3.3 Personal Reflection (Required to earn certificate)

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  Posted by CUNY Mindset Initiative on July 3, 2024 at 7:23 pm

  💬  Share your personal reflection:

  How do we begin to explore the ways we can create a sense of belonging? We start with ourselves! It’s always powerful to take a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of our students, because no matter how long ago it was, we were once them. We were once starting college or moving through it and taking courses for the first time or embarking on a certain major.

  We invite you to reflect upon the following questions before moving to the other components of this module.

  • What was your college experience like? In what ways did you feel like you belonged in the greater campus community? Who or what do you think was mainly responsible for that? If you didn’t feel like you belonged, what do you think could have been supportive for you?
  • Consider now, your proximity and relationship to the students you teach. What is their overall general college experience like? In what ways is it similar or different from your own? (Consider demands on their time, commuting versus living on-campus, and other key components of college life.)
  • Finally, to what extent do you feel comfortable sharing your college experience with your students? What makes you comfortable or uncomfortable to do so?

• Weiheng Sun (he/him/his)

  Member

  July 5, 2024 at 4:19 pm

  • When I was in college, I felt like I belonged in the greater campus community when I had some friends, companions, and when I had some interest groups in which we may learn, practice and move forward together. I had this kind of feeling particularly when I was in a writing workshop in which we reviewed each other’s works and made comments. Interaction with people and genuine conversations (written or verbal) would make me feel a sense of belonging.
  • My students are commuting, and mostly are doing part-time jobs. They generally have lots of other things to do, in addition to their class. I feel my class is generally welcoming and my students are willing to talk to me about their concerns.
  • I feel generally comfortable sharing my college experience with my students. I think this may make them feel more relieved and more included. I’ll try this next semester.
  Casandra Silva Sibilin (she/her/hers)

  Member

  July 8, 2024 at 8:48 am

  Hi Weiheng – thanks for sharing. Your example of interest groups makes me think about the relationship between sense of belonging (S) and growth (G). Growing together with others builds sense of belonging… and a sense of belonging (including genuine conversation) helps with growth.

  Something I’ve been wondering about is the practice of setting up student groups at the beginning of the semester. I haven’t tried this myself, but I’m curious about whether others have done so and any advice on this.
  Casandra Silva Sibilin (she/her/hers)

  Member

  July 8, 2024 at 8:56 am

  • Overall, I didn’t feel like I belonged in the greater campus community. Perhaps this was in part due to being a first-generation student and feeling that (something which was probably far from true!) others had things more figured out, as in what college life was all about. I also didn’t engage in many extracurricular activities, at least not until my junior/senior year. It would have been supportive to have a greater variety of activities available along with courses that integrated extracurricular activities.
  • I lived on campus and had a part-time job, but it was on campus and only for a few hours each week. My students all commute, and many of them have part-time or even full-time jobs, usually off campus.
  • I sometimes share about my academic experience and things such as picking a major… but have not shared about my sense of belonging in college and more. I will think about ways to do that so as to support students through their own challenges.
  Casandra Silva Sibilin (she/her/hers)

  Member

  July 8, 2024 at 9:45 am

  Hi again – I was just reading this article, h/t Dr. Kevin Kolack @professork and brought me back to this thread! It’s interesting that based on this research the impact of peer groups on motivation has “tended to be ignored.”

  “Five Keys to Motivating Students”

  Pintrich notes that research on social goals “highlights the importance of peer groups and interactions with other students as important contexts for the shaping and development of motivation, a context that has tended to be ignored . . .” (p. 675)

   

   
  Alessandra Migliara (She/her)

  Member

  July 11, 2024 at 6:33 am

  • During my college years, I felt a sense of belonging to the courses I was attending and my major, rather than the greater campus community. In my major (which included far fewer students than the other majors), there was a strong sense of community, with everyone helping and relying on each other for notes and materials. Even though I have always preferred to study and do my work in a solitary setting, sharing a path with other students and knowing we were there for each other helped me a lot. I had a very active life beyond college, with various volunteering activities, which I feel is the main reason why I never participated much in general campus activities. However, more events and efforts to reach out to students would have helped. When I started my graduate studies in New York, I struggled to feel like I belonged because I came from a foreign country where academia is very different, and it was a completely new world for me. I felt very self-conscious about my English and, in general, insecure about my own work because the methodologies used were very different from what I was familiar with. I think this experience helped me empathize a lot with first-generation students and those whose first language is not English.
  • Teaching at CUNY has been a mind-opening experience. When I was in college, my only focus was studying for exams and pursuing my personal interests. Now, I know that most students have complicated lives; many of them have jobs and families to take care of, and I am aware that I cannot expect them to only focus on their schoolwork. This also makes me feel more responsible for motivating and supporting them.
  • I realize now that I share my recent experiences (graduate studies, research abroad) with them, but I rarely talk about my college years or why I chose my major. Maybe I haven’t done this as much because I feel my college experience is very different from their own, but I’ll think more about this and how sharing more could help them.