Orientation for the Mississippi University for Women is over in a flash! Surprisingly, there wasn't a great difference between the Transfer Orientation that occurred on Friday and today's Freshman Orientation. The students were very engaging and excited. It was the normal routine, arrive at MUW at 7am and begin setting up for check-in. Then I assisted with check-in, and prepared my presentation for the students. I had to leave just before lunch today in order to make it back to campus on time for class. This proved for a long day, and it made it difficult to focus on the students at orientation as I was distracted by the upcoming class that I had.
An issue that I've been dealing with is pushing one of my colleagues out of his comfort zone. Him and I are supposed to be working on and presenting the facilitation of these icebreakers together. During the Transfer Orientation, I performed all of the facilitation, as well as developed most of the icebreakers. The fact that I developed them naturally lends to me leading the facilitation, but I expected a little more help from my colleague who is in the same position as me. I called him out on it today. He told me to go ahead and get started, and I told him that I would let him take the lead on this one as I facilitated all of them on Friday. He thought I was joking at first, but I told him I was serious. I feel like he needed this push in order to actually gain some experience from his practicum.
Can't stop educating just because they aren't an undergraduate student.
-JB
Jason,
ReplyDeleteImpressive work! Sometimes we will have those colleagues either in our department or on our campuses who may be a bit intimidated, or even comfortable taking a backseat. However, there are ways to have very positive "teachable moments" as you discuss these things together. Making sure not to push our colleagues off the cliff, just enough so that they will understand our desire to truly "share" an assignment. Way to be proactive!
Dr. H
Jason,
ReplyDeleteVery similar to your experiences with the W's orientation, I relate to thinking there was no difference between the freshman and transfer student orientation. I think that this can be both a good thing or a bad thing. It allows students the opportunity to get to know he campus and the organizations that are open to them once they come to campus. However, in that same breath many transfer students have experienced college life and are usually ready to leave orientation after registering for classes. I do think that the W is trying really hard to attract more students as the transfer student numbers are increasing every year.
And I understand what it is like to have to motivate someone to step outside their comfort zone. I'm learning that in my own life and in my professional career. It takes time especially when individuals are accustom to doing things their way. Continue to support and motivate the individual and eventually he will step outside of the box.