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Bonner Training Modules (with Descriptions) (redirected from Bonner Training Modules (with Descriptions)

Page history last edited by Lauren Kinser 10 years, 8 months ago

A note on time:  many modules contain activities that could last longer than one hour.  There are a few ways for dealing with this, if you have 1 hour Bonner Meetings:

 

  1. Split the module into two meetings, hence giving time for participants to work on things (most modules contain interactive applications and activities) and bring that back, reporting out
  2. Trim the module by not doing some pieces, like introductions and warm ups (which are built into most modules in the case they are used for retreats).  These don't need to be done when the group already knows each other and is involved in a series of meetings.
  3. Pick and choose the activities that will work best for you. 
 
 


AIDS Day Reflection

A great reflection for a Bonner Meeting on World AIDS Day.  The purpose is to raise our awareness of the AIDS epidemic and the effect it has on the world and our more local communities. To see how AIDS is tied into other social, economic, political, and even religious problems and struggles. 

 

Action Planning: Developing a Plan

Student organizers and leaders of community service projects and civic engagement often face issues that require well-developed plans and problem-solving approaches. This workshop guides participants through a series of activities including brainstorming, idea formation, and written exercises to guide development of individual action plans. Through it, participants will learn a concrete strategy for action planning that allows them to focus their purpose and goals, as well as produce written plans and documentation that can be used to persuade others, garner resources, and move forward.

 

Advocacy 101: Tools for Political Engagement

Many of us are concerned citizens with at least one or two good suggestions for elected representatives or those in positions of authority. This workshop introduces some basic and always useful strategies for advocacy. It presents knowledge aimed at enhancing individuals' abilities to advocate for an issue to a policy maker or elected official. These practices are linked to the larger development of active, informed citizenship. In this workshop, participants have the opportunity to engage in group activity learning and practice a form of advocacy on a given topic. These activities also promote communication skills, such as those required to convey viewpoints.

 

Advocacy 201: Meeting with An Elected Representative

  Students may be moving into forms of political engagement, including lobbying an elected official. If students have begun to take on advocacy as a key part of their work, refining skills in effectively representing a point of view and persuading a congress representative or other official on an issue is important. This training exercise prepares participants for meeting with a member of congress or their aide. Through interactive activities, it covers a range of dimensions in order to ensure that this approach to advocacy can be effective. This is a good follow-up to the Advocacy 101 workshop.

 

BHAGS: Setting Big Hairy Audacious Goals

  This workshop can be a fun, imaginative way for a team to grapple with their work project and articulate its vision in new ways. BHAGS (pronounced "bee-hags") are Big Hairy Audacious Goals -- a term coined by authors Jerry Porras and James Collins in their book "Built to Last," which examines the qualities of successful visionary companies. They found that one factor that distinguished successful efforts from unsuccessful ones was the use of ambitious, even outrageous, goals to motivate people and focus them toward concrete accomplishments. While we in the student service arena are in the "business" of service and social change, the lesson and process captured by BHAGS can be fun and useful. By imagining and refining real BHAGS, a team can let loose their creative, motivating energies. BHAGS by definition are inspiring, "hit you in the gut" goals, and they can be helpful for any team's project, however big or small.

 

Bridging the Gap Between Service, Activism, and Politics

  In most recent years, participation in community service by young adults is at an all-time high, yet voting and other forms of political participation have fallen to their lowest levels since 1971, when American citizens 18 and over received the right to vote. Even the past several years of voter registration did not net huge gains in the voting rate of youth, although recent data indicates that college students did vote in high proportion (75%) in the 2004 election. Research suggests that those involved in service often see it as a form of politics. On the other hand, since September 11, 2001, college freshmen describe themselves as more patriotic and also have participated in protests at higher levels. How to bridge all these avenues? This workshop is designed to assist facilitators in bringing together students interested in and involved in community service with their counterparts involved in activism and in politics to discuss ways their work can support each other and even create collaboration. Note that the session requires participation by students who can consider or represent both avenues.

