Sorry there is something wrong with the text, for some reason it is not formatting correctly. I don't know what it was about this post, but it didn't like it.
Hixson Peer Mentors we are facilitators, but what does that really mean? We are here to help the students make the transition to college successfully. Some might have some problems, while others will not. We never know what to expect. Going into the fall semester last year, I could have never predicted what leading the class would be like. There were questions or response that I would have never expected no matter how long we prepared in 311.
We made a huge list of reasons why students might struggle while at ISU. I’m sure we could have spent the entire hour listing off other reasons. There is no way to know what each student will struggle with. Some might know all about financial aid, while others know how to budget their money. The way we can help our students the most is by being adaptable. We need to be able to change the way we do things, or change our daily schedules and spend some time outside of class with certain students. Some of them might just need that little extra help to be successful in college.
What I found effective last year is to leave open time during or at the end of class for questions about whatever. This is really important during the financial aid week. Last year we spent almost the entire class going over question that the students had, and you would be surprised at some of the questions they had.
Overall we are just here to help guide them. Show them a few things and let them do everything themselves, and when they have questions being able to help.
You had a lot of great ideas in how to reach students about questions they may have about material we learn each week. Like you said, first year students have a plethora of issues they may or may not experience. When we were listing possible issues experienced by incoming ISU students, the list seems to go on forever! We all experience some of the same but also a lot of different obstacles that first year. Many of us are still experiencing obstacles as college students that we must overcome. The difference is we are better experienced in solving our issues which makes us better capable of helping others. Great post!
ReplyDelete