MENTORSHIP AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO
Triumphs and Troubles: Break-Out Plans
Breakout 3- October 6
Topic: The Neuron
My most successful break-out plan was my breakout plan on neurons. Personally, I did not enjoy this part of the course when I took PSYC 1150, so I knew that I wanted to make this subject as fun and memorable as possible. During my ECE year at St. Clair College, we had an assignment to create a neuron using household items and explain why we used those items (what was the significance, how did it relate to the actual part of the neuron). I thought that that activity would work great with my mentees. I had a lot of craft materials sitting around at my house, so I grabbed all of those and bought lots of playdough. I also created a neuron cheat sheet that had the picture of a neuron from the textbook, along with a simplified one that I found online, and the parts of the neuron and what they do.
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During the breakout, I explained the neuron activity, and they all chose to use play dough. While creating the neurons, the mentees were continuing the conversation on taking breaks, which turned into a conversation on how different university is from high school, and then eventually a little venting session on midterms. It was so cool to see them talking to each other without me engaging or continuing the conversation, and I barely had to contribute to keep the conversation going.
At the end of the semester, most of them told me that the neuron activity was their favourite and most memorable. I think this breakout was so successful because the mentees were able to connect and relate to each other through the discussions they were having. They were all realizing that they were not alone in all the changes and hardships that they were facing.
Breakout 6- November 3
Topic: Mystical Experiences
For this breakout, we were to talk about Mystical Experiences, including but not limited to Near-Death Experiences, Out-of-Body Experiences, and Deja-vu. I was very stuck on what to talk about for this topic, as the concepts are very straightforward. I decided to look up some ideas on these experiences and found one idea to simulate Deja-vu in participants. Since one of the theories of Deja-vu is that a person is surrounded by an arrangement of elements that they have seen before but can’t full recall the memory, you can simulate déjà vu by doing the same things with words. My idea was to have a slideshow of words that all revolve around “food”, but none of the words were “food”. When it comes time to review the words that mentees remember, when shown the word food, they might say they remember it, when it was never there.
This breakout was challenging because it got moved to a team’s meeting due to the professor’s illness, creating a lack of engagement with the original activities planned. During the introduction activity of finding common things between each other, there was a huge lack of participation, and I had to adjust to just the highs and lows of the week. I knew that because of the lack of participation, it would be hard to do the experiment I had planned. After a failed attempt at the experiment that took a lot less time because of the lack of participation, I quickly changed gears to talk about course selection. Students were able to ask questions on the whole process, and I was able to talk about some courses that I have taken, other popular courses, and resources to use when selecting courses (academic advising, undergraduate calendar, etc.). This part of the breakout was successful but was very different than what I had originally planned. Although challenging for me, my mentees were very happy that we talked about course selection and expressed how they felt relieved that we had the discussion.
Breakout 9- November 24
Topic: Mnemonics
The topic of mnemonics was another difficult topic to try to find an activity for. I thought that the most helpful thing to do for my mentees was to give them time to create mnemonics for difficult subjects in the class. My plan was to divide the group into pairs/groups of 3 and assign them all one of the more difficult topics from the semester (operant conditioning, classical conditioning, the neuron, parts of the brain, etc.). They would have time to go through the textbook and come up with a memory aid for any part of that topic, and then we would share those ideas with the entire group after 10 minutes.
This breakout was moved to teams because of the professor’s illness, making it challenging because of the breakout groups. Teams was not being very user-friendly this day, and it wasn’t allowing some people to move into the breakout rooms. I had to completely change my idea because my original activity was not going to work. I had a video ready to play (Hannah Montana Bone Dance Mnemonic), and while that was playing, I quickly queued up a Kahoot I had made as a backup activity from the last online breakout I had. It was a general review of course material, and the mentees enjoyed it a lot. The breakout did not go as planned and was challenging because of the switch to online. I am glad that I had created a backup Kahoot for my mentees because I do not know how the breakout would have gone otherwise.
Breakout 10- December 2
Topic: Positive Psychology
My second most successful breakout would be my last breakout. While reading the section of the chapter that corresponded to this, I noticed there was a large section on happiness, which makes sense since positive psychology focuses on helping people enhance their positive emotions like happiness and fulfillment. I thought that a great way to close our breakouts was to focus a lot on self-reflection and happiness. On a personal level, during first year I felt like I had a hard time figuring out what made me happy. I was used to being involved in music and sports in high school that brought me a lot of fulfillment and happiness. I was also surrounded by my family and friends always, and it was hard to adjust to a life without all the external factors that made me happy. I wanted to have a concrete discussion with my mentees on finding what makes you happy, and not relying on external forces to make you happy.
During the breakout, we had discussions on typical questions like “Does money bring us happiness”, or “Are people in warmer climates happier”, but then I had them self-reflect on questions such as “What could you buy to feel happier, and would this happiness last forever”, “Which do you think are happier, single or married people”, and “What does happiness mean to you and when do you feel happiest”. These questions are super relevant to students at this age, and it sparked a lot of great conversation between the mentees if they were willing to share their answers. This was one of my most successful breakouts because of the self-reflection piece. My mentees were actively listening to each other, being very polite, and overall having very mature conversations about sometimes serious things. It was so rewarding to see a lot of them open-up to each other, and I really saw how their maturity level grew over the semester. This was such a great way to end the semester, and I felt like they left in a very upbeat and happy mood.
