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Shawn Chambers

12/09/19

HDF417

Robert Vincent/Alison Jackson Frasier

HDF417 Final Paper

For my HDF417 experience, I was a Teaching Assistant for the HDF413 class, Advanced

Facilitation and Consulting Skills. The class takes place Monday’s from four pm to six pm, and

is technically after the Student Organization Leadership Consultants. Because of the class taking

place after the club, a lot of members of the club end up taking the class, so my transition into the

role of the TA for the class was rather smooth. The first day of class, the TA’s introduced

ourselves as well as had the other class members introduce themselves as well so everyone gets

acquainted. When it comes to my role as TA in terms of the club, typically the TA sits in on E-

Board meetings and is able to help during meetings and be able to know what information is

being presented during the meeting, and what needs to be said during class. This year I wasn’t

able to do so for other educational obligations, but instead we had a meeting of the TA and our

supervisor, Alison Jackson Frasier. This was we were able to have a clear idea of what was being

presented during class and what was required of each of the TA’s during meetings and class

time. My goal as a TA for HDF413 was to be a resource for the people in the class to ask

facilitation questions to, considering my background in facilitating. I had been a part of SOLC

since first semester freshman year, had been a facilitator, and more recently a manager, on the

North Woods Challenge Course, and worked as an adventure education facilitator at Hale

Reservation in Massachusetts. With all of these experiences combined, as well as the time I spent

at the Association for Experiential Education conference, I had a lot of ways to help out the
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members of the class. I had many activities “in my back pocket” and an understanding of what

type of activities work for what types of groups. I wanted to be able to be a resource for those

people who wanted to talk about how to get different activities to work for their programs, or to

learn more about the theory that informs my practice as a facilitator.

As I stated briefly earlier, what we as TA’s had for a training program was a meeting

with Alison. For those meetings, which occurred from two pm to three pm on Mondays, we

would sit down and discuss what was going to happen for that class and what material was going

to be presented. We would talk about who wanted to cover what we were doing in class on that

day, whether that is facilitating an activity, presenting content, or going over assignments. We

didn’t need a proper training program for our position as the TA, because both TA’s had taken

the class already and knew most of the content and what was going to happen in the class. I was

a fan of not having a specific training program and having weekly meetings, because I felt

prepared without a formal training program, but would’ve felt unprepared for the class if we

didn’t have the weekly meetings, so I think what was already established worked well.

The environment of my internship didn’t change much with me being in my position

from what I saw. I know that the class changes year to year based on the TA’s and their

personalities, but outside of that expected piece, it seemed the same. While in my position as a

TA, I made sure to try to be as authentic as I could be in every situation, because I value who I

am and didn’t want to change myself for this position. However, I have noticed a change in

myself. What I mean by this is that I feel more confident in myself in a mentor role. I always

tried to encourage the people in the class and passed on the information that I knew would be

helpful for the people I was talking to. In previous years, I haven’t been the most confident in

myself, but over the past year and into this role, I’ve gained a lot of confidence in myself. Being
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in this role and being able to be someone that others can rely on and turn to for support or

information was very reassuring to the idea that I know what I am doing, or that I was chosen for

this position for a reason.

In conclusion, this was a great experience that was both informative and important for

myself and the student in the HDF413 class. I was able to pass off the information that I learned

to the other facilitators in the class, and be able to raise up the facilitators that needed it. I was

also able to see a more professional class setting in terms of experiential education. I felt the

meeting that we had were informative and important for the success of the class, but I wish I

could’ve gone to the E-Board meetings as well. I had a great time as a TA for this class and it

helped build up the confidence in myself, so it makes me excited to see how the class and

facilitators evolve throughout this year and the next.