Georgina Miranda

Alison Jackson Frasier

HDF 415
26 March 2018
HDF 415 - Peer Educator Mid-Semester Evaluation
Being midway in the semester, I will do an evaluation of my performance as a peer leader
in HDF 190: FLITE and reflect on the situations that have helped me succeed in my desired
outcomes as a peer leader.
First, I chose to discuss my success in the outcome of “Students will identify personal
leadership styles and skills and demonstrate methods of adapting and applying them effectively
in current and future leadership roles (strengths-based leadership inventories and approaches).” I
feel I’ve accomplished this outcome because of the task of having One-On-One interactions with
my students. They’ve all expressed that I’ve adopted a certain leadership style that has helped
them with their achievement in their tasks and overall understandings of the class. I’ve identified
my personal leadership style as Relational Leadership.
The Relational Leadership Model by Komives, Lucas, and McMahon focuses on being
inclusive, empowering, purposeful, ethical, and process-oriented. It emphasizes the importance
of relationships and connecting with group members as we work together to accomplish
purposeful change. In reflection, I feel I’ve displayed being inclusive and empowering more
while peer leading the class. Being inclusive means I listen to all of my students about their
confusions, their worries, and their doubts in and out of class. I also try to clear them up by
framing and reframing group discussions in class. A task that helped me achieve this outcome
was when Allie explained the Relational Leadership Model in class and the assessment that went
along with it. In my group, I reframed what was expected in a way that was more simplified.
Additionally, when she talked about what the Social Change Group Project was, they were
overwhelmed at first, but then I broke it down to disengage the tension towards the project.
Furthermore, I also told them the process that my group adopted. In doing this, I was also being
empowering by giving them the tools they needed for success in the class and helping them reach
their potentials and beyond. I have identified my leadership style and will continue to use it in
future leadership roles.
Next in my application of my leadership style is in my organization on campus, Thrive,
where I have been elected President. Now reflecting, I feel I have partially adopted my own
personal leadership style by observing how former leaders of Thrive have coordinated the
meetings. Now that I am President, in meetings I will first address the group and we’d
collectively talk about our ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of the day, week, or semester. This is where we
reflect on the positive and negative events of the day, week, or semester, usually ending with
positives. This helps us all stay connected and help support, listen, and laugh with each other, the
relational part of the model that is crucial in making sure everyone feels included and
empowered. Then, after all is said, I will discuss the agenda we have in place of what needs to be
addressed, what need to be completed by the end of the meeting, week, or semester, and where
we’re going in the organization. This has been effective in my organization because we use most
of the time working on our tasks, but leave time to relax our minds. We have been able to
complete our tasks without many significant stresses because of the relaxing aspect added in.
Also, when we meet at the subsequent meeting, we recognize the strides that each member has
made and empower each other to continue the work.
Second, I’ve also accomplished the outcome of “Student will be able to understand first-
year student leader transitional issues and issues related to challenge and support.” Now that I am
a sophomore at the university, I can reflect on what my transition coming into college was like. I
can positively say that besides having gone to the 2016 Leadership Institute, the other aspects of
my first semester at college that helped me succeed was “Freshman Forgiveness”, the merciful
attitude some professors adopt for first-year students first coming to college, and the amount of
transformative communication I received from professors, advisors, and upperclassmen. Being
aware of this, I made sure to use my value of Forgiveness and my strength of Communication for
activities and tasks that the students weren’t too familiar with, especially in a less common class
like HDF 190. For example, when tasked with grading my students’ first attempt at leadership
inventory outcomes, I made sure I did it with the understanding that they have probably never
done any reflective accounts of their progress.
I gave them the constructive criticism they needed for accomplishing and bettering their
skills moving forward. I wrote comments like, “Tell me more about this” or “Give another
example” which expanded their comfort zone to give more than expected. However, I also
acknowledged their successes with comments like “Great job!” or “Good example!” so that they
also felt encouraged for what they were able to do initially.
