Week 13 Blog-Planning and Problem Solving

Hello there once again everyone. I would like to congratulate Zach and Karen on the nice job they did teaching us about Chapter 10 in the book-Planning and Problem Solving. Before this lesson I never realized there were "smart" goals as well as creating a goal using the four M's. I also enjoyed the activity we did because not only did I get to here what everyone elses goals were, it made me think about what my goals as a hixson peer mentor will be. The activity also made me think about my overall goals during my college education, which is something I haven't deeply thought about as much with the only goal in mind for me during college is graduating. I think one of the most important assets for new students is the ability to plan effectively. Now, as some of us our in our second or third year it seems to be less important since we've gotten use to the busy college life, but I feel it is much more essential to new students as they figure out what being a college student is all about. The book explains that students in transition often do not know how to organize themselves and make the best use of their time, which I think can is a perfect example of a majority of new students who come to college and have to learn responsibility. We as mentors, can model effective planning and give strategies that could work for students next year if we become good planners ourselves. The goal I chose for next year as a hixson peer mentor is to just overall know my students better by the end of the year developing a friendly relationship as well as getting to know there names and majors by the end of the year. This goal is specific because it is clear and I am able to explain it clearly. I believe it is measurable and I will be able to tell how far along I am in getting to know my students better. It is very much attainable and relevant. It is time limited because getting to know my mentee's names will need to be done by the end of the semester, yet I hope to know them all well enough within the first month.

Week 11 Blog- Debunking Myths on Immigration

Hello all. Today's lesson was on Chapter 9, Facilitating Learning. I believe this is a very important chapter because being able to make something happen or making something easier isn't always easy. Carl Rogers's three core conditions include realness, acceptance, and understanding. Learning and adapting well to these three conditions will allow you as well as help you establish credibility and influence your students. This is just one component of many more to start your journey towards achieving the ability to facilitate learning. There is much more to facilitating learning, but today I went to a diversity event about immigration called Debunking Myths on Immigration by the Iowa Immigrant Education Coalition so I would like to talk about that for a bit today.

There are currently around 11.5 million undocumented (a.k.a illegal) immigrants in the United States today. There are many myths out there which are currently very wrong for the most part. Some myths that were discussed today were those like: immigrants don't pay taxes, they take up many jobs, they don't want to learn English, they don't even want to become citizens and they only bring about higher rates of crime are only few of the many myths about immigration. Immigrants and immigrant labor are actually vital towards Iowa's economy. The Iowa Policy Project estimates that undocumented immigrant families pay between 40 and 62 million dollars in state taxes per year. Many small businesses depend on immigrants for intense labor such as farming industries. The sad part is many can be considered better Americans than a lot of people today; we as Americans take for granted our citizenship and the services offered by our great country. America was built on mulitculturalism, yet many immigrations policies defer or make it almost impossible for immigrants to become legal Americans because it takes to much time and money. There are currently five to eight thousand immigrants (born in America automatically U.S. citizens) in accredited high schools and we have to think of them as potential assets to our country, yet we are still trying to deport them when all they know is what is in the U.S. There are millions living in the shadows of our lives today and have to put up with horrible work conditions, but are unable to go to authorities because they have no legal documentation. If you are reading this blog, take it and pass it on or even attend a different lecture on immigration to learn more and pass it on once again to decrease these myths.

Week 9 Blog

Hello again everyone. Hope all are enjoying the rain and snow that we got last night. I sure did. I enjoyed this weeks class on chapter 8 about communicating effectively. Brandon and Chelsee did a great job facilitating the lesson and got everyone involved as well. I especially liked the activity that we got to do. The activity went to show how we all look at things differently and coming from that, how we all communicate differently. I thought Chelsee and Brandon also did a great job on elaborating more after the activity and creating a great discussion afterwards. It really got my attention as well as giving me a chance to learn from previous peer mentors about their last year experiences. Communication is key in today's society and if one cannot communicate effectively, it is hard for that person to let others know how they feel about certain things.
One of my favorite ways to communicate is just straight up talking to someone. I feel as though that is the only way to get to know someone for who they actually are. Texting is another way of communication use that has skyrocketed over the past few years. Texting for me is another way to communicate to people without having to go through email or some other communication tool. Coming to college has changed the way I communicate greatly. I use email much more now (pretty much have to), I am much more open to people that I do not know and have also become a much better listener over the years. I have always treated my family differently than my friends, my boss differently than friends, and since coming to college I treat my professors differently as well. I treat certain people much more professionally while treating my friends and family more on a casual side and this has come to work for me. I know my boundaries as well has having to stay professional when needed.
I did kind of enjoy the twitter activity or I at least thought it was useful. Making students do stuff there not normally comfortable with or I guess getting them to try something new can open them up more to other new things. Twitter for example has some interesting people that you can follow as well as keeping tabs on friends or other important people in your life so it can become beneficial. I feel as though twitter is a way to keep more professional while facebook is more for keeping up with your friends as well as family. For next year I plan on using email mostly and if urgent or unresponsive to that texting or using a social network could also come in handy.

Week 8 Blog

Hello once again everyone. Nice weather we are having today. I enjoyed this weeks class on developing cultural sensitivity. I would like to congratulate Cory and Jenna on the great job they did getting the class involved in the activity. I thought the activity did a great job showing us how society along with we ourselves unconciously stereotype and label people without knowing how we affect certain people. I figured out for myself anyway that I do it a lot more than I know. What I learned Tuesday night in class will make me think about how I can become a better person by just getting out there and meeting people with differnt backgrounds and cultures that don't relate as well to mine. If a person can begin to familiarize themselves with the general characteristics of different diversities and cultures then they can more successful establish and maintian relationships with different people.

