The semester flew by! I mentioned in some of my other blogs that at the beginning of the semester, I did not feel prepared at all to be a peer mentor. Now that the semester is coming to an end, I feel a lot more prepared! I do not know why but I have always felt like my peer mentors from the past knew everything. I probably thought this because they were well prepared, organized, and older. The main thing that I got from the past and returning peer mentors was that it is ok to not know everything and you will not be prepared for every situation that comes up.
Peer mentors are meant to be liaisons for the Hixson program and the University. We are equipped to know which situations we can handle and which ones we need to ask for help with. We now know how to refer others to resources that can help them a lot more than we could. In the fall, I will use the information given to us from this semester to handle situations and to make the class fun and informative.
The past peer mentors brought to light something that I have not considered before, every class is different. The class will be made up with different individuals with an array of personalities. I am very excited to see who will be in my section in the fall and I am probably just a little bit more excited to see who I will be co-leading with!
Monday, April 28, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Peer Education Programs in Higher Education
Judging by many people's input in the last class period, almost all of us have had a peer mentor that may have not been up to par. The best thing we can do is learn from the mistakes of these mentors. I'm sure that everyone may have also had a peer mentor that he or she really liked and found him or her to be very helpful.
I had a peer mentor in my learning community, WISE, that really helped me a lot. My mentor met with me individually once a month to check in on me and she helped me with any questions I had. At each meeting she had me bring a list of SMART goals to discuss with her. She was easy to get a hold of and was always willing to help. We also met in a group about twice a month. At the group meetings, she was very organized and always had fun activities for us to do. I became good friends with a lot of the people in my learning community because my peer mentor made it fun to be involved. I wrote about my experience because she possessed a lot of qualities that I believe a good peer mentor should have.
Resources are something peer mentors can utilize in order to help out themselves and their mentees. Universities are indirectly successful because of peer mentors and there are a lot of peer mentor programs here at ISU. With all of this programs, it is safe to bet that there are a lot of resources available for mentors to utilize. In fact, peer mentors serve as resources for other students.
When I was a freshman, I know that if I had a question or needed help that I would have gone to a peer mentor before I would go to a different person or resource. Mentors are students just like their mentees which makes going to them more comfortable. Mentors are also more likely to have gone through similar situations as their mentess.
I hope that my mentees next semester will feel comfortable with coming to me for help or questions. I want to make the class fun but I also want the freshmen to gain information. As a mentor, we create the classroom environment. We decide if we want to be helpful or not by the qualities we display like being organized, available, and interested.
I had a peer mentor in my learning community, WISE, that really helped me a lot. My mentor met with me individually once a month to check in on me and she helped me with any questions I had. At each meeting she had me bring a list of SMART goals to discuss with her. She was easy to get a hold of and was always willing to help. We also met in a group about twice a month. At the group meetings, she was very organized and always had fun activities for us to do. I became good friends with a lot of the people in my learning community because my peer mentor made it fun to be involved. I wrote about my experience because she possessed a lot of qualities that I believe a good peer mentor should have.
Resources are something peer mentors can utilize in order to help out themselves and their mentees. Universities are indirectly successful because of peer mentors and there are a lot of peer mentor programs here at ISU. With all of this programs, it is safe to bet that there are a lot of resources available for mentors to utilize. In fact, peer mentors serve as resources for other students.
When I was a freshman, I know that if I had a question or needed help that I would have gone to a peer mentor before I would go to a different person or resource. Mentors are students just like their mentees which makes going to them more comfortable. Mentors are also more likely to have gone through similar situations as their mentess.
I hope that my mentees next semester will feel comfortable with coming to me for help or questions. I want to make the class fun but I also want the freshmen to gain information. As a mentor, we create the classroom environment. We decide if we want to be helpful or not by the qualities we display like being organized, available, and interested.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Ethics and Strategies for Good Practice
When I think of ethics, my mind immediately goes to the business world. I guess I do not really think about the ethics involved for being a good student or person. As a peer mentor, I will come across situations where I will need to use good ethics to get through the situation. Some times doing the right thing is not always the easiest but in the end a person will be glad he or she did do the right thing. I believe that all the peer mentors do use good practices and have good morals. The book had great guidelines to help us use our morals to so we can practice good ethics.
The situations we came up with in class when Chelsee was leading discussion made me really think about what I would do next year if these situations came up. Some of the situations were easier to handle than others like social media. For me, the hardest situation would have to be dealing with someone I do not like. Generally, I tend to like almost every person I meet so I do not feel like this situation would come up but since I do not have a lot of experience working with people I do not like, handling the situation might be hard. It is difficult to try hide your dislike of someone but as a peer mentor I will have to treat everyone equally and with respect. The way I would approach this situation would be to find the good qualities that person may possess and to try not to focus on the bad qualities. If I am still having difficulties, I would go talk to one of our supervisors to see what I could do to either fix the situation or to leave it.
As the semester is winding down, I feel like I am a lot more prepared to be a peer mentor than I was at the beginning of the semester. I feel that the situations we do in class are one of the best ways to prepare ourselves for the fall semester.
The situations we came up with in class when Chelsee was leading discussion made me really think about what I would do next year if these situations came up. Some of the situations were easier to handle than others like social media. For me, the hardest situation would have to be dealing with someone I do not like. Generally, I tend to like almost every person I meet so I do not feel like this situation would come up but since I do not have a lot of experience working with people I do not like, handling the situation might be hard. It is difficult to try hide your dislike of someone but as a peer mentor I will have to treat everyone equally and with respect. The way I would approach this situation would be to find the good qualities that person may possess and to try not to focus on the bad qualities. If I am still having difficulties, I would go talk to one of our supervisors to see what I could do to either fix the situation or to leave it.
As the semester is winding down, I feel like I am a lot more prepared to be a peer mentor than I was at the beginning of the semester. I feel that the situations we do in class are one of the best ways to prepare ourselves for the fall semester.
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