This past winter quarter, I was fortunate enough to be chosen to serve as an honors peer educator again. This was an experience that I have had before and I was really excited about the opportunity again. When spring quarter started and we had our first honors 397 class, I meet all the new faces of first-year honors PE and returners. It took me a while to get to know everyone’s name but this year’s group seemed really excited for this experience.
This quarter, I reflected on why I wanted to be a peer educator again. Being a peer educator was something that I had done before. A lot of the activities that we did in class were the same from last year. There were times where I thought, “Why am I in this class? Why am I doing this again. '' I quickly remembered that the main reason why I wanted to be a peer educator again was to build on my experience from last year and fix my mistakes. I have made changes to my lesson plan to account for the mistakes that I made last fall and hope to improve upon them this fall.
One thing that I am really glad that I have fixed is being able to slow down my talking and convey my lessons in a more clear way. I remember in the fall, there were times where my lessons weren't super clear to my students. I think I realized that I just needed to take a breath, allow time for me to gather my thoughts before speaking so that what I am saying makes sense to my audience. It was cool to see how much I have grown as a peer educator and being able to help first-year peer educators. I am glad that we have such a great group this year and am really excited for the fall!