Tutoring @ TJ’s

Within both of samples that I observed (OWL and Economics) I was very impressed by the tutors ability to ask questions that really got the student actively thinking and participating in the session.  For example, when Barbara was attempting to get the student to brain storm some ideas, she initiated this process by making a list of possible themes/subjects to write about.  As Barbara stated, “I’l put a few things on the board and you can add to the list”.  I thought that this was an effective was to get the student to actively participate; for, because Barbara started the list, this alleviated some of the nervousness that many students have when coming to a tutoring session.  Furthermore, it appeared as though the tutors ability to ask stimulating questions was derived from their ability to truly listen to the student.

In addition I thought that the tutors did a great job providing the students with positive reinforcement, as they often stated “good job” or “you catch on quick”.  While these complements may seem trivial they increase the confidence of the student, further allowing them to become active participants within the session.

I opened couple of the tutorials on SmartThinking and i realized something in common. When the student asks a question, the tutor can always narrow it down to simple formulas or rules. Secondly, the tutor will use easy examples to clarify the rule. Then give a more complicated example to make sure the student understand how to solve the problem in different scenario. Throughout the tutorials, i can see the importance of encouragement given by the tutors. They will always lead the students step by step to the solution, and tell the students that it is a good try when they couldn’t figure it out correctly. This encourages the student not to give up, and makes the students feel comfortable. The Spanish tutor also uses a Chart to separate indirect and direct noun in order to help the student collect information. At the same time, it also reminds me of the vision learner we talked about during the crash training. I have learnt a lot from both the training and the SmartThinking.

Viewing the tutorials from Smarthinking.com allowed me to analyze several of the topics we addressed in our first training session. Several of the tutorials demonstrated effective examples of open-ended question. One example that stuck out as particularly interesting was when one tutor stopped in mid-sentence, turning his own complete thought into a question, which compelled the student to finish the sentence. Many of the tutorials also showed ways in which a tutor can help a student approach a problem in a way that is more manageable. For example, in the science tutorial, the tutor breaks the problem into smaller steps that the student is able to solve one at a time. In this particular instance, however, I also think the tutor may have been too guiding. He always asked questions that would tell the student exactly what to do next, rather than letting the student try to continue on his own. I think in this instance, the student was not really involved in the process of solving the problem, and therefore, could still have trouble later, trying to do similar problems on his own. This tutorial helped me to realize the importance of making sure that the student is involved in the problem solving process. This is particularly true of biology, where understanding of general concepts and interconnections is essential to mastery of the topics, much more so than the specific knowledge needed to answer any one question.

I looked through a few of these model tutorials, and they all seemed to have some common qualities of successful listening/feedback-providing skills. All of the tutors in my sample encouraged the student to reason out questions on their own, serving as “spotters” rather than simply navigating the student to the correct answer.

Another recurring theme here was all the positive feedback given. “Great”, “well done”, etc. are some useful keywords to take out of these sessions, because as we discussed in training, positivity is good for the soul.

Along the same lines, when a student initially answered a question incorrectly, the tutors were careful not to be condescending or even use words such as “no” or “wrong”. Instead they gave friendly reminders of how to fix their answers. The example that sticks in my mind here is when Dave, the algebra student, tells his tutor that he sees the solutions should be -1, -3, and 2. Brian responds with “Just to clarify. The solutions are ordered pairs…” This is enough of a hint to allow Brian to fix his solutions without necessarily feeling like he did the entire problem wrong.

The only objection I have here is when Brian asks Dave “Do you understand the process of elimination?” Just to clarify. It is not a good idea to ask “do you understand?”, because a student who does not understand is not likely to admit to that after just having reviewed the material. Brian leaves it at “I think so” and lets the kid leave. No good.

I found the Smarthinking.com tutorial to be a good extension of our first crash-training session.  One of the things I noticed in the OWL tutorial was that the tutor, Barbara, asked the student to explain the assignment, which was to write a process analysis paper.  Barbara asked the student to define process analysis, and although Barbara said she “should have known that,” I thought it was a good idea to make sure that the tutor and student were on the same page.  Barbara asked good, open-ended questions to get the student to open up, which I feel is one of the most important aspects of getting a tutoring session going.  Another technique that the tutor offered was giving a possible outline of the paper after they had discussed some points.  Barbara was very encouraging, without being to much of an obvious “cheerleader.”  I found these all of these techniques good and on point with what we discussed last week, and will try to employ them in my tutoring sessions.

I learned how to ask questions without getting one word responses from the on-line tutoring situations. I think the hardest thing about tutoring will be trying to make the client feel comfortable enough to be open and honest with me about what they are having troubles with. Ensuring the client that they are not stupid for not understanding a subject is key. I think that prior to beginning the session, the client should make a list of things they want to work on. Sometimes the client gets nervous, and forgets why they made an appointment, but a list would confirm the ideas that they need explained. As a biology tutor, the client will probably need help with studying techniques because there are massive amounts of information that needs to be studied before a test. Advice I will give to them is that keeping up with the readings, highlighting, note-card making, and the on-line quizzes are what gets you the grade in those types of classes.