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Step 4: Identify the Thought Process

I typically had one of two types of clients/sessions. On the one hand, I had students come in with a good grasp of the material who simply wanted someone around to make sure they weren’t making any mistakes. On the other hand, I had several appointments in which the student knew virtually nothing, had no notes, might not have any of the books for class, and was just generally looking for salvation from the results of their own serious lack of effort. Determining which of these two thought processes were bringing the students in was crucial. Although I remained open for any range of options, it was important to ascertain how much preparedness the student had and what exactly they wanted from me. In the case of the prepared students, all they really wanted was someone to watch/listen to them go through their notes, offering helpful insights and safeguarding against mistakes. In the case of the less prepared students, I knew I could not provide what they wanted, so I needed to adapt a strategy to help them the most in the long run.

Step 5: The Agenda

I touched on this a little in step four, but after determining what exactly a student wanted from me, I could create an agenda for the session that met his or her specific needs. Typically, I would try to get a sense from the student about what he or she wanted help with. In cases in which the client had a clear idea of what to work on, we would start there and proceed to related areas as the need arose. In other cases, though, the client would be uncertain of what he or she even needed help with. These were the most difficult to set an agenda for. Although I had syllabi and a rough idea of what the different classes were doing, this gave me little more than a starting point. Often, these sorts of sessions would become a discussion of study habits and the right way to go about reading philosophy rather than actual review sessions on material.

Step 6: Address the Task

My logic classes were by far the easiest one to address the task for. We could review over the chapters and do problems, working our way sequentially through the book. I would quiz the client on material from the chapters; anything he or she knew right away was something we could skip, and anything else we would review together. In other classes, the questions and concerns varied too much to have a single method of addressing the task.

Step 7: Summarize the Content

The best way to summarize content, I found, was to look back over the notes I and/or the client had taken during the tutoring session. Although I tried to discourage students from excessive note-taking, some took a few notes which served as a useful guide for summarizing the content of our session at the end. I also had some success by getting my clients to do the summarization of the content; by having them explain it to me at the end, I think I reinforced the material.

Step 8: Summarize the Process

In logic sessions, process and content were pretty much identical. However, process became more important in some of my other courses. Specifically, many of my sessions of philosophy of mind were essentially questions about what kind of study process they should be doing, what they could do in the future, etc. Again, making the student go back over and summarize all of the strategies you give him or her is a valuable way to make sure the they have been internalized.