First Tutoring Session

My first tutoring session was a double session in which I had to work with two students at the same time. At first I thought this might be difficult because one student had a full first draft and the other student had not started the assignment at all. There was also the fact that the girl that had the full first draft already had comments from her professor on what needed to be done to the draft. So I would have to take this into consideration with what my own thoughts about the paper might be.

I decided to begin the session by introducing myself to both students then simply reading the assignment together so I could figure out where each of them were in terms of the assignment. Since the first student had not started anything I thought this would be a perfect time for him to do a little free writing about the assignment. I told him to take about five minutes thinking of ideas that interest him and to jot them down. This way I could have him working towards finding a topic while I work with the other student. This worked great, and I had time to work with the other student. I asked her what her concerns were, and she immediately told me that she was having trouble finding different examples to use in her essay. So I thought this might be a perfect opportunity to use conversation and try to get out some of her ideas. This worked great but she was getting stuck every now and then. The problem with this, was that it was taking a lot of time. This wouldn't be a problem if it was a one on one session but I had two students that needed assistance. I then told her to write down the rest of ideas we talked about and try to narrow them down until she has one and I would come back to her. I noticed that the other student had got some good information down but he was just sitting there for a while waiting one me to finish with the other student. This is what I was trying to avoid. I made sure when the next time I had to switch it would be in a more timely fashion. The main problem I faced was allowing the appropriate amount of time between working with both students. As the session went on I paid more attention to the time spent went each student and it went a lot more smoothly. In the end  both students had a lot of information and new ideas to work with so I believe the session was a great success. They seemed very happy and thankful for my help.

In my next tutoring session I will be sure to keep track of the time spent working with each student. I would also like to try some new strategies. The free writing and conversation strategies worked very well, I will definitely use them again if necessary. I would also like to use the strategy of reading the draft out loud because I was unable to do so because of the time constraint. I would also like to try the strategy of creating titles or clustering to help someone in the beginning stage of their draft if they haven't completed it yet. I know my next tutoring session will be completely different from my first, but I am fully prepared to rise to the challenge.

Fourth Tutoring Observation

My fourth tutoring observation was again very different from my previous experiences. Again the tutor did not introduce himself but he had great body language and was very professional. He began by asking what it is that he could help her with.

The student begins to tell him about her assignment. She explains that she needs to use a specific quote in her assignment but does not know how to incorporate it properly. She goes on to explain the assignment and continues to stress the quote. Instead of the focusing on the quote the tutor shifts the primary concern to what she actually thinks about the question asked. I think he does this in a great way by simply asking a question. She then is able to get out her ideas, instead of just focusing on the quote. The session becomes collaborative and they start to piece together thoughts and ideas using open-ended questions. The student then starts to realize all her great ideas and begins to write them down without being instructed to. The student often had times where she took long pauses to think or respond to a question but the tutor was very patient. This might have been due to the fact that the student had a bit of a language barrier and you could tell that English was not her first language. Even though communication was difficult at times, the tutor still listened closely. After the student had a full two pages off notes to work with, the session ended and the student thanked the tutor for his help.

I really enjoyed this session because it showed me a great example of how to be professional. The great thing I noticed was how to divert a student attention in the right direction with questions rather than telling them that they are wrong. This way the student corrects their own errors and begins to think of new ideas.

Keys to a Successful Tutoring Session

I believe that the key to a successful tutoring session starts from the beginning with a positive greeting and a professional attitude. I think that you need to have good body language so that the student feels comfortable. In Cindi's blog she states, "At the first the student was nervous...I believe her attentiveness however made him feel a lot more comfortable because he opened up rather quickly". The student felt more comfortable because the tutor was attentive and showed that she cared and was there to help. This is an important factor to a successful tutoring session. You should introduce yourself and then proceed to ask what it is that the student needs help with. If it is an assignment you should ask the student to read it out loud, if not you could always read it out loud yourself. In Melissa's blog she states, "...he read only the first paragraph of the student's paper...then the tutor sort of caught himself just focusing on the LOCs and not talking to the student, therefore he changed up his technique and got the student involved". It is very important to involve the student as much as possible. Reading out loud can be very useful because it incorporates both the tutor as well as the student.This can lead to a collaborative tutoring session. By doing this you give time to think about what is read and then you can take that time to formulate questions. When helping with an essay your main concern should be things like the thesis, tone or supporting details. This would be considered higher order concerns. Lower order concerns would be things like grammatical errors. These things should be given the least amount of time during a session. Although in some cases, things might be different. For example in Michelle's blog she states, "The other student was asking about more grammar issues that they had because the professor had stated that the student had good ideas they got lost in the punctuation problems. Although, this is considered a low order concern, it was a priority for the student because it was what was preventing them from the grade they felt they deserved". In this case the sessions priority concern was actually the grammar so a different approach is necessary. You should always try to lead with praise when spotting errors, but try not to cheer lead because this could lead a writer to believe that they have done a great job. Try to get as much done in a session as possible. You don't want to respond to late. Keep in mind that all tutoring sessions are different in the same way as the chaos theory. Remember that when the session concludes there might be a little fuzziness but that is normal and as long as you accomplished as much as possible and focused towards higher order concerns, the session will be a success.

