Peer Mentor Role Playing?!

Excuse the title, I'm not sure where I was going with it. It was either that or "The Question Ball: Friend or Foe?" Neither of them make much sense, but I digress.

I found this week's class to be both fun and informative. Starting things off with naming our strengths and skills that need improvement got me into the right frame of mind right away. This class is about bettering ourselves and I think that exercise helped me realize it.

Just so everyone knows, I love the question ball. As soon as I was selected as a Peer Mentor I thought to myself, "I am so using the question ball as an ice breaker in my recitation sessions." I remembered doing the activity during my freshman recitation session. It not only lets everyone learn more about the people in class, it also helps the group to become more familiar with each others names (which we all needed a little bit of). I found myself giving my own answer to most of the questions everyone else got. I was really hoping to get the "What is your dream job?" question because I've had an answer to that question for quite a while now. Since I was in elementary school, I loved doing comedy and making people laugh. It is definitely just a dream at this point but I want to host The Tonight Show. I would be in heaven if that ever happened.

The role playing exercise was very useful. Although you can't exactly recreate a student problem situation, it helped to at least practice handling a similar situation. Listing all the possible stresses for a first year student definitely made me realize how many different questions the students could ask me next Fall. It seems a little overwhelming at the moment but I look forward to being much more prepared to handle their questions and problems by the end of this semester.

Peer Educators

I was not aware how useful and necessary peer mentors are. I had no idea that 75% of universities used peer mentors in helping students. I was completely new to the term until the hixson seminar my freshman year. After that experience I learned what a valuable resource they can be. Peer mentors give the students someone to talk to without them feeling intimidated. A peer mentor was in the same position as the student not too long ago so they understand what the student is going through. Not only can the mentor tell a student how they dealt with similar problems or questions, but they also know the resources that a student can turn to for more help. After reading these chapters I kind of feel like I took my peer mentors from the hixson seminar for granted. I looked to them to answer all of my questions without thinking about all of the preparation that they had to do. I have a new found respect for all of the previous peer mentors.

I really like that the first chapter outlined the duties of a peer mentor. I had an idea of what they did but it helped to see everything that goes into being a peer mentor. I like to see exactly what is expected of me in the future so I can focus on properly covering all of my responsibilities.

I really liked the Borton approach to learning. Gaining knowledge, and skills is best achieved by looking back on the experience and thinking about what worked and why. Asking yourself questions is the best way to tailor information to how you best receive it and use it. I'm looking forward to getting lots of practice in this learning model during the course of the semester. I think it is a very effective technique and I would like to understand it well enough by the end of the semester to incorporate it into my mentor sessions next Fall.