It's Not Just About Ideas

In my learning environment I am constantly learning along with my students. Day by day I work at my computer and go out to high schools recruiting. I am constantly learning how to change things effectively and I am learning new ways to do my job better. I apply that knowledge when I interact with my students at their high school and so I can better serve their questions and needs.

I feel like I am a futurist. I love to plan for the future when I should be living in the now. I grew up with the mindset that I always needed a plan if I was going to succeed. After listening to Ito’s ted talk, I realized that life isn’t always about planning ahead. We need to live our lives in the now and be able to enjoy it. If we are always planning, we have no time to enjoy our lives. Don’t get me wrong, we all need to have a plan, but we need to not obsess over it and live our lives to the fullest because we often will see Innovations that we can be a part of. For my students, I always have a plan of how to recruit and I am always thinking ahead. I need to be a Now ist so I can help my students in the present instead of being focused on the future.

I am flexible even though I do not like change. Working for Lamar University, I am finding out that we are allowed to experiment with blended learning, and we can use our technological resources to better understand and help our students. In Admissions, we constantly are improving our systems and trying to find new ways to make the online aspect of apply easier for our incoming students. We constantly use a text messaging system and have student appointments where they can choose their method of communication and we will reach out to them to see what we can do to help.

I am committed to kids using technology. Even though we rely on it so much these days, if our students are stuck in the past with no internet, they won’t learn as efficiently because our type of learning has changed to us being able to master technology. I am working on creating the necessary learning environment for my students by letting them ask me what they can do to better further the application process. I am gently guiding them through it while they are making all the decisions by themselves.