Staying on track in stressful situations…Wed. 3/4, 5:30-6:30

…also known as dealing with difficult clients...or difficult situations.  And assertiveness training…

Knowing when a request is beyond the pale, not to be granted, comes with training and experience.  What are the goals of the time you’re spending with clients?  What activities will help the student reach those goals?  The answers are quite commonsensical: better student learning is the goal, and whatever helps equip students with a better learning process should be okay.

We’ll be exploring all this, the underlying logic and verbal strategies to express this with student clients, at our staff meeting on Wed. 3/4, from 5:30-6:30.   New and returning tutors welcome (new ones must come to this one or to the Friday makeup.)

We’ll have cheese & crackers, hummus & pita, nuts and soft drinks… and some sweet things to be determined…

 

Journal 2: Dealing with Negativity

Honestly, I can’t really say I had any bad appointments, at least on my part, this semester. Not because I’m some awesome tutor or anything but because all of my clients were pretty freakin’ awesome. They always came prepared for sessions, most of them had all of their questions already lined up, and no one ever expressed negativity to my face. They usually understood if I couldn’t explain something to them because I wasn’t confident in my own knowledge of the subject. I had lots of repeat clients which I think shows that they didn’t really have any negative feelings toward me. There were a few sessions where I didn’t really feel like I was qualified to tutor. These were usually sessions where students would come in for help on their labs. It’s a bit hard to help with a lab you haven’t done and a lot of their labs were not at all familiar to me. I did have one bad review and I think that was from someone who had brought in a lab, which might explain it. I didn’t let it bother me, though. After all, all of my other reviews were good. Overall, I think it was a very good semester and can’t wait to tutor organic next semester!

 

Journal 2 – Dealing with Difficulty

It is really difficult to pinpoint a “difficult” client because I had very few.  My most challenging client is easier to pinpoint because of repeated visits.  The main problem with this client was not that he was unwilling to learn or hostile towards me in any way.  His difficulty was that he had a very difficult time learning and it was therefore very frustrating to try to tutor him.  He would visit at least once per week and would have forgotten almost everything that we had gone over in previous sessions.  This repeated occurance was incredibly frustrating to me and as supportive and friendly as I was to this client, it seemed as though my suggestions to work on the material, review past exercises, and work on additional problems either were either being ignored or were as inaffective at helping him to retain material as our sessions seemed to be.  One key element in tutoring is to ensure that you are not doing their work for him but instead are helping them through the work.  I would encourage him to understand the process by asking questions as we went along, only to look up, and see a completely vacant look on his face followed by a string of completely off base guesses despite the fact that we had done a problem almnost exactly the same together moments before.

The other most difficult session I had was also my fault.  A partnership came to me for help on a project.   The most frustrating thing to me was that they showed me the problem they had been having and that I had absolutely no idea how to solve their problem.  I tinkered and tried different things for the length of the session but it was essentially a waste of a half hour both for me and for the client.   As a tutor, the service that we offer is our knowledge and it is so dissapointing to me when I feel like a client has come to me and I just do not know enough to help them.

 

Journal #2

I didn’t have any scheduled appointments and the ones that I did off campus were very informal and all with people whom I knew. So I didn’t come across any really difficult situations. Because of the tutor training, I’m sure that I would be able to deal with them if I ever came across them.  One thing I did come across however was when one student asked me what the answer was. I said, now hold your horses, sonny. Why don’t we try and figure this out without me telling you the answer.  Let’s look in the the book and try and find the answer. So we opened the book and spent a few minutes trying to find the answer and he eventually did. I feel like this helped him learn and retain a lot more than if I just straight out told him the answer.

 

Ashleigh’s Second Journal

Although I haven’t had too many appointments this semester, I think almost all of them went pretty well. I tried my best to make the students feel comfortable so they could think of me as a friend and not so much as a teaching-figure. This rapport has definitely proven beneficial in regards to the attitudes of the students I tutored. They were all friendly and patient (sometimes very patient, as I was late for an appointment becaus of major traffic on I4!). However, there was one problem that seemed to be quite common: most of the clients thought that I knew EVERYTHING about political science! It’s almost as if, since I’m the tutor, I am a total expert on the subject. In reality, I have only had the same classes that the clients are taking- so we are all equals. Many clients asked me questions that I didn’t know the answers to, and they then seemed to get a little frustrated. I had to keep reminding them that I haven’t had these courses in several years, so my memory needed to be refreshed (so then we turned to the book). One way I dealt with this was by asking, “So, tell me what you do know about the subject,” and then I would recall what I learned and then could help them. This really seemed to work! But again, it was always difficult to inform them that sometimes I had no clue.

