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.
Liz,
ReplyDeleteAwesome post! That's great that you were one of the students that got to experience a really good peer mentor. I had the same experience as you, my Hixson mentors were really great to work with. I never went to them with questions or concerns but I know they would have been super helpful if I did need to! So glad you got something out of our lesson!
See you in class,
Makayla
Liz,
ReplyDeleteI think there is a lot to be said about having bad mentors. Even though I didn't mention it in class, I didn't have a great CA my first year. I think that is part of the reason I applied. I wanted to do a better job.
I think that you seem to have a good idea of what it takes to a peer mentor. You have seen first hand what a good peer mentor can do and I think that will go a long way towards being a successful peer mentor in the fall.
Joshua