 

Building a Personal Network

  This training introduces the concept of building personal networks, which is a foundation for helping individuals become cognizant about how the relationships they develop through their work in various communities is also building a potentially lifelong network. The workshop is designed to guide participants to distinguish different communities in their lives and what personal resources they have in each of these communities. In addition, participants will be asked to look critically at these networks and assess whether or not they align with personal goals.

 

Building Career Networks

  Too often job seekers place little attention on the value of recognizing, building, and accessing both personal and professional networks to gain insight about a potential job or even to get a foot in the door of a sought-after organization. The fact is our entire world is a series of networks that make one global network. If we can find a link between ourselves and someone on the other side of the world (as the theory Six Degrees of Separation suggests) then we can find a link to a potential job that may be in the same community, city, state, or country as we may be. This workshop will be begin this crucial process of identifying networks of both professional and personal natures to see how you may be closer your dream job than you may have guessed.

 

Building Coalitions

  Often, student leaders, community organizers, and professionals encounter issues on their campus or in their community that are difficult to address with one organization or club alone. Collaborative efforts or coalition support can prove helpful in addressing such issues. In practice, coalition building can be a challenging task to accomplish, but is often worth the effort. It demands the ability to analyze contexts and issues, identify allies and supporters, and negotiate unity among individuals, groups and organizations with different goals. This workshop provides some guidance for coalition building. Through a series of group exercises and demonstrations, participants practice ways to analyze campus issues, build coalitions, and create shared goals and objectives.

 

Citizenship: Rights, Responsibilities and Struggles

  This workshop is designed to engage participants in thinking about how they and others tend to define citizenship -- in theory and in practice. It aims to spur dialogue across some commonly held beliefs about what it means to be an active citizens in the United States. It also aims to help people think critically about the way in which conceptions and rights of citizenship had changed historically, including through the amendments to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (which are included in the workshop as handouts, along with a provocative article upon which the exercise is based). Finally, this session helps participants to consider connections between our legal and political rights and forms of citizen action.

 

Community Asset Mapping: A Critical Strategy for Service

  Community asset mapping-- the process of intentionally identifying the human, material, financial, entrepreneurial and other resources in a community--is an important process for community projects of all kinds. Whether you are tutoring a child in a neighborhood school, starting your own new initiative, or mobilizing a campaign for a policy change, knowing and using the many assets within a community (including those of the university or college) provide a foundation for effectiveness. This intensive training, designed over a series of activities most suitable for at least three days, provides guidance on how to uncover community assets and create a canvass or map of them. It relies on the framework of viewing a community from its assets, rather than deficits, in order to utilize and manifest existing resources of all kinds.

 

Community Building Challenge Course

  Challenge courses can be used as team and community building activities because they help to define a program’s identity and to create teamwork and unity between students. These challenge course activities are designed to help students learn to work with one another, beginning relationships necessary for the growth of your Bonner Program. A continued exploration of community building can be achieved through weekly gatherings to discuss and reflect on Bonners’ experiences.

 

Conflict Resolution: Steps for Handling Interpersonal Dynamics

  This workshop engages participants in addressing conflicts that are typical for their work/situation through talking through them, using a series of eight simple steps. By presenting a strategy for addressing conflicts, participants learn that there are ways to address and resolve conflicts through better communication. They can apply these steps to conflicts (real or through case studies) that they are facing personally.

 

Cover Story

  The Cover Story engages participants in a creative visioning exercise to imagine their idea, project, or organization as a "cover story" for a published magazine. For example, a student organization can imagine a Time Magazine or local newspaper "cover" for their university's work in the community for a year in the future (2-5 years). This activity involves a variety of tasks -- including silent brainstorming, drawing, coming up with clever slogans -- which provide people with many ways to explore their visions, ideas and goals. It helps a team or group to articulate a shared vision

through a process that can be engaging and fun.

