Field Report #1
Field Report #1:
Pre-Tutoring Questions:
1. How often were awkward silences present?
2. Were they any things that the tutor did not know how to address (unfamiliar subjects, etc.)?
3. Were there any other unexpected problems?
Tutee Report:
The assignment that was brought it was a short one, and thus the tutoring session was unfortunately shorter than it ideally would have been otherwise. Nonetheless, quite a bit of useful feedback was gained and the tutoring session was on the whole successful. Due to the short length of the assignment, we were able to cover several different aspects of it, and of writing in general. I was able to implement several useful pieces of feedback into revisions of the assignment, with positive results. Overall, this session was limited by the short length of the assignment, but was still a successful demonstration of the basic principles of tutoring. There were no major problems during the session and several useful pieces of feedback were obtained. Awkward silences were present on occasion, but there were no other problems with the session.
Tutor Report:
As a tutor, I was able to successfully cover each important aspect of the student's assignment in the time allotted, both larger themes as a whole and smaller quirks of writing as well. The assignment was already almost complete, and on the whole only minor revisions were needed. The problem of awkward silences did arrive after the completed discussion of most important topics, however the session was mostly problem-free and I feel that we were adequately able to go over each important point of the student's writing, as well as to cover a good brief discussion of writing techniques in general. I also tried to implement some of the techniques from the "So What, Who Cares?" article while working as tutor, and attempted to see where some the these techniques could be used to further the value of the assignment. Although awkward silences were present quite often, on the whole the tutoring session was quite successful, and there were no other problems present. The material presented was material that I was reasonably familiar with, and was able to successfully navigate with the tutee.
Pre-Tutoring Questions:
1. How often were awkward silences present?
2. Were they any things that the tutor did not know how to address (unfamiliar subjects, etc.)?
3. Were there any other unexpected problems?
Tutee Report:
The assignment that was brought it was a short one, and thus the tutoring session was unfortunately shorter than it ideally would have been otherwise. Nonetheless, quite a bit of useful feedback was gained and the tutoring session was on the whole successful. Due to the short length of the assignment, we were able to cover several different aspects of it, and of writing in general. I was able to implement several useful pieces of feedback into revisions of the assignment, with positive results. Overall, this session was limited by the short length of the assignment, but was still a successful demonstration of the basic principles of tutoring. There were no major problems during the session and several useful pieces of feedback were obtained. Awkward silences were present on occasion, but there were no other problems with the session.
Tutor Report:
As a tutor, I was able to successfully cover each important aspect of the student's assignment in the time allotted, both larger themes as a whole and smaller quirks of writing as well. The assignment was already almost complete, and on the whole only minor revisions were needed. The problem of awkward silences did arrive after the completed discussion of most important topics, however the session was mostly problem-free and I feel that we were adequately able to go over each important point of the student's writing, as well as to cover a good brief discussion of writing techniques in general. I also tried to implement some of the techniques from the "So What, Who Cares?" article while working as tutor, and attempted to see where some the these techniques could be used to further the value of the assignment. Although awkward silences were present quite often, on the whole the tutoring session was quite successful, and there were no other problems present. The material presented was material that I was reasonably familiar with, and was able to successfully navigate with the tutee.
Alex + John,
ReplyDeleteI’m writing to you two together b/c you were partners for this activity. This feedback is for both of your first field report.
Alex, you noted that “it did not take long for John to spot the minor issues in my writing of the summary, questions about the text, and the themes I commented on in “The Knight’s Tale”. The key suggestion he made was to make sure I was formal enough for the assignment [...] the only other issues John could find in my writing were minor grammatical errors.” I know that you both realized that this was a relatively short assignment -- and therefore, there might be a little “less to work on” -- but this gives me a bit of pause. As tutors, it’s not exactly our job to “spot issues” in students’ work. We can raise questions that arise, for sure -- and trying to guide students towards “spotting issues” in their work is, absolutely part of a tutor’s job -- but the bottom line is that we want to de-center our power as much as possible. The best tutoring sessions -- especially peer tutoring sessions -- are, I think, negotiations. In other words, we want students to take ownership of their work, their revisions, their edits, ideas, etc, etc.
When you switched positions, it sounds like a similar exchange took place. From what I gather, when the tutoring session was focused on John’s cover letter, it sounds like he wasn’t the one who was setting the agenda. To be clear, this is a tricky situation, especially when students might not know what might need to be worked on, but we ideally want to steer students towards setting their own agenda + prioritzing what they’d like to work on. All told, I think that you know this, but as peer tutors, we’re not “fixers” -- we’re “guiders.”
Alex, I like how, here, you note that John was taking notes during his (mock) tutoring session: “I made a few suggestions as to how what to add to his cover letter and then wrote notes on his resume regarding how to sort listed items and how he might create headers for the various parts sections throughout.”
I think that we want to build in “active learning” whenever possible + have students DOING -- whether that’s taking notes or asking questions. The fact that John had a record of what happened is also excellent. Ideally, we want students to walk out of a tutoring session with some reminders of what they worked on + what they could work on next according to their particular revision needs.
John, I like how you mentioned that you “tried to implement some of the techniques from the "So What, Who Cares?" article while working as tutor, and attempted to see where some the these techniques could be used to further the value of the assignment.” That’s higher-order stuff that, I think, we always want to keep our attention on.
It sounds like you both resolved the awkward silences easily by simply talking about the paper/work that was the focus of the tutoring session. Easy enough! Seriously, though, there is SO MUCH to talk about when it comes to writing that, hopefully, we always have fodder to extend the conversation. In fact, this begs a tough question that could be taken up for our mini-prospectus: is a piece of writing ever “done”/”finished” in a tutoring session? If so, when and why? And according to whose perceptions? (The student, the tutor, the instructor….?)
Z