Journal #2

I was definitely grateful for the assertiveness training, as it helped me with one client in particular. I was friends with this client outside of tutoring, making it an especially delicate situation. I would schedule appointments outside of my normal hours to accommodate her needs, and she would often show up five to ten minutes late. However, she also expected me to teach her everything in the 50 minutes we had together, and stay after if we hadn’t covered it all. I received many threats of dropping chemistry all together, and she would get very emotional when she didn’t understand things in the time allotted. Being a compassionate person, it was difficult to finally get up the courage to express to her the expectations of our session. After a couple similar sessions, I used saying yes and no to tell her that while I understood that she was struggling, the only time I had to give was the time scheduled with her. After this discussion, the client was still emotional, but we were able to work through at a much more efficient rate because she understood that I would not be staying a half hour over to help her.

 

Journal #1 Tutor Cycle

Being a chemistry tutor, there is often not enough time in each session to cover all of the topics gone over in class. Therefore, it is important that the student come in with specific concepts and questions after thoroughly attempting the material. With my repeat clients, I remind them to do the weekly Problem Sets before coming in, so that our time can be best spent on concepts that they don’t understand, as opposed to just enforced mandatory study time. With my first few experiences with this “mandatory study time”, it was perfectly fine with me. However, I noticed that there was often a mad panic with only five minutes left when a concept my client had no grasp of was reached. Therefore, I started asking my clients to have in mind what they wanted our tutoring session to be like before they arrived.

Step 5- Set an Agenda

This is the first step for me. I let my client share his/her goals for the session, and then make a mental plan of how long each should take to accomplish in order to stay on schedule. If I don’t believe we have enough time, which has happened on more than one occasion, I ask the client to prioritize what s/he wants to tackle first.

Step 4 & 6- Address the Task & Identify the Thought Processes of the Student

These two steps go hand in hand for me. As we address the topics that need to be covered, I observe what clicks with my client and what doesn’t. For instance, I have one client who is a very visual learner. After asking her how she reached the correct VSEPR structure, she said that she saw the picture of it in her head. Knowing this, I was able to better explain things in a visual way, drawing pictures and building models to represent the visualization aspect of chemistry.

To address the task, first I ask the student to re-explain to me what s/he got out of the book and class notes. Often, simply restating what the book says in different words is enough to get the “Aha!” moment. If s/he is unable to explain it based on the notes and text, I explain the concept in a way that is most suited to their style of learning, drawing pictures if s/he is visual and thinking aloud if auditory. I use some combination of these is I don’t know the client well enough. However, most of my clients are repeats and I understand the general ways they like to learn.

Step 7 & 8 – Have the Client Summarize the Process and Content

To make sure the client understands, I have him/her do an example problem (most of general chemistry is the application of concepts using equations or diagrams). During their execution, I’ll have him/her explain his/her process to me. I ask why s/he does random steps to see if s/he understands the concepts behind the actions. As they are thinking aloud about the process, I write down the steps on my tutoring form.

 

Watching Aimee’s expert questioning & hinting

Observing Aimee (BIO tutor but also peer mentor for the CHM RCC class) with a repeat client was a real gas–or solid–or liquid?  The client was inCREdibly active, writing down those visual diagrams for the Lewis Dot (I had to write that down) Structures chapter, thinking out loud as she wrote, thumbing through the (very expensive I’m sure) CHM textbook, saying, “Was that 7, or 6?” by which she meant chapter.  In our debriefing session immediately afterwards, I complimented Aimee on getting that very active (almost frenetic) client to slow down, to think carefully about what she was doing, where she was looking, why she was using this or that table, what the numbers were showing her, etc. etc.

“I try to give my clients as little as possible,” she told me.  We talked about her pattern of tutor-client talk: They “struggle,”, I give them a “clue,” they get it, then they struggle some more, and so it goes.  Here are some of those questions/clues/guides, verbatim:

“What are you getting those numbers for?”

What is this …..showing you?”

“Does this (Lewis Dot?) structure give you anything?”

And some comments/questions from her client:

“Should I do the dot things? Or draw it out first?  I’m so visual.”

“I’m trying to find a way for me…his (the prof’s) way, visual, or the book’s way” (to which Aimee answered with a question, “Which way is better for you?”)

Lots of Aimee’s questions/comments started with “So, ….”  Slowing the process down, getting her to think carefully.

Aimee told me that she realized that this student started out as a very quiet client at the beginning of term, with few ideas on what to do, where to start, what to reference.   Now she’s got lots of ideas, and Aimee is trying to sort of rein her in, to get her to be more disciplined and efficient in choosing her next step.   MASTERFUL~~~~~~~  Yay!