 

Democracy Reflection through the book "Enemy of the People"

This reflection looks critically at democracy through the eyes of Henrik Ibsen’s play “An Enemy of the People” as retold by Arthur Miller (author of “Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible”). We have attempted to apply his questions to America and contemporary and historical situations. This reflection is not a condemnation of democracy or a support for alternative government styles. It is a criticism, and as such should inspire us to think about things we often take for granted. 

 

Ethnocentrism:  Exploring Your National Identity

This training is to help participants identify ethnocentrism in their everyday lives and how it may (negatively) affect communication between people. It is intended to help participants build perspective about culture and beliefs, supporting the development of international perspective.  Through critical thinking, participants develop more awareness of where they may be unfairly generalizing, stereotyping, or not exploring new perspectives.

 

Exploring Nonprofit Careers

  When considering a possible career within the nonprofit sector, many individuals may be plagued with certain myths attached to the sector, like lack of funding and instability. While these concerns certainly exist in the nonprofit sector, they also exist within other sectors as well. This workshop will guide participants through countering some common myths related to nonprofit careers. This workshop introduces participants to examples of successful nonprofit leaders and the career choices they have made create and maintain roles within the sector.

 

Facilitation 101: Roles of Effective Facilitators

  This workshop provides a basic introduction to techniques and tips for facilitation, which are useful for trainings, discussion groups and other formats. It is an introductory workshop, exploring some of the knowledge and skills a facilitator needs to be effective in leading groups. It focuses in particular on presenting the roles of effective facilitation. It should likely be followed with additional training on facilitation, such as Facilitation 201 and Facilitation 202.

 

Facilitation 201: An Intensive Introduction

  This lengthy, content-rich, interactive session introduces a general approach to facilitation and a range of tools and techniques for facilitation. It introduces a framework that provides a foundation for how to approach facilitation. Then, using a series of active role-plays, the workshop involves volunteer participants, engaging them in learning about and practicing a variety of facilitation tools. This is a fairly advanced training in parts, requiring a facilitator who is comfortable with all of the techniques and tools contained in this trainer guide and handouts. A precursor to this training is the basic Roles of a Facilitator. A good follow-up session is Facilitation 202.

 

Facilitation 202: More Techniques and Strategies

  This session provides participants with advanced tools and techniques for facilitation, whether for use in meetings or trainings. Through small group work using situations of typical facilitation challenges generated by participants, the workshop guides participants to review and select appropriate tools and strategies. It also introduces and incorporates a wide range of tools and games. The session actively involves participants in presenting, using role-plays and the opportunity for feedback. This session is a great complement to Facilitation 201, which introduces a framework and set of techniques.

 

Fishbowl Discussion: Defining Your Communities

  A fishbowl discussion is a group communication technique that can help students talk about issues. In this case, it can be used to allow students to explore the communities to which they belong in safe environment. It is designed to help students learn to listen to each other, enhancing relationships necessary for the growth of your Bonner Program. A continued exploration of community building can be achieved through future reflections on Bonners’ experiences.

 

Four Corners: Building Appreciation for Diverse Ideas and Dialogue

  Four Corners engages people in a semi-structured dialogue around a set of statements intended to provoke critical thinking and sharing. By doing so, participants have the chance to reflect on and articulate their own viewpoints. It also provides a structure for participants to learn, through dialogue, about viewpoints that may differ from their own. This activity fosters communication, listening, and leadership skills. By using statements that are designed to be intentionally ambiguous and effective at dividing the group by different perspectives, this activity helps participants to dialogue. This workshop can work well for a variety of settings and purposes, most often to focus on issues of cultural background, political viewpoint, values, race, class, gender, religion, and other issues. It promotes active listening and articulate community building skills.

