As you can see here, our group is the very definition of professionalism.
This class was truly one of the highlights of my freshman year, particularly in the social aspect. Getting to work with such an incredibly motivated and caring individuals helped me to feel like I had another community here at UW. I'm thrilled I get to continue meeting and working with this awesome group of people in the fall, and I hope to make some lifelong friends along the way.
From an educational stand point, this class really helped me to build my confidence in teaching and speaking to a group. I had already practiced creating lesson plans through my senior project in high school, but those lessons were tailored towards 6th graders. These HONORS 100 classes are also longer than the ones I taught before, and they have information that I am required to get to, so I had to make sure that while I was creative with my lessons they still were able to hit all the key points. This experience stretched me to find ways to convey information while also building a community within my cohort. Having finished my lesson plans (for now), I feel confident and ready for fall quarter to begin.
As for the teaching aspect, this class really had me critically analyze my own methods of teaching. When I'm teaching I can have the tendency to speak quickly, so working on slowing down is always an on-going process for me. I also get extremely nervous while I'm presenting, and while this might not always show to the audience, I feel really hot and self-criticizing (stupid anxiety). That being said, part of me enjoys pushing myself this way, and I love being able to look out at an audience and see understanding and appreciation. I think the more I practice presenting and teaching, the better I will continue to become, and the less nervous and harsh on myself I will be.
The retreat was by far the highlight of this experience for me. Not only was I able to escape my school worries for a bit, but this was when I really started to connect with my fellow peer educators. More than that, the leadership activities we did taught me a lot about who I am and what I enjoy. For example, when we did the "Good Experiences" workshop, the trend I noticed was that all of my experiences centered around public speaking or performing. While I don't entirely know how this translates to my future career, it got me thinking about my strengths and passions. I did a lot of singing and theater in high school, but I have neglected that part of myself since coming here. I feel like I should get back into those sorts of things, because I truly enjoyed being on stage.
This is a collection of the GoPost reflections I wrote throughout my quarter in this class.