Journal 3 – comments on PEP November session

Since I am only here for one year and I do not have the experience to elaborate on many problems that students with a longer Rollins experience see. But there are two suggestions I find interesting and note worthy:

1. “Don’t take absences so seriously. If a student doesn’t come to class it will show! They will fail themselves if too many missed.”

Certainly there are times when everyone is stressed out because of the amount of work we all have. However, I find it necessary to make sure that people are in class. Although some might be able to compensate what they have missed, others will not. My assumption is that of course not all students would make use of a “come as you please” rule – but the drop out rate would be much higher than it is now. Simply because a lot of students would notice to late that they cannot make up anymore for what they have missed in the exams coming.

2.  “Expand (4), more classes offered for for.lg. if you’re not just wanting gen.eds.”

in comparison to

“Get rid of foreign language requirement.”

As an European who has learned 3 foreign languages in his career as a High School student (2 were required, 1 was my choice), I am only surprised that quite a few people don’t speak foreign languages or maybe only one. In our globalized world, foreign languages are more important than ever. Of course, a lot of people speak English all over the planet. But why did they want to learn English? They could not expect that their language is spoken everywhere, so they learnt another language – and this is the thinking we need here, too.

I believe that it is not the aim of the foreign language requirement to put people in the position of a “near-native speaker” of that language or put them into a position where they can understand every word of a scientific discussion  (which also few students seem to expect) but to provide them with the language tools for a meaningful conversation with e.g. a business partner from Germany, China, France etc.

The requirement should therefore (since foreign languages are not really promoted in the education system until High School so far) not be eliminated. I believe that in most of the jobs that Rollins students will have, they will get in touch with people from around the world. And that will not always be in the States but also abroad.

 

Journal 4——self-evaluation

I think all the categories are useful to let the students to evaluate the tutos. But I suggest adding “patience” inside. Sometimes tutors need to explain again and again or think about the examples for their tutoring. And we also may meet the same problems with different students. So whether one tutor has “patience” to his/her peers is important.

This is the first semester for me to be a native speaker tutor in U.S.A. I want to use processing time, encourages/supports, learning skills to give myself the self-evaluation.
I think I may get 3 in processing time. Since some Wednesday afternoon I am too busy to handle the only per 15-minutes appointments, I may still talking something with students when the next one is coming. But after the very beginning season, I conquered this difficulties.
I want to say I can get 4 in encourages/supports. I know language learning is interesting but some basic practice is boring and difficult. So I have the habit to praise every little progress made by students. To let them study happily.
In learning skills, I think I can achieve 4. Since I’m a native speaker tutor and my Bachelor major is TCFL (Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language), I always suggest them some of the skills they can practice efficiently such as reading texts after or with mp3 per 10 minutes every or every other day. That is proved useful in language learning.

All in all, I may practice my English to solve this weakness. I will try my best to design the Chinese conversation class and to be a good tutor next semester.

Thank you, guys& Merry Christmas~

 

Journal 3, choice 2

The first PEP suggestion I agree with is: “more study abroad”. As one exchange student, I want to say this opportunity give me a lot chances that I can learn about how American lives, work, studies, also the methods differences between Western and Eastern countries. I remember at the very beginning’s meeting, I learnt the differences between the tutor methods. I am familiar with the eastern way that students just listen to the teacher or tutor. But here, we should let students act the real important role in the classes or during the appointment time.

The second PEP suggestion I agree with is: “Don’t take absences so seriously. If a student doesn’t come to class it will show! They will fail themselves if too many are missed.” Yes, it is true. If you don’t go to classes, you can’t learn from this course. How can you finish the exams? And the point we enter the university is to learn knowledge and methods. So students should go to classes. In the syllabus of CHN105, there is one rule that over 3-times absences you will get fail inside. But some students still take this rule seriously and those students’ pronunciation or conversation work are not good.

 

Journal #2——saying yes & no

In the tutors’ meeting, we discussed about how to say yes and no. That is difficult sometimes but important for tutors.

I learnt from meetings that when one student come to you for help with something, if I really can not help him in this field or at once, I should say “Yes” at first but add the reason or another time after “No”.

Once one student just made appointment with me and ask me to help him in his test-preparation work. I just do “yes” and tell him the tones on his answers, but do “no” on giving him the answer.

And one time, I really have work to do at that time so I just say to that student, “Yes, but now I will go to … does next Friday work on you?”

Thanks to the tutors’ meeting. It has taught me a lot.

 

Journal blog #1 Tutoring cycle steps 4-8

 

As a native Chinese tutor for this fall semester, I’ve had a lot of appointment and gotten a lot of processes.  Usually I might see nearly 10 people one afternoon because sometimes those appointments are required by my Prof.   So let me use these situations as example.