 

Games, Games, Games Galore

  This is a resource handbook of games suitable for use as icebreakers and other interactive learning activities during trainings, meetings, and workshops. Many of the games can be modified for various purposes or topics. Many are great for introductions, getting people focused, or facilitating the sharing of ideas and information. For each game, you'll find the title, short description of what size group the activity is best for, and fuller description of how to do the activity.

 

Gender 1: Building Gender Awareness

  In our society today, communities are made up of people with a wide range of ideas and orientations, even about issues as fundamental as gender. Anyone engaging in his/her community may be challenged by ideas and orientations that they have not considered. Among these ideas, differing ideas about gender can be very challenging, especially if a person hasn't thought about the issues of growing up male or female and how gender expectations affect day-to-day working relationships. This workshop invites students to think and dialogue on what gender is and on their own attitudes toward it.

 

Gender 2: Deepening Gender Awareness

  The roles associated with gender influence each aspect of our lives. Our gender can affect everything from the clothes we wear to how we talk. As a continuation of An Introduction to Gender Dialogue, this workshop provides a structured setting in which participants can explore and discuss their own reflections about how gender has influenced their own behavior and interactions within the society at large. Through this sharing and dialogue, participants deepen their own self-awareness, as well as abilities for interpersonal relationships and working in a way that is aware of issues and biases.

 

Get-Out-the-Vote (with a youth focus)

  In 2000, voting among American 17- to 24- year olds reached its low at around 36 percent, falling more than 13 percent since the voting age was lowered to eighteen in 1971. Despite millions of dollars in investment and the hard work of individuals and groups across the nation, voting by youth (with the exception of college students) in the 2004 election did not increase notably. Voting among those older than 25 isn't at 100% either, with 80% of those eligible claiming to have voted in the 2000 Presidential election but with turnout likely much lower. This module provides strategies for running a Get Out the Vote campaign on your campus or in your community. In particular, it is designed to help increase political engagement of young people. It uses a variety of fun, interactive activities to get participants thinking and equipped to carry out voting campaigns.

 

Groups Within Groups: Exploring Dimensions of Diversity

  This is a longer workshop exploring dimensions of diversity, suitable especially for a retreat. It consists of a series of group within group discussions and sharing sessions. You can set this up using a range of characteristics -- including age, gender, class, ethnicity/race, etc. For each topic, the same structure, technique and guiding questions are used. The overall purpose of this activity is to build understanding of, and appreciation for, how people value and interpret their own identity and to build the capacity of a group along issues of diversity. This is a great activity for a group (e.g. Bonner class, a campus-based program or student group) at a more developed stage of exploring diversity issues.

 

Homophobia: Countering It

  Homophobia can be defined as prejudice and discriminatory attitudes toward gays and homosexuals. Homophobia is still pervasive in our society, and it is wise to prepare for the likelihood of encountering homophobic individuals in the course of your work and throughout life generally. In order to create a foundation for addressing issues and concerns relating to homophobia, this workshop leads participants through a series of discussions and exercises. These activities provide a space for participants to share ideas about ways to address homophobia in their community and society.

 

Icebreakers for Diversity Workshops

  In this document you will be introduced to three different icebreaker activities that are especially suitable for the beginning of a diversity workshop or in a new community. Each activity encourages people to open up and share aspects of their cultural background with each other. Each icebreaker helps to set the tone of the training through positive energy. The icebreakers are presented in light of training trainers to do them and also provide an opportunity for people to practice and discuss.

 

Identity Circles: A Personal Exploration of Diversity

  This workshop guides participants through an activity called Identity Circles in which individuals reflect on and share qualities they believe make them who they are. It is an excellent activity to use with a group of students (volunteers or staff) to introduce them to thinking more deeply about the issues of diversity (within themselves and their community). This activity can help people build skills of self-reflection, communication, trust, and appreciation for diversity. Identity Circles are an ideal activity for personal exploration to build a foundation for diversity awareness, but it is simple and open enough to be used repeatedly.

