Just two weeks ago, I had helped create and co-host a facilitated class for one of my courses based on the doctrines of peer mentoring, called SCIE 511. SCIE 511 itself is a revolutionary class unlike any university courses I have taken before in my life. I find it both radical and empowering to allow the students/mentors take reign over the class for a whole hour, while the professor oversees but does not disrupt the creative process of the students. The class I co-facilitated was based on Jack Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning. Based on the ideas he presented in his paper, the two other mentors in my group and I decided to design a round-robin activity with multiple stations that each encompassed one of Mezirow’s main ideas. The
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Ironically, as we were constructing a class facilitation to get the mentors to engage and experience difficulties in discourse, effective communication and struggles with autonomy, we were doing the same. We were all “critically examining evidence, arguments, and alternative points of view” (Mezirow, pg. 6) from each other to reach a consensus. I felt like I was the odd one out in my group. My peers were good friends, so they supported and reinforced each other’s ideas and opinions, whereas I felt I had to try twice as hard to get a word in, and make it stick. I didn’t feel as though my peers “labelled my ideas as unworthy of consideration—[ . . .] irrelevant or weird” (Mezirow, pg. 5), they just had strong opinions. Indoctrinating Mezirow’s definition of autonomy, I think I remained autonomous by “mak[ing] my own interpretations [on the article, and the facilitated class] rather than act on the [ . . .] beliefs, judgements, and feelings of [my peers]” (Mezirow, pg. 5). Ultimately, we came to a consensus as to how our class facilitation would operate. I got to design and facilitate my station how I wanted it to be, and some of my other ideas were present in the other stations, although re-modified. In a sense, my group went through our own little transformative process, and as I think of it now, I …show more content…
I was proud with the activities that my group and I had constructed, and I had a feeling things would go smoothly. I felt most connected to the other mentors and to the content of Mezirow’s article when I was facilitating my station. I truly felt like I was just purely a facilitator. I didn’t express my ideas, or enforce my opinion on anyone else, I “step[ped] back from the group of working [mentors]” (Bruffee, pg. 46) and let them be autonomous within the station. This is what I try to mirror when I interact with my students. I don’t want to “’sit in’ on them or ‘hover’ [and] predetermine the outcome of their work” (Brufee, pg. 46). Rather, I want my students to feel autonomous and authoritative in their learning, as with the peer mentors. I was quite pleased with the discussions that occurred in my station. However, I was especially pleased when I saw the ‘Oh . . . I guess I’m not as autonomous in my learning as I thought’ look on some of their faces, which I intentionally wanted the mentors to experience. Having achieved that, I think I got my message across to the mentors by making them realize that perhaps they need to reflect on their autonomous process more than they originally
Ironically, as we were constructing a class facilitation to get the mentors to engage and experience difficulties in discourse, effective communication and struggles with autonomy, we were doing the same. We were all “critically examining evidence, arguments, and alternative points of view” (Mezirow, pg. 6) from each other to reach a consensus. I felt like I was the odd one out in my group. My peers were good friends, so they supported and reinforced each other’s ideas and opinions, whereas I felt I had to try twice as hard to get a word in, and make it stick. I didn’t feel as though my peers “labelled my ideas as unworthy of consideration—[ . . .] irrelevant or weird” (Mezirow, pg. 5), they just had strong opinions. Indoctrinating Mezirow’s definition of autonomy, I think I remained autonomous by “mak[ing] my own interpretations [on the article, and the facilitated class] rather than act on the [ . . .] beliefs, judgements, and feelings of [my peers]” (Mezirow, pg. 5). Ultimately, we came to a consensus as to how our class facilitation would operate. I got to design and facilitate my station how I wanted it to be, and some of my other ideas were present in the other stations, although re-modified. In a sense, my group went through our own little transformative process, and as I think of it now, I …show more content…
I was proud with the activities that my group and I had constructed, and I had a feeling things would go smoothly. I felt most connected to the other mentors and to the content of Mezirow’s article when I was facilitating my station. I truly felt like I was just purely a facilitator. I didn’t express my ideas, or enforce my opinion on anyone else, I “step[ped] back from the group of working [mentors]” (Bruffee, pg. 46) and let them be autonomous within the station. This is what I try to mirror when I interact with my students. I don’t want to “’sit in’ on them or ‘hover’ [and] predetermine the outcome of their work” (Brufee, pg. 46). Rather, I want my students to feel autonomous and authoritative in their learning, as with the peer mentors. I was quite pleased with the discussions that occurred in my station. However, I was especially pleased when I saw the ‘Oh . . . I guess I’m not as autonomous in my learning as I thought’ look on some of their faces, which I intentionally wanted the mentors to experience. Having achieved that, I think I got my message across to the mentors by making them realize that perhaps they need to reflect on their autonomous process more than they originally