 

Step 4: Identifying the task

Chinese is a hard language to learn.  The pronunciation is most important for 101 level’s learner.  One task is to correct their pronunciation. At the very beginning, I ask them to read the text one sentence by one sentence.  Then point out their mistakes and let them read again after me, tell them some methods how to train their pronunciation.  At the end of the semester, I can find their processes on it.

 

Step 5. Setting the agenda

My professor put all syllabuses of his classes on blackboard and his blog.  And I usually set the agenda according to these syllabuses.  Sometimes students bring some questions in grammar, mostly are in the text that are taught at that time.  So I may preview the text and set my self’s agenda.

 

6. address the task

I also charge CHN 105, Chinese conversation class.  Besides preview the text and vocabulary,  I also will prepare for the conversation part in the class.  In discussions, My prof. sometimes tells me to add some certain practices inside that 105 course in order to let students achieve processes.

 

7. Summarizing the content

8. Summarizing the process

I may answer the students “Does I make sense?” or quote some examples for the problems.  I always write “Good job “on the TJ’s sheet after they read after me again and again.  Even sometimes they just got a little bit process. 

 

At this end of the semester, when I talked with my Prof. he said they got a lot of process especially in the pronunciation.  That moment, I feel so happy .  Even this semester, someone not behavior well in some classes, but most of them have given me confidences and friendships.  Next semester, I will add some new ways to teach and  my goal is to be one good tutor.

 

Post Three

I noticed that many students, prior to the beginning of the semester, had some reservations about becoming a peer educator. Certainly, most were optimistic, but some were still nervous about the responsibility they were about to incur. That was probably the greatest concern, in essence. Many anticipated an experience that would be rewarding, that they would get to interact with students and serve as a kind of mentor for the Rollins community. They hoped to form bonds with some of them, as well, and meet new people.

Personally, I did not know what to expect. I thought that it would be a lot of work, at it was at times, particularly around finals. I did not expect to get close to any of the clients, but I do notice myself now waving to them as we pass on campus. This was surprising, since I do not know all that many students. It was very different for me, in a sense, because I had not ever tutored anyone before. Yet at the same time, it was familiar because I am so prone to lecturing to anyone who will listen about matters I find fascinating, especially in regards to history. It just seemed natural.

I do not suppose that I would have answered the questions that were on Blackboard any differently, because I remained rather vague. I do not really like to guess about uncharted territory. I will say, however, that I was pleasantly surprised. I just hope that the clients I tutored got something out of our meetings as well. There is nothing like seeing the ‘click’ that happens in someone’s brain when they really get it. You can see it on their face. That is probably the best part of tutoring, and it is not something I expecte

 

Post Two

After attending the sessions on dealing with difficult situations, I expected to have more of them. I, however, feel that at least on my end, my sessions all went rather well. I also had some repeat clients who would come to me for different papers and such. Although I am somewhat concerned that I have not equipped them well enough to do these tasks on their own, at least it seems that we had established a rapport, and I did notice improvement in most cases.

The only difficult situations I had, really, related to two specific professors. I did not agree with the professor’s judgments. The first instances related to a student’s grade on a paper. I thought his/her thesis was relatively clear and easy to pick out of the paper, and the organization seemed good. The grade he/she received did not reflect this, so I talked to the professor to see what he/she expected in a paper, but disagreed with that evaluation. Thus, it was somewhat difficult to guide him/her in future papers, but I could not out rightly dispute their professor in front of them. I just explained his/her professor’s opinion and then helped as best I could. The other situation involved the professor insisting MLA citations on a paper about history, because that professor was in the English department. I disagreed with that sort of formatting, but encouraged the student to give the professor what they had asked for.

 

Post One

4: Identify the Thought Process

I experienced two kinds of clients during this semester. The first type involved students confused on subject matter. Most of them generally were sent by their professors, and had little understanding of course materials. Although they typically began by asking for detail-related information, they usually were lacking in concepts. Additionally, these types often asked for study techniques by which to learn to find this material for themselves. The second sort of client required paper help, and would present papers in various states of completion (but always with some of it written, though often without any planning done). Some simply wanted ideas to focus their topic, most needed help with organization. About an equal mixture of this group were required by their professors to see a tutor or a writing consultant.

5: The Agenda

Creating an agenda for the appointment began with asking the students what they needed help with. The first type, which asked for help in learning subject matter, usually began with specific questions. If it seemed as if they did not understand the significance of that question, I asked them questions about course concepts, to gauge where they were in the course. Then I could plan the rest of the session. For paper students, the agenda also began with asking the client what they wanted to accomplish. The agenda also depended on what stage of the paper they had completed. For example, papers in the early stages might need to create a thesis and an organizational structure, which is a very different situation from those papers in later stages, such as final drafts.

