As a graduate student, my use
of SLLO, best described as restricted exploration, was challenged by limited
hours, stress from classes, and 9-month stents with a specific organization.
Given those constraints, I have still been able to utilize several tools
effectively and seen significant impacts.
Having been exposed to SLLO (without knowing it) as an undergraduate student
and getting the opportunity to attend a SLLO orientation at the start of my
graduate assistantship with Student Activities, I was eager to test the waters
of student leader learning. I spent the first year of my assistantship advising
a freshmen mentorship organization. With a moderately sized executive staff of
fifteen students, I primarily utilized 1-minute papers (or more accurately,
note cards) to encourage the staff to reflect on two key areas: 1) the impact
they wanted to make on the organization and 2) the personal growth they wanted
to achieve as a result of their work with the organization. I also worked with
my chief student leader attempting to work through a rubric but struggled with
buy-in from the student. I found the 1-minute papers to be moderately effective
as we revisited different ones throughout the year.
As I, myself, reflected on my
year in the shallow end of SLLO, I discovered two key obstacles. I struggled to
obtain buy-in from students, which I believe to be a product of my limited time
with them. I also found my intentionality to be lacking. With these two
obstacles in mind, I set some goals for my advising position with a different
organization the following year. I resolved to be more intentional in planning
out how I would use SLLO tools and more receptive to my students’ reactions to
the tools I introduced.
During the second year of my
assistantship, I stuck with the same tools as before; 1-minute papers and
rubrics. The difference this year came from my goal of increasing
intentionality with SLLO. I took time at the start of each semester to select
1-minute paper prompts to introduce throughout the year that related to their
experiences with the organization at a specific time. For example, I prompted
them to reflect on transition, both as it relates to the organization and to
their life, in April. I also exposed my chief student leader to all of
the SLLO rubrics and outcomes, allowing that student to choose a rubric they
wanted to work on. That ownership led to significant student investment and
improvement in our work with the effective meetings rubric. In addition to
1-minute papers and rubrics, I also employed leadership moments in weekly
director staff meetings, disguising them as “advisor times,” a seemingly more
fun agenda item from the students’ perspective.
I achieved much more success
with SLLO in my second year, compared to my first, and I found the main cause
of that increased success to be intentionality. I sacrificed extra time
to give real thought and attention to finding the most impactful way I could
incorporate SLLO into my advising experiences. That extra time made all the
difference.
As I transition into my first full-time professional position,
when it comes to SLLO, that extra time is what I will remember. I know the
principles. I have been exposed to the tools. But, if I do not make time to be
intentional with how I align my work with those principles, if I don’t take the
time to strategically plan out how I will use the tools, my efforts will be, at
best, diluted. And, while students will change and my personalized style with
SLLO will develop, without the dedicated time and attention, my student impact
suffers. Time will tell exactly how I use SLLO in my next role, but the one
certainty I know and keep in those regards is that time will be spent to
intentionally figure that out.
- Leo Young
- Leo Young
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