We Can't Teach What We Don't know!

So I have not gotten very deep into my book yet, but I have begun reading a little bit.  The book mainly deals with the issue of race in the classroom and how social oppression of minority groups such as women, homosexuals, African Americans, etc... and how this affects the classroom.  I look forward to learning theory that I can incorporate into my strategies I use in my classroom.  I think the book will help give me many good ideas to use in my future teaching endeavors.

MTBI and Christina Hixson

Hey All,

 This was a busy week, but it went very well.  We went over MTBI this week in class as a refresher from last year and every time we do I am amazed at how accurate the test really is.  I am an ESTJ which to me seems pretty accurate, it stands for extraversion, sensing, thinking, and judging.  It was really interesting in class to see what all the students were.  I believe that many of them had never given much thought to their types and that the experience was eye opening to some of them to think critically of why they act the way they do.

Christina Hixson has come and gone and I what an experience it was.  I am very glad I was able to meet Christina in my new role as a peer mentor.  It was very interesting to see how donors of the university are treated with the whole parade and show.  It was also great to actually talk to Christina for more than ten minutes when I was a freshman and it was worth all the work of being a peer mentor to get to know the lady that helped make college a possibility for me.  It was great and I was excited to be apart of it.

Diversity Panel Event

Hey Guys,

I did my last diversity event this last week.  I attended a event a floor in my building was putting on called the Eaton Hall Diversity Event.  This event had a panel of six people from different backgrounds and had students ask them questions.  Now you may be thinking why would people come to this?  Well the floor used food as bait!  The food was an interesting part of the event.  We are blessed in Ames to have many different types of food available to us.  Some of the food I had never heard of before, but I tried it anyway. There were these fried "meatballs"...... NOT a fan!  I gained an appreciation for Indian food and Thai, both of which I didn't have much experience with.

Many of the questions asked by students that were there were related to the transition from the panel's home country to here.  Many of the panelists said that the culture was very different here.  Some said the shock of how few people are in this town was a big one, another said the proportions of food was a shocker.

I enjoyed this event, which is great I believe it is good for people to hear the differences international students have to face from their own countries to here.  We are all quick to blame or make fun, but lets put ourselves in their shoes and give it a go.

Scavenger Hunt/ Video

Hello Friends,

This week we did a scavenger hunt in class.  I have done these before, but this one was a bit different because I actually knew where everything was this time.  The purpose of this scavenger hunt was to make sure we all knew where these services on campus were.  It is important for us to know this so we can direct our students in the fall to these services.

It is a lot of fun to do these sort of activities with my other peer mentors it's great working with them and becoming closer as a group.  One thing this activity did was make me really excited for next year and find out who my partner peer mentor will be.

This last week we have also been working on our digital storytelling project.  I have discovered this is a ton of work and takes a lot of time.  We came up with a great storyline that I think will send a good message and turn out to be a great video.

I am excited for class tuesday to find out who my partner will be.  I CAN"T WAIT.

SMART Goals

Take the goal you set for yourself for being a peer mentor and expand on it, use it in the context of SMART goals and the four M’s. Maybe discuss what some of your other goals for being a peer mentor are. 


This was the blogging prompt for this last week, my goal for being a peer mentor over the next year was to know the names and counties of each of my students by the end of the Fall semester.  I will take this goal and break it down into SMART goals.


Specific- it has two main points that I have to meet knowing the names and counties of my students.
Measurable- because I will either know them or I wont.
Attainable- I can accomplish it.
Relevant- it will benefit the effect I have on my students.
Time Limited- it has a limit by the end of the next semester.


I have always had trouble with remembering names so this goal is something I really need to work on so I used it as my SMART goal.  The other goals I have are to make a difference in the college careers of my students.  This goal is a good one, but its not a SMART goal.

Facilitating and Learning Style

When we were asked in class to write down what we thought the word facilitation meant I wrote "to help stimulate learning and discussion in a group setting."  Being able to facilitate is a skill we have to be good at as a peer mentor.  It can be difficult to distinguish facilitating from teaching, but I find that if one thinks about letting the group find its own answers rather than giving them the answers and expecting them to retain that information.

Learning is an experience that takes not only the presenting of information, but the developing and learned skill of critical thinking.  When our students get here in the fall they are going to need to adjust to the new way their classes are going to be presented.  They may be a hands on learner, but in a class of 300 there is not likely to be many hands on activities.  It is our job to help students through new situations like this.

I plan on doing an activity with my recitation very much like the one in class where we discover our learning style and discuss which one everyone is and what problems arise from said style.  If we discuss about in in a group not only will we as facilitators be able to help the student using our own expertise, but communicating with other students that may have the same problem.  The problem of adjusting to a teaching style different from what you are used to is a common one in college and can be extremely difficult to get over.  With the extra help we as peer mentors give them it can be a much smoother less painful road they have to travel and can make their transition to ISU as easy and pain-free as possible.

Communicating Effectively

Hey guys,

First I would like to thank you all for being such good participants during Chels's and my presentation.  I wanted to read over several of your guy's blogs before I posted my own to see how you all took the lesson and what you learned from it.

We really wanted to see how you all dealt with the activity of not knowing exactly what the person before you was trying to say.  I believe that many of you did learn a lot from this activity about how one message can get misshapen and changed from one person to another.  Cory pointed out that this is one thing he learned from the activity so I will mark it as a success!!!

We also learned as facilitators that there is always more information you want to cover than the time provided.  Chels and I had another activity we wanted to do, but realized that we were going to run out of time.  I think it is good to realize this now rather than plan a jam packed session and not get all our points across next year as a mentor.

Each of us communicates in a different way and it is our job as a facilitator to ensure that each of our students are able to express themselves and learn with the rest of the class.  It was a good point that was brought up in class that we should use multiple forms of media to ensure we meet the needs of an ever growing diversity of learners we will have in our classes.

I learned a lot from this teaching experience and cant wait for the next one!