The dimensions for me that I chose as being important was being country raised growing up on a farm. I believe this is important because it is what shaped me to become the person that I am today. It also showed me that in order to get what I want and who I want to become as a person it takes hard work and a persistant effort as well. The dimensions you choose as well as the ones other's choose affect how they judge people due to the different backgrounds and cultures that they are grown up on. The one dimension that I shared the most with the group was being farm raised. I saw a lot of similarities with this and not so much differences. We all grew up with a farm background and a good number of the group explained how this has shaped the way we are today. One good example of stereotyping that I believe Amy brought up was a student in her class who was hispanic, yet lived in Iowa his whole life and could speak perfect English, but still many labeled him as unable to speak English. This goes to show that even people that have grown up in America all their lives still get stereotyped by their race or the color of their skin.

Week 7 Blog

Hello once again. For this weeks class I thought Rachel and Amy did a great job with the exercise and getting everyone invovled as well. I really enjoyed the activity because it made me think about my strengths and weaknesses as well as making me think about how I can better myself by capitalizing on those strengths and trying to improve those weaknesses. It also allowed me to become more self-aware as I listened to other's strengths and weaknesses. One of my weaknesses that made me think a lot about was the value of gratitude. I do take some things for granted, but that is not why I chose this as a weakness. I chose gratitude as one of my weaknesses because I feel I sometimes have trouble expressing gratitude towards the people who have changed my life for the better and while thinking more about I came up with ways to more effectively show my gratitude towards others. This class activity helped show me my strengths and weaknesses as well as allowing me to listen to others how they use their own strengths and weaknesses to get through their everyday life.

The book describes a positive role model as someone who exemplifies values and behavior that others want to imitate or follow. As we strive to become mentors and role models to students in the fall we have the power to inspire others to follow and use the attributes or attitudes that make them exceptional and unique people. As we are mentors we do not automatically become role models for students but over time we can become good role models as we earn student's respect by demonstrating the attributes that they value as well.

As I was a freshman, I began to look up to my peer mentors, Kris and Nikki, as time went by I hoped that some day I could be as successful as they have become through college. I plan to treat my students the same as they did me and I hope to gain the respect of my students as I did for Kris and Nikki. I also plan to use my strengths to my advantages and work on my weaknesses to become a better and more respectable person not just for next fall, but for the rest of my life.

Week 6 Blog

Hello everyone. The weather is great, the sun is staying out longer, and spring is on it's way. Its a good feeling, but somehow I think old man winter is done with the cold yet. I thought tonights class was a really insightful one and I really enjoyed getting to know people a lot more. Hearing everyone's stories made me think about my life and how I take a lot of things for granted and I'm glad this class really made me think about that and opened it up for me. It also made me think more about what certain people and events in my life has influenced me to become the person that I am today. Tonights class activities helped me become more self aware and I would like to thank Anthony and Beth for helping me think more about myself and also congratulate them on the great job they did leading the lesson tonight.

As peer mentors, I believe we have a huge role in helping freshmen students become self aware. Before tonight's class I didn't realize the importance of being self aware and the impacts of one's own self-awareness. In order to successfully deal with the challenges and opportunities that come with being a college student, a person must consider who they want to be and how they will end up becoming that person. If we as mentors understand how increasing our self-awareness affects our success as students, we can help other students understand the same thing. We can achieve this by helping students understand themselves well enough for them to recognize what they need to change and to take the right steps in order to improve their situations along with their chances of succeeding in college. Some questions or thoughts that can help students become self aware are one that can include their strengths and weaknesses, what motivates them and makes them happy, what they can do to improve as a person, what are their most important beliefs or values in life, and just simply what has brought them to being the person that they are today.

I think one of the bigger things that I can do to help myself become more self aware is just thinking more about life in itself and how I came to be the person that I am today. Along with that, listening to the values that people have that are different than mine as well as attending more events that make you recognize the little things in your life that you don't notice.

Week 5 Blog

Hello everyone. Hope everyone's doing alright and making it through school ok. First off I would like to give a congratulations to those who led the class tonight (Nick, Kelly, Joe and Deb). I thought they did a good job and portrayed many of the major concepts in both chapter 3 and chapter 4 that needed to be covered. I thought Kelly and Nick did a good job in portraying the five different roles if a peer mentor and also advancing more on them after the small groups talked about what they thought of each role. Joey and Deb also did a good job in getting everyone involved with their skits they created. One of the main concepts that stuck with me after tonights class towards the end, was the part about boundaries. I believe that establishing these boundaries early in the relationship between peer mentors and mentees will further prevent major problems from happening that may develop in the future.

I believe the the stages of a mentoring relationship were a huge part of this chapter. These stages of a mentoring relationship are more or less brought about by questions and these questions remind us not only if we are creating relationships, but establishing our role as peer mentors as well. These questions include: who are you, why are we here, where are we going, how are you doing, what is working and not working, and are we there yet. As time goes by and as we progress through each stage of the mentoring relationship the trust level between a peer mentor and the mentee increase. The question "Why are you?" helps you to remember to get to know your students and give them a chance to know you. The question "Why are we here?" reminds you to be upfront about your responsibilities as a mentor and the ground rules for the relationship. The question "Where are we going?" will make sure to remind you to work with your mentees and set goals and objectives. And last, but not least the question "Are we there yet?" will give you an opportunity to think about what you have accomplished together as mentors and mentees and if you have reached your goals and objectives. I believe that each of these stages are important in the mentoring relationship. If we all follow these stages we can almost ensure good relationships between us and our mentees.