“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
-Benjamin Franklin
On Friday (aka the busiest day in existence...) I attended two afternoon sessions at the Learning Communities Mid-Year Institute.
The first session I attended was called "Call, Tweet, Post, or Text--Using social and alternative media to build a community" led by Lindsey LaMair and Rachel Peller. This session discussed how utilizing different forms of social media can strengthen group interactions. One thing that I found interesting about the session was examples of different ways of using social media sites that I hadn't thought of for groups before. Specifically, the presenters talked about using Pinterest to facilitate a group discussion on how women are portrayed in media images. I found this unique, although it obviously applies to some groups better than others.
The second session that I attended was titled "Making a Mentor-Driven Learning Community" with Chris Jacobs and Krista Klocke. Although there were only four people in the audience (myself included), I found this session to be both informative and wonderfully interactive. As freshman honors program mentors, the speakers had both worked with groups to create a unique theme for the semester (i.e. spys, Disney, Harry Potter, etc.). I thought a similar idea could be used to unify Hixson recitation sections. A theme gives a group both a sense of unity and uniqueness so I would be interested to see how that would work for Hixson scholars!
On Saturday, I attended ISLE and I found it to be a very fun experience! I ended up staying all day! The opening keynote speaker, Dr. Darin Eich sent a good message with his "root down and branch out" philosophy on leadership in college. The first session I attended was "Maximizing Leadership Potential" with Rachel Owen. This session turned out to be mostly about marketing your skills, so it didn't apply to peer mentoring as much as I had hoped, but I did learn how I can better portray myself to potential employers! The second session I attended (after a nice lunch with fellow Hixsons!) was "Say Whaaa?" with Andrea Ramos and Jeni Roberts. This session made me really aware of how the words I say can greatly influence how others feel. That's really important to keep in mind as a peer mentor so I will definitely remember that advice and information moving forward! The final session I attended was "Emotional Intelligence: How to Understand Yourself and Others" with Amy Fitzjarrald. This session related to the previous session really well! It made me realize the difference between intent and impact in the messages we send to others, even in general comments. One thing that I wish the speaker would have focused on more was the Johari window idea, maybe someone who attended that session can fill me in??
All in all, it was a very informational couple of days and I picked up a few ideas that will come in handy this fall for sure!!
I love how you put quotes at the beginning of your posts! I like a good quote now and then. That was interesting about the Pinterest idea. I would have never thought of that! I attended the Johari Window session, so I can show you her presentation tomorrow if you'd like!
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using a theme to bring together the Hixson recitation sessions. I think that would be a great way to get the freshman Hixsons more involved and excited for recitation; the only problem I see would be finding something that everyone liked or was interested in. Still, it's an excellent idea and one that I would definitely consider incorporating this fall!
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