This week we focus on interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication differs from advice giving in many important ways. These include letting the person discover a solution to their problem with guidance rather than telling them what to do. Interpersonal communication also requires a lot more time and commitment than advice giving. We will be using both types of communication with our students, but for many problems they will face we want to aim to use interpersonal communication.
One way we practiced this was to split up into pairs. Each pair was given a scenario. One person in the pair was to act as the student and the other the peer mentor. I think this is one of the best ways to practice how to use interpersonal communication and to recognize how it can differ from advice giving.
Both advice giving and interpersonal have their place when being a peer mentor the challenge is to recognize which one is the appropriate one to use in the situation at hand.
I also wanted to mention how much fun I had at the retreat today. It was a great way to get to know everyone just a little bit better.
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I also thought it was a good way to practice communicating with our students. I think that activity also brings up new topics that we may have to approach that we hadn't thought of on our own.
ReplyDeleteI think that the role playing scenarios are great practice for us as well! There are so many situations that we are going to have to deal with next fall so it's nice to try to get a jumpstart on some of the more basic and more common ones. I also like how you said that advice and interpersonal communication are both aspects of being a peer mentor because sometimes the freshmen will just need a simple known answer.
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