 

Lauren’s Second Journal

Although I haven’t had many tutoring appointments this semester, my second appointment presented some problems. The student arrived fifteen minutes late with only the study guide for his exam. He did not bring any class notes, textbooks, or other course materials. I felt a little frustrated, but remained hopeful that I could be of some help to him. As we looked over the study guide, I noticed that it was for an international business class, which I have no knowledge of. He said he thought he had made an appointment with the international business tutor and seemed annoyed when I told him I tutored political science. I suggested that he make another appointment with the correct tutor. He then rudely asked me to make it for him. I felt very uncomfortable in the situation. I tried to deflect his negativity by politely giving him the name of the tutor he needed, but he just stormed off and left. The session had only lasted a few minutes, but I think it was a good learning experience for me. At first, I was upset by his actions, and left the session feeling badly. However, after talking with other tutors who have had similar experiences, I learned that I cannot control the actions of others, and should not take negative sessions so personally.

 

Deflecting Negativity

My worst tutoring experience was with a student who blamed me – and I do mean angrily blamed me – for her failure on her last test. In this case, the chief objective was to deflect negativity. She came in and stated that I had not taught her the concepts properly and that I had caused her to receive a sixy-two on the test. Initially, I was slightly defensive, but I calmed myself and proceeded to agree with her and asked what exactly went wrong during her exam. She pointed out multiple instances where calculations had not been answered correctly. One by one, she and I worked through each question, making sure to write down the equations needed and the numbers that needed to be input to properly answer the question.

Thankfully, that particular student had come in one week earlier in order to go over a review sheet that the teacher had given her. After each question on the exam, I then went to the review sheet and had her check whether or not the equations and questions were answered properly. Soon, the student’s combative attitude diminished as she realized that it was indeed not my fault. Nearly every question on the review sheet – which appeared in the same manner on the actual exam – was answered properly and explained completely. Each question had a hypothetical equation, the given numbers, and the correct application of the numbers to the equation.

After nearly forty-five minutes of explanation, the client finally calmed down and thanked me – she actually thanked me – for helping her. She realized that she needed to study more and that she had had all the resources she needed to ace the exam. We ended on good terms and she has continued to come back. She is now one of my best clients.

 

Mai-Han’s Second Post

I must admit, I haven’t had a ton of appointments this semester, but my worst tutoring experience would have to be my very first one. To begin with, I was already feeling really nervous about my very “first time”. I was afraid I was going to screw up somehow. I was worrying about everything from which tutoring sheet I was supposed to pick up to looking just plain dumb in front of my client. What my appointment ended up being was not so much me being nervous but rather frustrated. She came in with nothing but her Intro Psychology book that doesn’t look more than a day old and a test deadline of tomorrow! She obviously hadn’t read any of her book or written down the key concepts of the chapters that were being covered. Not to mention, along with her unpreparedness she also had a attitude. For a moment, I didn’t know what to tell her. Who did she think I was? A miracle worker? How was I supposed to help her study for her entire test that she has yet to even look at? Nonetheless, I started by taking her through one of the chapters and going through some of the key concepts, but before we could even get through a third of the chapter, thirty minutes flew by and our session was over. My client left and I didn’t feel very strong that she was going to do too well on her exam. She wasn’t prepared and I didn’t feel like our thirty minutes session did a whole lot either. Being that this was my first experience tutoring, I wasn’t feeling too good about being a tutor. Though now looking back, what I have learned from this session is that we really aren’t miracle workers and we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be. We are simply peer tutors. We only can do and should do so much. Since my first appointment, I have had a couple of similar unprepared clients, but I have learned to better handle them. I have learned to advise them about better study habits and learning techniques rather than trying to go through specific concepts that needs to be covered (since there is no way to cover all the material in one session). So as a result, my client leaves with learning tools that they can use (if they choose) to help them study better for their upcoming test as well as future tests and I feel like a somewhat worthwhile tutor.

 

Despite The Odds, Journal 2

Rather than bore you with my philosophy on effective communication. I’ve chosen to share two stories with you. They demonstrate how flexible and creative communication strategies enabled me to overcome very challenging tutoring sessions.

Forget Class, It’s Back To Grade School:

Can you imagine teaching finance to someone, who has never learned to cross multiply? Oh yeah, this student also has never multiplied percentages before either.

Against the odds I was able to help this poor neglected student….  The key to our success together was WRITING OUT EVERY SINGLE STEP. Tedious, yes, but it was absolutely essential.

That way he could see the how different arithmatic rules, especially division and multiplication, worked. He learned to cross multiply, discovered that 9/100=.09=9%, and the importance of units. By our second session he could write equations, identify key inputs and set up formulas himself. Now, he can focus on understanding the more complicated concepts in his finance problems.

Grouptalk Vs. Groupwork:

My first tutoring session ever could’ve been a nightmare. There were four very confused students arguing over my attention.

“Hey how do I do this in Chapter 6?”

“What does the time value of money mean?”

“Julia, how can we possibly do Chatper 18?”

Whew, it was overwhelming. After a few minutes of bouncing around the room and accomplishing pretty much nothing I quieted the crowd. We grabbed a room with a projector and worked together on each problem. It was a great way for everyone to follow along. Also, there was the added plus that with 4 students everyone was comparing work so that they were easily able to identify when they typed in a formula incorrectly.

