Tying it all Together

Since we didn't have class this week everyone should be experts on chapter 3: Defining Roles. Nick and I are still going to present it on Tuesday but I can't wait to hear more about what you all got out of it! To keep from going too much into what I got out of it I'll just do a brief overview of the material and one of the things that stuck out to me the most.

There are five main defining roles on what it means to be a peer mentor. These include, but aren't limited to, being a trusted friend, connecting link, learning coach, student advocate, and a peer leader. All of these roles are extremely important in building relationships with your students. I think that trust is one of the most important assets to build on though. It doesn't only go one way though; it's a two way street. To be trusted you first need to trust. Hold yourself accountable and don't go back on your word. At the same time you need to keep in mind to maintain boundaries. We aren't there to act as a parent or older sibling, but we are there to help them out if and when it's needed.

As a learning coach we can teach some basic skills for success, which can be crucial. We all know that college is much harder and a whole different ballgame than high school was, so by being there with our own experiences and learning strategies we've found have been useful to us, we can pave a little bit smoother road for their success as well.

At the Learning Community Mini Institute I attended the Underprepared vs. Underperforming Students seminar. I think that it ties in really well with our role as a learning coach. We need to take the time to get to know our students and be able to identify when they could possibly be running into trouble. It's much easier to correct potential problems when they are still small and not overwhelming. But with recognizing that, we need to be able to identify if it is a matter of being underprepared or if the student is underpreforming. Either can be costly to their education, but I think it's easier to help with the unpreparedness. That's where we can come in by relating our experiences and letting them know what works for us. Underperforming students we can talk to but ultimately it's their decision as to what they want to do and their own motivation to succeed.

I think one of the other most important roles is being a peer leader. In chapter 3 an analogy was given about how our own habits can affect our students. We are constantly being watched and our knowledge and experience are like the rail ties for the train of their success. David Coleman had an amazing presentation on this at ISLE too. A lot of it was about how we portray ourselves vs. who we really are. I think it's an excellent idea take a step back every once in a while to reevaluate ourselves and our weaknesses. What we do really can influence our students. We are their role models so we need to be that much more aware of how we want people to see us, but more, who we really want to be. Who we are is picked up on by others sometimes before we're even aware of it ourselves so it's important that we take that extra step to reassess what kind of impact we want to make and have our students, and everyone else we meet and come into contact with, know and remember us by.

I can't wait to see you all Tuesday to go over this more and hear your thoughts on it all! Have a great weekend and enjoy Superbowl Sunday, or at least the commercials. ;)