. The one I had was Positive Thinking, something I believe I try to embody to it's fullest extent. Like I said in class, I try to live in the moment and not let other things that are going on effect my interactions with others or the task at hand. I currently do have a couple of things going on. I'm waiting to hear back about some interviews and applications, I recently was told by a friend of mine whose had emotional problems for a while that she's liked me as more than just a friend the past couple of years and whenever she's been with other guys she's thinking of me, and I recently found out a friend of mine is dropping out this Monday, in addition to having some slight financial problems currently. Nobody really knows about these things going on with me because I choose to ignore it whenever there is stuff to be done and focus on it only when I can do it on my own time and not ruin somebody else's experience.
We also talked about some difficult situations that might come up as Peer Mentors. Although we laughed quite a bit at some of them, they are all serious situations that we may potentially deal with. Personally, I don't see myself being at an underage drinking party next year (I will be of age at the time though.), but if I were and saw one of my mentees there, I would probably leave. I think we also did a good job of trying to set boundaries for the Mentor/Mentee relationship. We don't want to exclude others and we also want to avoid awkward situations. Without getting into details, stuff has happened between others and I in situations where we had to keep things professional, and when that fell through it did make things very awkward. We will have to think more about these situations as we get closer to the fall and as they come up. Luckily we will have a class together where we can discuss them.

ISCORE

So apparently with Spring Break coming up at the time and me being rushed all of the time....I forgot to actually SAVE and publish my last entry... so feel free to punish me if you want.
ISCORE was actually pretty amazing. I remember the morning of I really wasn't looking forward to attending since I'd be leaving that afternoon for a Cyclone Aide Retreat. It was definitely worth it though. I went to Hannah's session over Hispanics in America. Hannah did an AMAZING job, and I was very impressed. Good job Hannah! It's important to realize that even though we as caucasians might think there is equality in America, there really isn't. We have come a long way but there is still much further to go.
The second session was over Multicultural Athlete's Experience here at Iowa State. This session really opened my eyes. To be honest, I didn't really think athletes here had as many stringent requirements, and I had no idea they had to work equally as hard in the classroom, as hard as they were working in the field. Unfortunately I see lots of student athletes not really taking advantage of there opportunities...many times in the Hixson center I see some of them just sitting around talking and not working. However, there are some I see who are working all of the time and I have great respect for all of their contributions. We shouldn't just assume that all of them are the same and don't do work (that would be outgroup homogeneity bias. Just throwing out some Psych terms for Heath and Chelsea!).
For lunch we had Native American food. It was actually pretty good, and it was good to get to sit with some of the other Hixsons and discuss the sessions...even though I'm lucky I haven't had nightmares yet about Kelly's headless emu story.
Unfortunately I had to leave ISCORE at that time to head to class and head to our overnight Cyclone Aide retreat. Once again, I really wasn't looking forward to the retreat that much, but it was AMAZING. Probably one of the best weekends I've had of this semester. We did lots of team building and get to know you activities, some of which I might try to implement with my mentees for next year. We also did some more in-depth personal activities...it was actually really good to get to hear what other people thought of me in the group, even though it was anonymous and we couldn't identify who said what about us, it was good to hear how I'm perceived by others. It definitely helps knowing how you come off to others so you can be more effective in communicating with them.
Overall, it was a very fun and enlightening weekend. I will definitely encourage my students next year to attend ISCORE. It is a very positive experience.

Recent Activities

So it's been a pretty eventful week. Being somewhat indirectly involved with the whole GSB election-scandal thing that the Daily pretty much misconstrued, preparing a Health/Wellness Presentation for IRHA tonight, doing a speaker introduction for Cyclone Aide training, and having pretty much half the class and some Cyclone Aides shadow my tour today only to end up with the guy who was supposed to pick us up at Gerdin forgetting about us, and heading to Madrid, IA tomorrow after ISCORE for a Cyclone Aide retreat. I also found out I'm a Community Advisor for Helser next year, so that's going to be interesting when August comes around with Destination Iowa State/Fall Move-In and training. Overall this week has been like a marathon and I definitely look forward to the Cyclone Aide retreat and getting to have fun.
In class we talked a bit about metacognition. Metacognition is very important when trying to avoid biases and avoiding Fundamental Attribution Error (one of my favorite phrases lately). I think it's something I actually started a bit earlier this semester, and even during Cyclone Aide training today we talked about a similiar idea. It's kind of interesting that a lot of my training actually ends up overlapping, but I guess it goes to show that it's very important when working with students.
I think that's all I have for now. ISCORE is coming up tomorrow so I will probably do a longer entry for that. Thanks to everybody who came on my campus tour today, especially with as chaotic as everything was today!

Effective Communication and Course Facilitation

Effective communication is key when it comes to instructing a seminar, but also to just everyday life. The beginning of the class was spent discussing times when communication has failed. I only used a recent example in class, but there have been several times in the past where communication has failed for me. Either somebody had taken something the wrong way, not everybody was informed of everything, or people were given false and/or misleading information. If communication fails, oftentimes the given task at hand fails and that is very nonconducive to our purpose. We want the incoming Hixson Scholars to be successful and to benefit from the Hixson Program as much as possible...that can't happen if communication isn't successful so we need to be careful to communicate properly.
We talked about the most effective ways to communicate material in the class. We discussed several different techniques: Think/Pair/Share which was pretty much TTYP, Q-SPACE(otherwise known as Q-Spot according to Cody), and lecture. There was pretty much a mutual agreement that TTYP was the most effective technique, and it is the technique we primarily use in class. TTYP allows for people to make a personal connection with somebody else and to engage in higher-level thinking and deep conversation, as opposed to just passively listening. It also holds people accountable for listening when they have to report back on what their partner has said. Q-SPACE I think will also be effective, since it allows people to discuss their ideas in more of a public forum and listen to the entire group, however it runs the danger of people just passively sitting there as well. Lecture is probably the least effective and will probably be used the least...only for logistics and information the students may not be able to get themselves. Plus lecture is the most boring and I wouldn't feel like standing in front of a room and talking for 50 minutes straight (I also find it hillarious that Chelsee, Heath, and I are all Psychology majors, ENFP, and expressed the most dislike for lecture-based classes.)
There are also some other things about communication that we didn't really talk too much about in class that I think are important, mainly having to do with speaking technique. Articulation and speaking clearly is very important...it's important that the students actually know what you are saying and aren't confused about what you actually said. Projection is very important as well...although it won't really be too much of an issue in the seminars since everybody will be close together, it's still important to make sure everybody can hear you. Eye contact is important as well..it makes everybody feel included and also makes more of a personal connection as opposed to just standing there staring into space talking.
I think I will end the entry here. I look forward to next week's class and attending the ISCORE conference. I hope everybody has a nice week!