Third Tutoring Observation

After observing my third tutoring session I am beginning to see how every tutoring session is an unique experience. I am beginning to understand the chaos theory of tutoring writing. This time a student comes in for tutoring and has not yet started her essay. She tells the tutor that she needs a lot of help. He then tells her that's not a problem and asks her for her assignment. He begins to read the assignment to himself silently. Its a long assignment and I think he reads it twice for a better understanding.

After reading through the assignment he begins to talk to her about the essay and explain what it is asking of her. The assignment is on the topic of racism and stereotyping. The tutor beings to talk about his ideas on the subject. He gives many examples on the subject but talks very fast, So fast that I don't think the students could understand what he was saying because I know I didn't. He also had a strong accent so that made it even harder to understand what he was saying. This goes on for like ten of fifteen minutes and the student just listens and does not say anything. He does not leave much room for her input, only enough for a yes or no response. This reminds me of the teacher centered tutoring style where the tutor is in complete control of the session. Also throughout his long lecture they did not write anything down. He is basically teaching her and has not even tried to structure an essay or create a thesis from which to start.

The session then gets interrupted when a woman comes in and ask the tutor a question and they talk for a minute or two. Afterwards he continues to talk to the student about her paper and lets her give her input this time along with her ideas. This is much better but they still have not attempted to write any of these good ideas down on paper. As the session is coming to an end he instructs her to read the assignment as well as the readings that go with the assignment that she has not done yet. Then to come back after she has did the reading so they could continue to work on her essay. The session ends early.

I feel like this session did not go well from beginning to end. The fact that they did not write anything down at all makes me think that the session was a waste of valuable time. I also think that this was an example of responding to late when the tutor told her to come back in the future, especially after not getting much done in the session to begin with. In all I think I learned a lot from this experience and I look forward to my fourth tutoring observation.

Second Tutoring Observation

My second tutoring observation was very different from my first. This time the student came in with a complete written essay for the tutor to review. I also noticed that it was a young women in the session with all three of us and it looked like she may have been there from the previous tutoring session.

The student comes in with a full essay for the tutor to review. The tutor immediately starts to read the essay to himself in silence. The tutor then proceeds to point out grammatical errors in the students paper. I found the session to begin with a focus on lower order concerns. There was a lot of corrections of sentence structure. A few times the tutor asked what the tutor might be trying to say or get across in his paper and offered him ideas on how he might change it. I thought this reminded me of the editor journalist approach which your not supposed to do. However I did think that the tutor was very knowledgeable of the English language and how proper written English was to be written. After getting through the entire paper he told the student that it was good but that he had a lot of mechanical errors within the paper, so he gave it back to him to fix.

Now he turns to the young women and begins to read over her essay that she had written on a laptop. He leaves one student to help another. After he reads what she has written, he begins to talk to her and ask her questions about what she's writing. Also about what her main focus of the paper will be. They begin to brainstorm ideas about her topic. He instructs her to write down her ideas. This time he is focusing on higher order concerns. The essay is on a subject of something personal to the student and she begins to become very emotional about the topic. The tutor listens intently but does not fall into the trap of giving therapy. He stays professional and continues to direct the session towards the goal of writing a great paper. As this is all happening I noticed that the first student was waiting on him. The tutor became so focused on the second student that he sort of neglected the first student. The first student looked like he needed help or wanted to ask a question but he did not want to interrupt the tutor. After a long period of time he returns to helping the other student. The session ends and the first student leaves to finish correcting errors and he continues to help the young woman.

In this lesson I saw examples of many good things, as well as many things I might want to avoid doing in the future. I thought that the tutor was very knowledgeable and did a great job of addressing certain higher order concerns but I felt like he stressed to many lower order concerns as well. I also learned that helping two students at the same time can be very difficult. Its hard to balance the amount of time each student deserves. This could lead to an improper use of session time.