As a peer tutor, you inhabit a special place in the college, simultaneously student and more-than a student. This dual role can be fantastic and awesome at times, but it can also be confusing and tricky to navigate at others, especially when it comes to your relationship with faculty. Where’s the line between criticizing a faculty member and offering a helpful observation about the parts of their assignment that causes students to consistently struggle?

Here are a few quick tips about working with faculty. Since most of us already know the things not to do, let’s start with those:

• Don’t try to replace the instructor by doing full lectures on course material. Students should not be able to replace going to class by visiting a tutor.

• Don’t try to speak for the instructor. If a student is unsure what an instructor wants for an assignment, also encourage the student to talk to their instructor. You might provide an interpretation, such as “it seems to me like the assignment sheet is asking for this,” but follow it up with, “but you should double check that with your instructor to make sure.”

• Don’t grade or evaluate students’ work. If you tell a student they have clearly written an ‘A’ paper (or especially if you tell them it’s perfect!!—EEK!), and then the student actually receives a lower grade, it pits the credibility of the tutor against the credibility of the instructor. One party will come across badly, and that’s not good for anyone.

However, we don’t talk as often about the ways that you CAN work with faculty and capitalize on the unique position that you are in as a peer tutor. Here are a few suggestions:

• If there’s something you don’t know, ask. Faculty love to share their content expertise with people who really care about the subject matter and want to know about it in-depth (rather than just looking for an answer on the next quiz).

• Ask for resources to help with common problems. Need a cool method to help students develop their thesis statements? Want a good mnemonic device to help students remember their science vocab? The faculty might have a few tricks up their sleeves that can help.

• If you notice a pattern of tutees struggling with a particular concept or a particular assignment, let the faculty member(s) know. You have insights into our students that we would love to have! If you don’t have a close relationship with the faculty member or are unsure how they will take the comment, you can relay your observations through the tutoring coordinator or ask if the department has a faculty liaison.

• If you develop a really cool method for teaching a particular concept or find a super useful online resource, share it with the faculty who teach the course. Faculty like to be able to provide resources to their students, but sometimes they are too busy to go out and find that cool video or the useful handout.

Respond: Can you think of other helpful ways to work with faculty?