During this week we went over
Chapter 3, Enhancing Cultural Proficiencies, in the “Students Helping Students”
book. In this chapter there were many different definitions of different words
that are commonly misused or misinterpreted. This chapter also talked about
cultural differences and how we all come from different backgrounds and must
realize this. I personally came from a small school which had little to no
cultural diversity and after moving to Iowa State University I had to realize
that at Iowa State University there is a much greater amount of cultural
diversity.
The different activities Josh had
us complete were very interesting to me and kept the audience involved during
his presentation. The first activity we were involved in was to pick out the
top ten of our best values from a list of at least one hundred different words.
My first ten words were ambition, commitment, determination, family orientedness,
hard work, leadership, reliability, results-oriented, success, and thoughtfulness.
Picking out these ten words was fairly simple for me. Next we were required to
narrow this list down to five words which was simple for me. My five chosen
words were ambition, commitment, family orientedness, hard work and leadership.
Finally we had to narrow our values down to three values and mine were family
orientedness, hard work and leadership. This was not as simple as the two
previous cuts but I felt as if these three words described my values the best.
For Josh’s next activity we were
supposed to connect all of the dots on this piece of paper with four straight
lines without lifting your pencil or retracing any lines. I was not able to
complete this activity just like most of my fellow peer mentors. This activity
was used to make us realize that we may have to think outside of the box for
some different situations.
Overall I thought Josh gave a great
presentation and used many different styles of teaching during his
presentation. I hope that my partner and I will be able to have a great
presentation like Josh did!
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your wonderful comments about my presentation. I am glad you enjoyed it and got something out of it. I also came from a small town in Iowa and coming to college was the first time I really experienced any culture that differed greatly from my own. I think it is important to remember that some of our students will be that same way when they arrive at college.
Joshua
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThinking outside the box will be very important next year. I found the box activity to be extremely frustrating, but there was really a simple answer if we were willing to look beyond the rules that we automatically assumed would apply to this exercise. I am sure you and your partner will have a great presentation as well!