Through my One-On-One meetings with my students, I understand that they have many
other things going on while they’re at URI that distract them from the assigned work for the
class. In the beginning of the semester, I had the instinct to, and was also instructed by Allie, to
send reminders to my students about meeting spaces, assignments, or to bring certain materials to
class. Here, Communication was used to make sure they understood class content and for
feedback on how they were doing on assignments and activities to make sure they were getting
the help they needed. However, I’ve learned to slowly start giving them the room to look at the
syllabus first before getting answers from me for certain things, this way I’m challenging them to
find responsibility in their own efforts. With coming into a new space, it’s important to make
whoever’s entering the space acclimated gradually. I feel my previous style of directly handing
my students the information they needed in the beginning was appropriate, but now that they
know the way of the course, I’ve challenged them to find their own ways of receiving that
information and they’ve been doing great so far. Now I don’t remind them as often and I instruct
them to look for the answers to their own questions; being self-sufficient.
Finally, the last outcome I want to speak on is “Students will practice facilitation,
presentation, communication skills and develop leadership skills specifically related to teamwork
and organization.” This is an outcome I want to work more closely with going forward in the
semester and my time here in college. I’ve reflected on the semester being a peer leader and I’ve
been able to recognize my successes and my areas of improvement. In the beginning of the
semester, I was going through a lot of internal unlearning and self-discovery, therefore I wasn’t
able to cohesively comprehend what was expected of me as a peer leader, or even comprehend
that I was a peer leader. I was assigned the Social Change Model unit of activities and
presentations to present to the students in the HDF 190 class in the very beginning. For the SCM
activity, I was assigned to coordinate something that the students would be able to understand the
model from as a visual aid. To reflect successes, I executed the debriefing portion of the activity
adequately for my first time facilitating an activity. For the SCM Group Project presentation, I
feel I did a lot more satisfactorily on presenting the project’s main components. Alongside the
presentation, I feel I also developed leadership skills specifically related to teamwork and
organization. The day of the presentation when choosing a project to participate in, I instructed
my group of students that they should work together to find a project that not only they were
interested in, but one that everyone was able to do. That way, they were being inclusive, working
as a team, and not letting anyone out of the group because of their unavailability. As they were
trying to figure out who was going to have what task and becoming a little overwhelmed, I saw
this and advised that they add more organization to it and discuss this more in depth at their
meetings and to establish a meeting time now so it’s done before they leave class.
However, I feel I didn’t execute the activity as well as I could’ve because I wasn’t as
prepared mentally or material wise. I wasn’t prepared in the framing of the debrief questions,
choosing the right ones, or understanding when to ask certain questions. Getting the appropriate
information out and saying it cohesively is something I lack in overall because I sometimes can’t
judge which information is needed for the main points or not. Specifically to the SCM activity,
knowing when to step in on the activity if the students weren’t going to finish it successfully was
something I didn’t catch because the activity lasted longer than it should’ve for class time.
Additionally in the presentation, I had left out bits of information that would’ve saved the
students and myself some confusion going forward, but by them asking questions, I was able to
clear some things up and fix the confusion I had produced. Overall in both activities, I was able
to get the information out, but the steps leading up to it can use work.
Through my many experiences here at URI, I’ve noticed I am a visual and hands-on
learner and cannot fully grasp a concept by simply reading and memorizing it. Therefore, I know
I will be able to learn how to enhance my learning in this outcome with the class HDF 413:
Advanced Facilitation Techniques taught by A. J. Frasier. I will learn about what makes an
activity’s facilitation and presentation successful and I’ll be able to perform what I’ve learned in
the class within the organization that follows after, Student Organization Leadership Consultants
(SOLC). SOLC is a group of URI students who have received advanced training in leadership &
group development by the staff of the Center for Student Leadership Development (CSLD).
SOLC works to promote and use peer leadership to help URI’s student groups to effectively
achieve their goals. This class is exactly what I’ll need going forward in achieving the goal of
facilitating and presenting activities more effectively.