 

Interviewing Skills

  Applying for a job is a process that includes researching a prospective job, utilizing personal and professional networks, and marketing yourself through a resume. Hopefully, the climax of this process is an interview with a prospective employer who invites you in, in order to explore your qualifications. However, many people seem to be unprepared for this task, with less than ten percent of students taking advantage of interviewing guidance and coaching before starting to apply for jobs. This workshop is a brief introduction into the art of interviewing for beginning job seekers. It is not necessarily geared at the non-profit sector; its content may be more appropriate for job-seeking in general, including in the for-profit sector. There is some good basic information in this session as well as ideas for planned session activities; you may want to consult with your campus's career services department and staff and involve them in offering an interviewing workshop.

 

Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector

  What is the nonprofit sector? What are nonprofit careers? In this introductory workshop, participants are guided through a series of activities based upon practical definitions, statistics, and other information. They are introduced to a framework for understanding the sector, engaging in reflection to develop a sense of what the nonprofit sector is. Through this, participants gain a broader understanding of nonprofit organizations, the depth and diversity of the sector, and the many career paths available within it.

 

Leadership Compass: Appreciating Diverse Work Styles

  This workshop allows participants to explore four primary work styles, as a tool for self-reflection and leadership growth. It encourages participants to delve more deeply into their strengths and weaknesses in all four styles, in the context of leadership and a working team. The purpose of this exploration is to enable participants to articulate at a higher level why they work the way they do, as well as identify skills and strengths they would like to enhance. It also is a tool for bolstering team accountability, by pushing people to consider the way in which their style(s) plays out on a team and how each person might become better at changing work styles to balance a team or fit a given work situation.

 

Leading Inquiry: Using Learning Circles (A Train-the-Trainers Approach)

  The ability to engage in dialogue and create a safe and respectful context for sharing ideas, views, and experiences is vital in the work of civic engagement leaders. A Learning Circle is a format for dialogue that invites participation in a manner that may be different from the typical conversational format, as it is not based on debate. It is a valuable and effective mode of communication that, when utilized correctly, can be a foundation for deep dialogue. This format has been used for decades by organizers and has been popular with faculty and others, such as in the Invisible College founded in the mid-1980's. A Learning Circle can prompt an exchange of ideas that may support participants' deeper learning or lead to the formulation of action steps and plans that participants can take back to their own communities or organizations.

 

Lobbying 101

  Often, individuals who are active in the community through service and activism come to care deeply about an issue and want to influence that issue through the political process. Some individuals' entry into civic engagement may even be wanting to influence policy makers and policies directly, sparked by a passion on an issue. Regardless of the path, it's helpful to know some approaches for lobbying, which this workshop introduces. Complementary workshops to do and/or review for materials include Advocacy 101 (which covers specific tips for letter writing, meetings, and phone campaigns), Meeting with a Congressperson, Using the Media to Get Out a Message and Action Plan Development.

 

Personal Vision: Articulating One

  As individuals engaged in community service, activism, politics, and other realms, we strive to create inclusive communities on and off of our campuses. These are communities that value full and effective participation of all its members, regardless of varied personal identities, experiences, or backgrounds of their members. Communities such as these cannot be built without trust and self-awareness. Defining who we are and what we want to be in the world is essential if we are to help others as effectively as we might. This workshop, drawn from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Jossey Bass, 1994) is an inspiring and useful place to begin. It provides a simple framework to allow people to reflect on and consider their personal visions. In addition, it can be modified in many creative ways (such as artistic, dramatic, etc.) for people who would like to "represent" their visions in forms other than written/spoken words. This activity works best in conjunction with the second exercise found in the curriculum, "Creating Shared Vision."

 

Planning a Leadership Transition

  This training is designed to guide participants in organizing their transition out of a leadership position in a program. It aims to assist a student leader in determining the important information that should be passed on to the next leader. It also provides suggested methods to convey that information including the guidelines for developing a concrete transition binder that can serve as a reference for incoming leaders.

