My third tutoring session started with two students again. One student had a complete first draft and the other student had not started her assignment at all. Although my session started with two students, I soon only had one because one was taken by someone else that came in late so it became easier to just tutor one student.
I thought the best thing to do was to start with reading the assignment out loud with both students, then I would ask if they had a topic and if so what is it. The student without a topic and no draft was my first priority. So I gave her a small task of thinking of anything that came to her mind when she thought about the assignment so that she could begin to find a topic. I then began to talk to the other student about her draft. I decided to read it out loud but the student felt uncomfortable with this and asked if I could not read it out loud. This was the first time this happened, and I became aware that some people might feel self-conscious about their topic. After reading it to myself it seemed like a pretty decent paper. So I asked her were there any areas of the paper that she had trouble or felt like it needed to be added to or changed. She said she had a problem with one of her ideas in the second paragraph. By asking her what she needed help with I was able to pin point the problem instead of just beginning to critique her paper with my own ideas. Again the collaborative tutoring style worked very well along with open-ended questions. After a short discussion I gave her the task of coming up with ideas that would improve her second paragraph while I return to the first student. This back and forth continued until the other tutor came and left me with one student. This was the first time I got to work with one student individually. Immediately I noticed that this was much easier because I was able to focus my full attention on that student. The session ran a lot smoother and the student came up with some very interesting ideas through our back and forth conversation. The student was very pleased with my help and that mad me feel very good.
This session had a couple of first experiences that taught me a great deal. For one, I should be aware of the students emotions and feelings about their work and I should maybe ask if its ok for us to read their work out loud before I do so. I also learned that one student is much easier to work with and two students just causes confusion. Its also easier to use strategies with one student as well. For my next tutoring session I hope I have one student again so I can use some different tutoring strategies.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Second Tutoring Session
In my second tutoring session I had two students again. They both did not start their paper, so I asked them if they had picked a topic yet. They both did not so that was the first thing that we worked on. We all talked together about the assignment and brainstormed some ideas for a topic.
One student was very quick and picked a topic shortly after. the other needed more time to think so I decided this would be a great opportunity for him to take a few minutes to just jot down some topics while I work with the other student. The next higher order concern that we worked on was creating a thesis. After picking a topic I thought this would be an excellent way of starting the paper so that we could see what direction to go in with the rest of the paper. I basically asked him what he wanted the reader to take from his piece of work after reading it. This would help him stay on track with what he was going to write. We came up with a few different variations of a thesis. While he chose what the best one might be, I returned to the other student. He had a good list of ideas ,but because his second language was English it was hard for him to say exactly what he wanted without second guessing himself. I knew I had to be patient and understanding. We continued to talk until he got out his ideas in the way that he wanted. After that we also worked on a thesis and he was very happy when we he got both things down and was able to express his ideas. As the session carried on I continued the back and forth between students giving them small task to do while I worked with one individually. The collaborative tutoring style worked very effectively.
The session was a success and both students had a lot of information and ideas to work with and they thanked me for my help. The only problem I faced was the fact that one student didn't speak English to well which at times required a lot of individual attention. This caused the other student to wait a bit longer for me to turn my attention back so I felt like he got distracted a couple times. I learned that working with two students is always a challenge and even more so when one of the students is not a native English speaker.
One student was very quick and picked a topic shortly after. the other needed more time to think so I decided this would be a great opportunity for him to take a few minutes to just jot down some topics while I work with the other student. The next higher order concern that we worked on was creating a thesis. After picking a topic I thought this would be an excellent way of starting the paper so that we could see what direction to go in with the rest of the paper. I basically asked him what he wanted the reader to take from his piece of work after reading it. This would help him stay on track with what he was going to write. We came up with a few different variations of a thesis. While he chose what the best one might be, I returned to the other student. He had a good list of ideas ,but because his second language was English it was hard for him to say exactly what he wanted without second guessing himself. I knew I had to be patient and understanding. We continued to talk until he got out his ideas in the way that he wanted. After that we also worked on a thesis and he was very happy when we he got both things down and was able to express his ideas. As the session carried on I continued the back and forth between students giving them small task to do while I worked with one individually. The collaborative tutoring style worked very effectively.
The session was a success and both students had a lot of information and ideas to work with and they thanked me for my help. The only problem I faced was the fact that one student didn't speak English to well which at times required a lot of individual attention. This caused the other student to wait a bit longer for me to turn my attention back so I felt like he got distracted a couple times. I learned that working with two students is always a challenge and even more so when one of the students is not a native English speaker.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)