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.