MENTORSHIP AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO
Reading Highlights: Three chapters that that impacted my learning/practice
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 was a great introduction to thinking specifically about what leadership and mentoring really were. The chapter has very great definitions of the terms used in this course frequently and had great reflection questions embedded into the chapter. The reflection questions were the items in the chapters that impacted my learning and practice the most. I have had many experiences in leadership and teaching roles in my life, but this experience was very different and out of my comfort zone. The reflection questions in the chapter helped me to reflect back on my experiences as a mentor and also my experience being a mentee. It helped me think about what types of things in my past leadership experience I wanted to bring into peer mentorship, what types of things my past mentors have done for me, and how I can incorporate them into my practice. I also appreciated this chapter because it gave very specific roles and functions of what peer mentorship/leadership looks like in post-secondary. It was a great way to feel comfortable with some of the aspects of mentorship without being in the mentorship setting right away.
Chapter 2
In chapter 2, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the five essences of leadership; inspire a shared vision; model the way; enable others to act; encourage the heart, and challenge the process. These essences are a part of effective leaders who make extraordinary positive changes in their groups. During my mentorship, I wanted to focus on all of these, but especially model the way and encourage the heart.
In modelling the way, I wanted to essentially practice what I was preaching to my mentees. Not only would my words have more meaning behind them when backed by my actions, but I also thought that to have my mentees trust and believe what I was saying I had to believe it. For example, when talking about study tips I told them that it is super important to do the readings before lectures because most professors use the chapter content behind their lectures, and it helps to have a basic understanding of concepts before going into lectures. It also helps because you can mark places where you may need clarification during lectures or during office hours. This is a practice that I swear by especially when getting into more difficult or content-heavy content. Although my mentees admitted that they did not want to try this (most had been reading the chapter briefly or after the lecture), but they tried to practice this because I talked so highly about it. The result: they were able to understand the content more!
For encouraging heart, I was very preoccupied with creating relationships between me and my mentees, mentee to mentee, and within themselves. I wanted to help them start thinking about their morals and values, things in their lives that mean the most to them, and trying to help them start reflecting on themselves. The first semester of the first year of university is filled with stimuli that can cloud vision and make students lose touch with who they are. It was important for me to try to add as many emotional and social intelligence aspects to my breakouts as much as possible to encourage this type of learning and reflection.
Chapter 3
Connecting to the past reflection of chapter 2, chapter 3 discussed the college experience. This chapter was very important for my learning because I was able to put myself back in the place of a first-year student. Being in my fourth year, it is hard to remember the feelings that came with being in first-year and all the changes that took place within 8 months. One of the parts of the college experience that the chapter talks about is the middle and late stage of the first semester. The middle stage is just before and after midterm exams, and the late stage is the time between midterms and finals. Reflecting on my experience, these two parts of the semester were the hardest for me, and hard for my peers when I brought up my personal experience.
It was important for me to make sure I was focusing on different issues that can happen during this time- midterm slump/crunch, sleep loss, negative change in eating habits, and lack of self-care to name a few. During my breakouts, I included “Devina’s University tip of the Week” depending on what I had experienced during the week. Sometimes I would explicitly put them in my breakout plans (50 ways to take a break handout), or I would come across a problem during my own life and wanted to talk about with my mentees (missing a lecture and not having anyone in the lecture to send me missed notes). It was important to also give my mentees real advice and to encourage them to share some of their negative experiences if they were comfortable because it helped other people not to feel alone. During my last breakout out, all my mentees said that they loved the group discussions and group work because they always felt like their peers were very understanding of their struggles and shared similar ones. Without this chapter, I felt like it would be easy for me to forget what it was like adjusting to university life, and I may not have put as much emphasis on this aspect in my breakouts. I am happy that I was able to make this impact on my mentees.