The morale is that a group session needs to proceed as a group session. Don’t let overeager indivuduals prevent the tutor from helping the whole group master their work.

 

Journal Two

I have had a number of instances in my first tutoring sessions where I felt that I should have been more assertive than I was. It’s sometimes difficult to know when to deflect negativity and when to address the problem. In one of my first stats sessions I was faced with a particularly difficult client. The beginning of the session went fine, and I was able to help her with a number of concepts that she was confused about. Toward the middle of the session, however, she mentioned an equation that I had never seen before. I told her that I was not familiar with that equation, but that we could look in the book together to try to figure it out. She seemed annoyed that I had to use the book for clarification, but I did my best to ignore her passive aggressive comments and remain as upbeat as possible. After grappling with the equation for a while, I still wasn’t able to understand it well enough to help her, and she continued to interrupt me when I was trying to work it out. I apologized and suggested that she ask the professor, who I know is always willing to meet with students. She very rudely asked me if this was my “first tutoring session,” and whether I had actually done well in the class. I deflected her negativity by politely responding that this was not my first tutoring session, that I had, indeed, done well in the class, and apologized for not being able to help her more. I also gave her an evaluation form to get a better understanding of how she thought the session had gone. Her evaluation was negative, to say the least, but I think it was a good learning experience for me. Despite the fact that I felt like crying after the session, I felt good about the way I responded to her. I didn’t fight back or buy into her angry responses—that would have just made things more uncomfortable. I later discussed what had happened with the professor and had him add me to his blackboard site so I could have access to his powerpoints. I also learned that it’s ok to admit when you don’t know something.

 

Once upon a tutoring session……

Tutoring this semester has only presented me with two difficult situations (lucky I know).  My first difficult situation was with a student who wanted tutoring in his New Testament class.  Not a problem – until I realized that he had a completely different professor (he was a Holt student) and was using a completely different book.  Western religions, including Christianity, aren’t exactly my forte and I panicked.  I called his professor for some help.  No response.  I walked over to that chapel and was promptly told that no such professor existed.  With my resources drained, I could only hope that he was coming in for a paper.  So I gathered my strength and prepared for the worse.   And the worse happened.  The student came in for a test.  Not just a test – the most detailed test on Christianity with the most obscure facts ever!  He handed me a list of terms – words and people I had never even heard of before – and wanted help understanding a few terms and phrases that he had underlined.  I explained to him that I wasn’t able to get in contact with his professor (which by the way does exist) and that I wasn’t sure about the terms, but that I would be more than willing to help him find the answers – in his book and online.  So we spent the rest of the hour searching through the index of the book, reading passages that sometimes had nothing to do with the topic, and surfing the internet in hopes that somehow we would be able to get something resembling an answer to the question.  I felt horrible.  Some kind of tutor I was – babbling “I thinks,” “maybes,” and “I hopes.”   People come to tutors because they hope that tutor will be able to speak intelligently on a subject and to gain a greater understanding of the topic they are having trouble with.  I failed to do that and was thoroughly disappointed with myself.

But, alas, this story does have a happy ending.  I got back my client evaluation a couple weeks later and he, surprisingly, gave me a more or less positive review.  There was, of course, a few 1s and 2s, but he stated that I was helpful (helpful! Can you believe it?) and he even said I was organized (this is particularly shocking because I felt sooo disorganized).  Perhaps he was just trying to be nice, but I would much rather believe that, despite how horrible of a session it was, there were still some positives.  I guess my client wasn’t as disappointed in me as I was in myself because he recently made another appointment with me – for a paper this time (what a relief!).  In that appointment, I was at least able to speak and to tutor as if I knew what I was talking about.  Yay!

So I guess the moral of this story is even when you have a horrible experience with tutoring, there is always something to be gained.  Consider it a lesson on what you can improve on.  And hey, sometimes, it’s just a bad day so don’t take it too harshly!

 

Dealing with difficult situations journal 2

It is important when tutoring that you don’t let your client take advantage of you. It is not fair to you when the client has come in and they are not prepared and they expect you to teach them everything. In those situations it is important to actively listen to the client to understand where they are coming from therefore the client doesn’t think you don’t get what they are going through. It is also important to be firm. We are not there to replace going to class, or replace their professors. In these situations we should tell our clients that they need to go over and review the book or their notes and we will answer any questions they have on the material. We can even go over the material with them so if a question arises we can be there to help them through it.

One experience I had with a client was, she was late, she wasn’t prepared, and she came into the session asking me to teach her the sections. She didn’t really have any specific question she just wanted me to explain everything to her. So I told her we could go over the book together, and then when I was explaining something she had a question on she started nodding off. This completely frustrated me but I regained her attention by saying “does that make sense”

I think an important thing for us to do is deflect negativity. Often times the students will be frustrated with their teacher, or frustrated that they don’t understand a problem. When this happens they may take their frustration out on us. Therefore it is important for us not to bite back at them. We need to stay calm and help them identify what the problem is. Then hopefully they will calm down and we will be able to help them through he problem