6: Address the Task

For those who needed help regarding course material, I tended to emphasize heavy use of class materials, such as textbooks. Depending on how detailed their questions were, I would either go through the textbook with the student, detailing major themes along the way, or I would hardly reference the textbook at all, instead focusing on generalities. For paper help, I usually began with reading what they had and then following with my comments, or addressed the comments provided by the professor. If, however, citation was a major problem, I would start with explaining Chicago Style, and pointed them to internet resources on that topic.

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.

8: Summarize the Process

I always reiterated the same themes- that one must seek to show causality when working on history. This skill was applicable to papers and tutoring alike. The process in most other respects, however, differed significantly based on the type of tutoring the student required, and their individual status.

I felt the past posts were just fine- They were generally detailed enough and on-topic.

 

Journal 2

I had mostly positive experiences with tutoring this semester; I never dealt with extremely negative, overbearing, or obstinate clients. Although some of them were very underprepared, they were still agreeable as clients. The most important area of communication skills for me, then, was the ability to stay away from straightforward yes and no answers.

This was particularly important in one session I had. The client had signed up for ethics, but instead showed up wanting to be tutored in another class (one which I was not signed up to tutor for). I felt I knew enough to tutor her on the material she wanted help reviewing, so I went ahead with the session. Unfortunately, I realized in hindsight that I had relied too heavily on explaining the material myself and asking nothing more than simple, yes or no style questions of the client. Although she left telling me that she felt better and understood the material more, I should have asked her to explain the material back to me at the end, rather than simply asking if she understood it. Maybe she did really understand it, but using only yes or no questions was not a good guarantee and not something I want to repeat in the future.

 

Post 3

I was very divided over the various resolutions from the PEP academics session. While there certainly are some good suggestions, there are also many others that show a lack of understanding about higher education and the student’s role within it. I’ll start out with some of the points I agree with, moving on to some points of contention later.

I whole heartedly agree with all of the statements regarding a desire for a more challenging academic atmosphere on campus. Examples of this range from a call for more speakers, debates, lectures, etc. on campus to concerns about professors expecting mediocrity from their students. We do not need incentives or rewards for good grades, as someone suggested; what we need, as others pointed out, are professors that encourage and demand excellence. In order to remain at all relevant in the future of education, Rollins must step up its academic performance. Much of this rests on the students themselves; we have excellent professors, administrators, and facilities, but the students are often the lowest common denominator. I will return to this point shortly.

There are also some other points that I agree with but on a qualified note. Examples of this are calls for more intro classes, more seminar classes to prepare people for graduate school, and more options for study abroad. Obviously, everyone would like to see students have a wider range of choice when selecting their courses. However, this agreement is, as I said, a qualified one. We cannot hope to offer more courses without more professors, and at present we cannot hope to hire more professors without more classrooms and offices. We would have build new buildings and pay their salaries, for which no one presents any kind of plan at all. So yes, I agree that these things would be nice and, if possible, we should do them; I also recognize the difficulty in bringing them about.

This brings me to the points over which I disagree with the resolutions. Some of these are complaints that fail to understand the workings of this kind of institution. For examples of this, one needs look no further than to people saying that evaluations should affect professors regardless of tenure. Evaluations already do; they affect raises and so on. If students want it to affect whether or not the professor stays on, then they should make their suggestion the elimination of tenure. Another example is resolution calling for increases in service learning and mandatory study abroad requirements. People are at Rollins to be trained for different kinds of futures; making blanket pronouncements about students needing more service learning is to favor only a certain kind of education.

I also disagree with the belief that the honor code should be de-emphasized. Honesty, the resolution states, should be the choice of the students. This kind of statement is absurd. It demonstrates not only a serious misunderstanding of the principles ethics, but also a narrow, isolationist view of human behavior. As members of a community, all of our actions affect one another. We cannot consistently making academic integrity anything less than a top priority and still claim to be educating students for the real world. The consequences of cheating, or even of knowing about cheating and keeping one’s mouth shut, in the real world only become more severe; just ask the guys at Enron.

The general problem with many of the suggestions is the motivation behind them. Rather than taking accountability and responsibility, the students have suggested a lot of changes the faculty and school can institute to make their lives easier. We are as responsible for most of the negative aspects on campus as the faculty or administration is. Just because something about the way the school is run doesn’t make us happy doesn’t mean that it isn’t good for us. In a horrible appropriation of the words of Gandhi, we must be the change we wish to see on campus.

 

Post 1

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.

