1. Rank these in order of importance in your work as a tutor. Say why and what aspects, specifically, are important in each area.
I personally believe that knowledge about the learning process is the most vital component of tutoring. Although this was not intuitive when I first started, I realized that sometimes you don’t even have to know the material well in order to help someone learn it! In many cases, clients are just lacking the confidence to push on with what they already know or just have trouble validating their own conclusions in the context of what the book says. Sometimes they just need help reading the chapter or are frustrated with a topic simply because they don’t know how to organize their own studying methods. And even if you do know the material well, it doesn’t mean you will be able to communicate that knowledge to someone else. That is why I think that without some level of understanding of the learning process precludes all of the other factors.
Provided one does understand how to help a client understand the material, I would say that the next most important factor has to be knowledge of the material itself. I mentioned that in many cases you can help someone learn without actually knowing the material, but then again certain cases would be nearly impossible without a deeper understanding of what the client is attempting to understand. For instance, in chemistry everything builds on previous information (almost always), and most clients who were confused or just outright lost were actually missing certain fundamental understandings of the processes they were attempting to understand. Although I could provide the client with a strategy that emphasizes looking at the finer details of a given topic to identify gaps in their logic, it is much more efficient to be able to point out to a client exactly where this information is missing and then teach it.
I next put people skills, because I think that without these it would be very difficult to communicate information to clients, even if the information was known as well as the means by which it should be taught. People skills allow the tutor to understand at which points the client is or is not following along, to assess the client’s confidence level, and provide information in a manner that is not disrespectful, condescending, or incoherent.
Creativity perhaps comes next because, as I have found, improvisation is a very useful tool when a client is confused. Being able to present information in different ways and appeal to the different learning styles requires that the tutor is able to develop different ways of presenting information on the spot, in accordance with the client’s learning style.
Communication with faculty is next because in order to best prepare a client for higher performance in a given class, you have to know what the demands of the class are. Although the concerns of the professor are good to keep in mind and to guide tutoring sessions, they are certainly not the MOST critical aspects of being a tutor.
The sixth most important aspect of this job, in my opinion, was communication of appointments and the setting of guidelines so that clients have a good idea of when you are available. This is represented by the third bullet- TJ’s systems. Although you can tutor someone affectively without much of the documentation, it can be hard to keep track of hours without it. Also, it is good to know who is coming in for tutoring at least an hour beforehand so that you know how to prepare for the session. After enough appointments I was able to gauge various learning styles. For instance, certain clients preferred to work on practice problems, so I could get a few of those prepared before a session because I could see who was coming in on TJ’s systems. Others, however, just preferred that I help explain concepts from the book and such extensive preparation wasn’t necessary.
2. Rate yourself in respect to doing your job and following TJ’s systems. Why? In which areas?
Overall I was very responsible with logging out of the Kronos system because of how many times it was emphasized that this causes serious problems. However, I have to admit that I began to rely on e-mailed appointment notices to tell me when clients came in, and only realized later that there’s no guarantee that I would get one of these for each client. So checking tutortrack regardless of whether or not an email notification comes was something I learned the hard way (although it only took one slip up to learn this). I wish clients put down more information in their appointment info boxes in tutortrack though, because many times I wouldn’t know how to prepare for the session, and that is something I like to do. At this point I think its obvious that I had problems logging my hours for TJ’s 24. Whether some slips got lost or not I can’t say, but it was definitely hard to remember exactly how much time I would spend talking with Dr. Goj or Dr. Blossey, sitting in on classes, and preparing for tutoring sessions at the end of two weeks. Even trying to remember when I last filled out a blue sheet was difficult for me, so I think that I would have to invent a better system for myself for logging my hours had I done this all over again. In this regards, I think I am somewhere just shy of “Mostly Responsible.”
4. Briefly mention what you learned/discovered from training: crash and staff meetings. I think the most important things I learned from these meetings is that there is way more going on with tutoring that just knowing the information, especially in regards to learning styles. Also, developing an understanding of my motivations for tutoring in the first place was interesting, and I think it helped me get the most out of this experience that I could.
5. What have you learned on the job as a tutor?
One thing sticks out in my mind above all else, that being that not everyone will understand a concept when provided with a specific explanation. Some people have to have it repeated, rephrased, etc. Others need to just work the problems themselves and find it all but impossible to conceptualize a topic without the kinesthetic application of what is being discussed. Also, clients have agendas. Each person is looking for a certain level of involvement not only from themselves but form you as well. Some would like to go through problems and be able to “reference you” when necessary, whereas others are the complete opposite, expecting a full lesson plan and lecture out of you when they arrive at TJ’s.
6. If you could change one thing about these courses, what would it be?
I would like to have a professor from the department come to at least one of the staff meetings. After all, they have the most experience in communicating knowledge for the given topic. Although trying to accommodate all departments may be hard, and professors are busy as it is. But just a thought 
7. If you could change one thing about TJ’s systems, what would it be?
This blog is confusing! I find it hard to navigate from the blog to the dashboard, to wordpress… in fact I’m not even really sure how the system is set up to this day. It turns out I was in the wrong dashboard when I submitted my last blog so it didn’t show up on the TJ’s page, it showed up somewhere else, and I’m not sure exactly where that somewhere else is. In my opinion there are just too many options, links, folders, etc. involved with the wordpress system.
8. For good or ill, what two things stand out about this year/semester in tutoring?
I think it was pretty cool to see how much of a difference the tutors in my department helped out the professors. Just earlier today Dr. Goj was saying how much easier its been on her with all the extra help coming from TJ’s due to the increase in tutors.
9. Challenges of tutoring?
Take the time to really figure out when your hours should be. Certain times this year were absolutely crazy for me because I would be getting a bajillion (literally, a bajillion) tests and assigments and all the sudden my appointment slots would fill up completely. There were certain times I was sure that the CHM220 students knew my schedule and were out to get me. So, that in mind, plan accordingly. During tutoring, however, there are various challenges to expect. For example, if the situation comes up where you don’t know the answer to the client’s question, or to the extend you think you should know it, just be honest, they’re not going to hate you, and if they give you any attitude just remind them that you’re not a professor, you didn’t go to graduate school, etc. But the flip side of that is be to be prepared! Look for appointment notes in Tutortrack and develop a plan for the case the that client shows up without any sort of gameplan whatsoever. Finally, you will be asked by students to help out outside of your designated hours. Although I never had a problem doing this, and in fact enjoyed it most of the time, it could potentially become a problem. Decide early on what your boundaries are and stick to them. Sometimes clients do not remember that you yourself have work to do, and I have found that a gentle reminder is all that is necessary when you can’t help someone out.
10. If you have been another sort of peer educator, what in that training would you like to see in tutor training?… what in our training would you like to see in that training?
I actually think the training we receive in TJ’s is more than enough. I feel like I had the tools to deal with the worst of situations even though they never came up. In addition, there were only a few clients where I really had to resort to drastically switching my method of presentation, but in these situations I feel like the training did help. I’m not sure I could recommend any additions to the training at this point, it all seemed extremely thorough to me. I would recommend to other programs to incorporate the hypothetical scenario practice work that we did, I think that was a great preparatory exercise.