 

Planning Effective Meetings

  It's no secret that community involvement and projects require lots of meetings. A meeting can make or break the planning process for a project, can inspire people to work hard or help to decide to tune out, and can help build an inclusive community or alienate people. This workshop provides a basic overview for how to plan an effective meeting. It introduces participants to considerations of planning agendas, structuring information, and designing activities for meetings. It teaches participants how to use structure to plan and run meetings that are purposeful and guide a group to achieve its goals.

 

Power Mapping

  Someone who is interested and involved in promoting positive social changes, through service, advocacy and other vehicles, often needs to think about context and relationships within the spheres she/he works. Power Mapping is a conceptual strategy of determining whom you need to influence, exactly who can influence your target, and whom you can actually influence to start the dominoes in motion. It is a valuable tool for individuals actively working with communities, providing a simple framework and a set of tools to better understand and leverage relationships and networks.

 

Preparing to Transition Leadership Supplement: Want Ads

  This workshop is designed to be part of a leadership transition process. It works either as a preliminary meeting between outgoing and incoming leaders or as an initial step in a retreat geared to acquaint old and new leaders and to ensure effective transition of knowledge. Outgoing and incoming leaders of a campus or community organization write "want ads" to describe the qualities a leader should possess to effectively run the organization. The want ads give the outgoing leaders a good idea of what information they need to pass on to the new leaders to ensure they are prepared to take on new roles and that the leadership transition is smooth.

 

Racism: Deconstructing It

  At times on campus and in communities, dialogue concerning racism is impaired or hindered by a lack of thinking deeper about the nature and perpetuation of racism. This workshop focuses on leading participants through a series of exercises considering the background of American racism and its forms, including institutional. It guides, regardless of background, through understanding racism as a social construct that affects members of all races, where privileges are administered to some groups and disadvantages to others.

 

Recruitment

  This workshop provides a comprehensive approach to recruiting volunteers or participants. It works through several dimensions including identifying a strategic approach, understanding what motivates people, and using both broad-based and targeted strategies. The workshop introduces many techniques, and it provides participants with an opportunity to bring it all together in a plan. It is especially geared at coordinators of programs who are responsible for training leaders and volunteers, such as project coordinators, to do outreach and recruitment. A helpful complement to this session may be project planning, for example by using the workshop and techniques in Managing by Calendar.

 

River Stories

This workshop provides a creative and artistic way to build community through the sharing of stories.  Its sets a foundation for participants to share their own paths (personal and professional), using the metaphor of a river to describe life experiences.  This activity is designed to help build context and cohesion in a group, as well as help people practice their communication and listening abilities.  A facilitator can modify it further to incorporate broader story-telling (such as collective history or the stories of movements).

 

Seeing Through Employer's Eyes: Group Resume Game

  The resume is one of the most important documents any person can prepare when seeking a job. However, understanding what is effective on a resume is somewhat difficult, especially when attempting to guess what an employer is looking for. The purpose of this session is to intentionally look through the nonprofit employer's eyes, considering what nonprofit organizations often look for when they hire. By viewing their own experience and skills from a different perspective, this workshop helps participants to sharpen their experience, education, and skill sets.

 

Setting Service Goals & Objectives

  Setting goals and objectives is an important part of framing one's service. It is one of the key steps in strategic project planning and assessment. Goals and objectives provide a foundation to assess one's work and the impact of one's work in an ongoing way. Whether the work is community service, civic activism, or other projects, a good set of objectives can be tracked and measured, providing information to consistently learn from and improve one's efforts. This training is focused on teaching participants how to formulate and write clear goals/objectives. It presents and guides participants through several straightforward steps of objective writing.