 

Lauren’s 3rd Journal, 2nd Topic

I completely agree with the “More lib hours” comment.  I think our library hours are absolutely absurd.  While the library is currently open 24 hours for exams, it typically has very limited hours of operation.  On a typical Saturday, the library closes at 6PM.  I find this so frustrating and disappointing.  Where else are students supposed to go? Furthermore, the “24 hour lab” is a complete joke. It is always loud and crowded during the week. I don’t understand how a college can promote academics yet offer such limited library time.  Rollins needs to seriously consider expanding the library hours permanently, not just for finals. 

I also agree with the “more study abroad.” I studied abroad my junior year.  I was disappointed by the lack of programs Rollins offers, so I went through a program offered by NYU in Florence, Italy.  Study abroad was truly the greatest experience of my life, and I think Rollins is doing a disservice to its students by not expanding its aboard options.  At the very least, I think Rollins should develop more partnerships with other schools in Florida.

I completely disagree with the comment “stop emphasizing the honor code and let students make honesty their choice.” The honor code is essential to developing a culture of honesty and trust among students, as well as faculty.  As academic dishonesty becomes increasingly prevalent on college campuses, I believe Rollins needs to work even harder to instill the honor principle among students.  I think Rollins needs to do more to educate its students about the code rather than “let them make honesty their choice.”

 

Journal #1

I didn’t have any appointments this semester but I did help out my roomate with some of his German work for 10-15 minutes every few weeks. But I was still glad that I was able to help him using the skills I learned from the information sessions we took at the beginning of the year.  After working with him for a minutes I was able to identify his thought processes.  It was easier to walk him through the steps on a piece of paper, rather than trying to explain it verbally. After that I was able to set an agenda.  I said alright, first we’ll figure out the passsive voice and then we’ll move on to adjective ending.  And that’s what  we did. About 15 minutes later, we covered everything that we needed to.  After the meeting was over, I had him summarize what we just learned and he was able to recite everything he just learned perfectly.

 

Journal #3

Agree:

Fewer teacher opinions and more facts

Don’t take absences so seriously. If a student doesn’t come to class it will show! They will fail themselves if too many are missed

Disagree:

Stop only rewarding and encouraging Type A personalities.

I agree that there should be fewer teacher opinions in the classroom. I am a CMC tutor, and a lot of the topics covered in the courses in this major are subject to the opinions of the teacher. This makes it very difficult for students who have differing opinions to do well in the courses. There are a lot of political overtones in the courses that steer many students away from the major because they are afraid that they will have a difficult time if they do not change their views. I have had the same problems with the major, and can sympathize with this.

I also agree that absences should not be taken so seriously. Students who deserve good grades should not have points taken off because they were unable to attend a class. Very often, students miss classes for family emergencies or because they are sick. At this school, many students continue to go to class when they are sick because they do not want points taken off of their grade for missing. This is not what college is about. It is about learning to be responsible for yourself because you are an adult. This means that those who miss class by choice should be responsible for the grades that they receive, instead of being scared into going by a policy that limits the number of classes they can miss.

I disagree with the statement that teachers should stop rewarding only type A personalities. What defines a “type A” person also defines a good student, and while students may not be “type A” outside of the classroom, they should take on that mentality when they walk into the classroom if they want to get good grades. Type A students do their work rigorously, hand it in on time, and have a very good work ethic. While I might not describe some of the students that I tutor as type A people, they are serious about their work and might therefore be type A students. This is not a bad thing because it means that they work hard for their grades.

 

Journal #2

Actively listening:

I generally do group tutoring sessions for CMC 100 a few nights before their tests. Because of this, I am very often an active listener because many of them have questions about the content of the chapters that they are going to be tested on. In order to help them I like to ask them to tell me what they know about a certain subject. If I see them going in the wrong direction with the topic, I will “actively listen” by adding a correction and seeing how they learn from my input, and then asking them to continue.

Saying yes and no:

This is usually a problem for tutors during times of exams. This semester, I had a hard time with getting my information cleared so that I could get paid through tutortrac, so my name was never actually activated with the hours that I was available. Since I prefer to work sporadically anyway, this worked in my favor. I was able to miss with anyone who sent me an email or asked me in person, and while I had a lot of sessions, they were not scheduled like they would have been if I had been in tutortrac. For this reason, I did not have a difficult time saying no to anyone. I generally said yes to everyone who asked me to tutor them because it was usually at my convenience.

Deflecting negativity:

I had to deflect negativity with a few clients who were worried about their papers for CMC. I had a few instances in which a client was upset about his/her paper and took that anger out on me in one way or another. I understood that writing a paper can be stressful for everyone, especially when it is in a format that they have never used. I deflected it by complementing a portion of the paper that was working.

Standing firm:

A few times when I held group tutoring sessions for CMC 100 students asked me to see my tests from last year, or for me to copy my old study guides for them. It was very difficult to watch them set themselves up for failure, but I had to stand firm and deny having either in my possession.