Journal #1- Kevin Krughoff

One thing that resonated with me very quickly when reading the observations was the varying degrees of interaction and active participation that you have amongst the clientelele.  In other words, some clients will come in and just say something like, “I just don’t get it” (referring to the entire chapter), haven’t read the chapter, and have no test/quiz questions or problems out of the book to work on.  When asked what specifically is confusing, its hard to know how to guide the session when you get an answer like, “just… everything, I can’t get this stuff.”  Trying to calm down and pace clients like how Aimee did is something I don’t believe I’ve experienced yet, but I feel like I would much rather that be the case than having to try and teach a client an entire chapter and improvise a lesson plan.   And this is not always the case, nor is it even the majority of the cases I’ve seen, but I’m coming to terms with how students view the session… as if I’m going to have some sort of action plan waiting to go over with them when they get here.  When I get more proactive clients, on the other hand, its much more enjoyable.  In these cases I can identify what the problem is, where the client went wrong, explain it (perhaps in several different ways), and then do some practice problems, before finally asking the client to repeat the whole process back to me.  The way Grace would provide hints and recognize the significance of the struggle reminds me of my own technique (see Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development); its important to gradually wean a client off of advice/hints over the course of the session to make sure s/he can do it in a testing situation.

 

Ryan Webb, Journal 1

The tutors in the observations from last fall have used some techniques that I know I will need to master to become a better economics tutor down the line. Currently, I have had only three different students sign up for tutoring sessions, so I have yet to encounter many of the types of students that are presented here. The observation that jumped at me right away was John’s encounter with a very active learner (mostly because we are both economics tutors). I have yet to have an economics student come in and participate actively with me to try and figure problems out (but I look forward to it). I can relate to his inability to have every question mastered that a student asks, while at the same time I also get the student involved with me in trying to figure it out. John’s observation helped reinforce the idea that I already had to not lecture the student or reteach it to them, but make them master it by explaining it in their own words and giving them extra examples that may not be in the book, but are the same structure as some in the book.

Unlike John, most of my students thus far have not been thoroughly prepared when they have come to their tutoring sessions. When this occurs I do things like make them read important sections of their book aloud and tell them to keep reading outside of class and tutoring sessions. I am hoping to get the students to understand the material better by thinking out loud, like the student in Margaux’s observation. Even if they struggle through it I have learned that if the student is able to say it out loud and put the ideas presented into his/her own words they get a better understanding of the material.

 

Journal #1 Observations

It was very interesting to read the many different styles of teaching and learning that occur between tutor and client. I noticed that it clients can be from all extremes like extremely passive or extremely active. However, it is important as a tutor to be able to understand all different type of learning styles and actively engage the client. Through the example of Julia’s client I learned that passive students like to listen and want to have terms explained to them and be provided with examples. A tutor should then be prepared to make the client actively engaged in the session by having them read aloud, checking their comprehension, asking them questions about what they think is important, and having them write down terms to study. All of this will prove to be beneficial for long term learning. A client can also be very active and knowledgeable, such is the case with John’s client. When a client is actively engaged I learned it was beneficial to work with their current knowledge, continue to guide them to your own level of understanding, and work together on figuring out the complicated parts of the work. In tutoring sessions that require a lot of reading and writing I learned that it is important to outline ideas, go through drafts section by section, and posing questions for the client in order to get them to participate. Overall, I learned that clients have many different learning styles and it is the job of the tutor to be able to adapt to their learning styles and find adaptive techniques that will help them learn and understand the material better. I noticed that no matter the style of learning it is extremely important to actively engage the client and pose questions to check their comprehension in order to instill long term learning habits. 

-Christina Benitez