 

Shared Vision

  This shared visioning exercise provides a useful framework for a team to consider and develop a coherent, shared set of conceptualizations, goals, and values for a given project or work. By providing an opportunity for each team member to articulate and shape hopes and expectations for a project, a shared vision helps create a culture that values the full and effective participation of all of its members, regardless of personal identity, experience, or background. This workshop, drawn from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Jossey Bass 1994) fits well with a personal visioning session of some kind. This workshop alone is NOT enough to develop shared vision amongst a group, but it can be provide a great starting point. The ideas articulated during this exercise can ideally be used to form the basis of a group's mission statement, set of goals, guideposts and team values.

 

Time Management: Managing by Calendar

  Managing by calendar is a great technique for managing your time and project. In brief, it allows the calendar and time you have available to be used as a backbone for organizing and driving how you spend your time. Used consistently, managing by calendar gives the project manager and team a tool for sorting out competing and complex work assignments and prioritizing work.

 

Tower of "Me"sa: Spiritual and Self-Exploration Guide

  During the developmental years of college—and beyond— exploring one’s individual self and personal belief system is an important part of growth. This activity supports the issue of self and spiritual exploration, a Bonner Common Commitment, in a unique way, using the ideas of Native American culture and the meanings of animal totems. In the first portion of this two-part activity, participants will be challenged to think about and reflect upon their beliefs. The second part reinforces this heightened self-awareness by tasking students to create a totem that represents their individual characteristics.

 

Vocation: Board of Directors Personal Mission & Mentoring Exercise

  The purpose of the 'Board of Directors' exercise is to provide participants with a guided means of reflection to examine life purpose and relational influences. By examining their lives from the perspective that their life is a corporation, individuals will develop a mission statement as well as identify individuals, beliefs and/or values serving on their "Board of Directors". Guided analysis and reflective questioning challenge participants to be intentional in the decisions related to direction/purpose and relationships.

 

Vocation: Finding Your Vocational Fit Worksheet

  This is a helpful set of questions to use with students (and others) to guide their thinking about finding a vocation. It may be used both for a group activity or as the basis of a one-to-one meeting. See the Vocation Resource Guide for more information.

 

Vocation: So What Do You Do? Personal Exploration Exercise

  This activity provides participants with a delightful story of how one man wrestled with an appropriate answer to the question, 'So, what do you do?' The societal habit of defining who we are by what we do is challenged. As a result, through this exercise participants will begin to see the difference between "making a living and making a life" and to understand that a true vocational calling is an extension of who one is.

 

Vocation: The Bridge Builder Poem and Reflective Discussion

  The purpose of 'The Bridge Builder' activity is to challenge participants to think, with intentionality, about the importance of mentorship in their lives and the lives of others. In addition, participants are given an opportunity to reflect upon the concept of legacy and to consider their personal legacy.

 

Vocation: The Two Choices Decision-Making Exercise

  The purpose of 'The Two Choices' activity is to challenge participants to think, with intentionality, about the decisions they make. In addition, participants are given an opportunity to reflect upon the impact both small and big choices have on the development of their character and personal integrity.

 

Vocation: Tuesdays with Morrie Reading Guide & Discussion List

  'Tuesdays with Morrie' is a phenomenal book about youth and wisdom, life and death, having and giving, holding on and letting go. By reading and discussing this text, each participant will have an opportunity to examine his/her life through introspective analysis. In addition, during the discussion, a sense of community develops with participants as they share their thoughts and experiences.

 

Writing a Resume (Resume Guide)

  At best, a resume is a great marketing tool for an employer who is interested only in what you can contribute to their organization. It is not a laundry list of all past experiences, but a defined and focused listing of experiences and skills that illustrate why you are a great fit for a particular position. Yet, when you are creating a resume with limited professional and mostly volunteer experience, producing a clear, defined resume that reveals important learned skills can be difficult. This guide is a start in helping you understand your past volunteer, as well as work experience, and how to best accentuate it in your marketing tool, your resume.

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