Journal 8
Journal 8
On Tuesday, my ENGL 121 student did not show up, and there were no drop-ins for the rest of the day. Instead, I looked into several campus resources and reviewed some course material. On Friday, I met with my other ENGL 121 student and we looked at some of the campus resources available. We revised a discussion post and started preparing for next week. I assisted a new student with revising a case study about a previous assembly bill for a political science class.
Summary: I was able to make the student I assisted on Friday laugh even over the Zoom call which is one of my long term goals for the internship. While I couldn't make use of some of the new strategies I've been implementing for my in-person students, I did reflect on the ease of commenting directly on the document. I was, however, able to make use of my knowledge of the course itself. The student happened to be coming in for help for the same class I am currently taking, so I was already familiar with the assignment and his grading. Since the assignment was relatively confusing, this prior knowledge helped me provide stronger feedback.
Challenges: One thing I had not considered with my regular ENGL 121 students is how the semester will gradually wear on them and how much that exhaustion will affect our interactions. Despite reassuring me several times that it was not the fault of our meetings but rather a general exhaustion with school life itself, I still felt as if I should have been doing more to support the student. I tried to provide a more relaxed approach so she felt less pressured, at least for the duration of our short meeting, but I am not sure how well it turned out. With my Zoom student, it took longer to get set up than an in-person appointment would have because her document had to be first sent to the URWC and then to me. It meant we had less time to discuss her assignment, but it was more convenient since we could both look at the same page and make comments directly on it.
Ideas or theories: I have found that the more experience I gain in a wider variety of assignments, I become better acquainted with the exact type of feedback I should provide. For example, with the student I assisted on Friday, I found that for a political science class, there is much less focus on the way the content is presented and more so on the actual content. Apart from clarifying grammar and making sure the writing is clear, the main focus is on making sure as much information is provided as possible. There's less space reserved for interpretation of that information, so the bulk of the work is spent researching information beforehand.
Some of my immediate colleagues are, first and foremost, my fellow URWC tutors. Each of them works alongside me, though we don't often have time to chat, but I do observe their sessions when I have the chance to. We all work towards the same goal, though ultimately we work towards it in different ways. I've noticed some of their regular ENGL 121 students and some of their drop-ins. While I haven't had the chance yet to closely observe their methods, I can roughly make inferences about how they approach their work from their dialogues with their students. I also work closely with the students and staff operating the front-desk of the URWC. I actually talk more closely with them than any of my other colleagues because they tend to my touch stone for work. They let me know when I'm running up to the end of my sessions and they also introduce me and my students to one another. Another colleague is my students themselves. While it may not seem like it initially, we are both working towards the same end goal just as I do with other tutors: we are working towards our education goals. While they work on individual assignments and to improve their reading and writing abilities, I am working towards my ability to assist others as well as my reading and writing abilities. We both learn together.
One burning question I and some other tutors likely have is what are the most effective ways to communicate our knowledge of reading and writing to one another? Do we need to prompt their answers, do we need to provide greater examples, or are we more of a guiding hand that simply points out their errors when we see them? Likely, both I and the front-desk staff are always considering how to best maintain high service standards to make it easy for students to make appointments and to make it welcoming once they arrive for their appointment. The front-desk staff are their first and last point of contact, so they focus on making good impressions, while I as a tutor have to continue that impression once they receive help. If they receive poor service, they may be less likely to return and less likely to receive the help they need. When considering the students I work with, the question foremost on their minds is likely to be whether they were right to come to receive assistance. While they will definitely be thinking about how to improve their writing, an underlying consideration is the concern over whether they're wasting their time, whether they should not have sought out assistance to begin with (perhaps out of shame or out of pride), or whether they should return. This is also something that is constantly on my mind: whether I was the right person to provide assistance. I try my best to do what I can, but throughout, we are both considering whether we are the proper match up.
I constantly learn from my students as each question they come to me with prompts my learning to ensure that I can answer their question the next time it comes up. I learn from other tutors by watching what they do, though if I had the chance to mirror them I think I would learn their approaches with greater depth; that way, I could consider what aspects I might adapt to my own teaching style. I learn from the front-desk staff some of the guidelines surrounding my duties, but I could take the chance to inquire more about what goes on in the background of tutoring. They could answer my questions about how the program works on the business side and how decisions are made, giving me greater insight about the process more generally.