Difficult Sessions

By now, you've (hopefully) completed all your observations and had a solid amount of solo sessions. You may have also already had a "difficult sessions" staff meeting to talk about stressed students during midterms and the upcoming finals week. Here, we'll go into a little more depth about the different types of difficult tutoring situations you can run into. 

Categories of Hard Sessions/Interactions

• Environment

  • Noise distractions

  • Technology issues

  • Attention drains

• Temperament

  • Shyness

  • Discomfort

  • Lacking confidence

• Unregulated emotions

  • Emotions, whatever they are, influencing the session and experience

• Communication

  • Language barriers

  • Misunderstandings

• Undefined expectations about...

  • What the student needs, wants, or how they behave

  • What you can, will, and are able to do

What does this look like? (Behaviors of difficult students)

Blocking

What do you see?

• Low frustration tolerance

• Immobilization, hopelessness, freezing up

• "I'll never get it", "I'm stuck"

What can you do?

• Determine what the student does know and discuss that - show them that they have some foundation

• Begin from what they know and build, in small steps, toward increasingly complex material

• Offer continual support

• Reinforce success consistently

Confusion

What do you see?

• Disorientation/disorganization

• Helpless feeling about the class - "I'm thinking of dropping the class"

• "I just don't know what my professor wants"

• "I worked really hard on this assignment and I got a D"

What can you do?

• The same thing as blocking, but give structure and order to the session

  • Spend time calming the student down and helping them organize their materials so they can see their work more clearly

Seeking a miracle

What do you see?

• Global concern about their homework and little specificity about what to do

• Enthusiasm about being with a tutor, but passive

• High (often inappropriate) level of expectation of the session

• Evasion or inability to concentrate on concrete tasks

• Talk of limited time, long-range goals versus immediate tasks

What can you do?

• Lay out expectations clearly at the beginning of the session

• Explain counter-productive nature of being overeager

• Return focus again and again to specific tasks

• Involve student continually with questions

• Explain active participation in the learning process, especially if the student has limited time

Defensiveness

What do you see?

• Variations of sullenness/hositility/passivity/boredom

• Disinterest in class/work/tutor

• Defensive posture (arms crossed, leaned back, avoiding eye contact)

• Anger or frustration without an apparent cause

What can you do?

• Allow small amount of time for student to "vent"

• Spend first session (at least) on building relationship and trust

• Be pragmatic, yet understanding

• Establish your credability/indicate pass successes in similar situations

Passiveness

What do you see?

• Noninvolvement/inattention

• Boredom

• Little discussion initiated/few questions

• Repeated "I don't know"

What can you do?

• Empathize

• Ask questions

• Challenge

• Attempt to build a relationship and mobilize the student

• Utilize as many mobilizing techniques as possible - questions, problems, mini-task to be accomplished by your next session or by the student's next class

• Reinforce all activities and successes

Evasiveness

What do you see?

• Thinking/talking about everything but the task at hand

• Disengagement from the task

• Vague vs focused comments about the task at hand

• Nonspecific comments of tutor's skill, course content, and so on

What can you do?

• Focus the student on specific tasks; involve them continually with questions, problems

• If evasion continues, you should ask (in a non-threatening way) why the student has come for tutoring and what they expect from you

  • "What can we get done this session?"

  • "My biggest concern is your success in this class; how, specifically, can I help you with that?"

The Disinterested Student

What do you see?

• Just want the confirmation of attending a session

• Resisting conversations

• Just want to leave

• Negative attitude

What can you do?

• Engage the student through questions

• "What do you mean by ...?"

• "What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses of your assignment?"

• "What part of the assignment is giving you a hard time?"

• Give an example from your life about a similar situation

Communication or Language Barrier

What do you see?

• Not have the language to explain their thoughts

• Very quiet or not talk much

• Think that if they don't speak, tutors will do the work for them

• Waits for tutor to do all the work

What can you do?

• Ask questions and use wait time

• Repeat your statement/question using different words

• If there is a language barrier, find another tutor who speaks the same language

• Be patient!

• If they want you do to the work for them, refer them to QSC's policies

Emotional Issues

What do you see?

• Distressed behavior

• Fidgeting

• Irritable

• Lack of self control

• Inability to focus and concentrate

What you can do?

• Take a moment and ask if they are ok

• Ask how things are with the quarter, home, work, etc.

• Ask them what would be the most helpful in the session

• Check in with them - do they have a support network? How are they coping with stress?

Important to remember

You have power - trust your intuition, be aware of your boundaries, and take care of yourself.

You have backup - we have your back, the situation may not be an issue for someone else, ask for what you need

You have Laura's support - if any kind of bad situation arises, let Laura know immediately. That way, she can back you up with the proper knowledge of the situation.

The Red Folder

If you need help, but cannot explicitly say so, ask Laura, Emma, a lead, or another experienced tutor for the red folder. We will discretely help you with the situation.