Knight - Module 10

Part 1: A few ways that I use to study include: good note taking, solving all the homework problems plus extras, reading the textbook, summarizing what is being read, and review old tests. These skills will help a tutee with their studying because they incorporate many different techniques that help remember what is being learned. Taking good notes might not seem like a study skill but if you think about it when you go to review the notes they need to be readable or you won’t be able to understand what you did. Solving all homework problems and extra allows you to get extra practice in. This practice will help to make sure that you fully understand what you have learned. Reading the textbook and summarizing what you have learned helps give you something to look at and allows you to get a different view on what you learned. Finally reviewing old tests allows you to prepare for future tests because it lets you see what type of questions will be on the future tests.

Knight - Module 8

Some of the take-aways is to paraphrase a long answer, use a student’s response to lead to the next question, and wait for a second or two to make sure you have heard all of the student’s response. The first allows you to analyze what the student said and makes sure that you fully understand what is being stated in the student’s answer. The second allows you to use the students own words to help the student get a better concrete understanding of what they are learning. The last take-away helps to make sure that you hear all of what the tutee is saying without you interrupting them. One thing that I would have a problem with is focusing on the student rather than what is coming up next. I usually think about what is the next step in tutoring and I think that cuts some of my attention from the tutee. This is a problem that I am working on.

 

Knight - Module 9 Tutoring Situation

One tutoring situation that I had this week involved me explaining how to solve a math problem. I used the Problem Solving Techniques because I was helping the student solve a problem. What I did is I started at the beginning. I listed all the important information in the question that he would use when he goes to solve the problem. I labeled the information so that he could understand where I would place each number in the formula and then I wrote down the formula that I would use. From there, I began to solve the problem in steps. Each step I would explain what I did and even wrote down what I was doing on the paper. This helped him to understand what I was doing and how the problem can be solved. What I would like to do for the next session is to have handouts that will help the student set up his problems in the future. This will allow him to have something to look at when he goes to work on future problems and will give him a reference for when he gets stuck on a tough problem.

Math Lab Frustrations

I encountered some frustrations today in the Math Lab and I am just wondering how others have handled it.

I have a Math 70 tutuee that I have been working with for a couple of months. He is still struggling adding and subtracting negatives and I feel like we have finally made some progress with this. It is especially important since we are now working with polynomials.

One of the important aspects of tutoring is to help the tutee feel successful with their accomplishments and there lies my frustration today. The program that is used for the math tutorials and learning sessions does not seem very user friendly. The tutee was finally getting the concept. Today when entering answers in the computer and using the drop down process it has to enter an equation, he made a mistake. If he were taking the test obviously it would have been wrong. If a teacher had looked at his paper he would have had the right answer. To me what it boils down to is the students are  having to learn the 2 aspects. They have to learn the math, that they are struggling with, and then they need to be technically savvy also.

The other problem that occurred was the computer basically allows the answer to be one way and one way only. While working with polynomials the student entered 1xy + 3x + 9 and it was wrong. What the computer wanted was xy + 3x + 9. It just seems at a time when we are trying to build confidence and help them to understand the process this is counterproductive. I did not catch what was wrong and when trying to back up a couple of pages to reread the tutorial the computer put us back to the beginning of doing the module.

All of these things combined only take away from the learning process, gets the student frustrated and makes them question a process they are already lacking confidence about.
 

Webster - Active Listening and Paraphrasing

The most important take-aways I got from this presentation would be attentive silent listening, paraphrasing, and questioning because these are the ones that several people (myself included) tend to lose sight of the most. It is extremely important to paraphrase what the tutee said as well as ask them questions to make sure you are both on the same page and there are no miscommunications. Plus, in relation to that old saying, we know what happens when we assume things.

Webster - Time Management and Study Skills

The first thing I do each first day of every class I have ever had is read the syllabus thoroughly. After that, insert all important due dates and exam dates into my Gmail calendar on my phone so I can keep track of everything and be reminded in case something was to come up. I will also physically mark off the class dates and assignments from the syllabus upon completion or attendance to the class. In addition, I keep everything organized in a binder by subject and date. During class I will take notes as well as highlight important information in the book.

While studying, I will review the material from my personal notes and the textbooks to see if there is anything I may be unclear about. Sometimes, I may even re-write my notes to sort of reprocess it all. I will write down a list of vocabulary words and familiarize myself with them. I also use an online flashcard maker and view other practices quizzes online. I use multiple analogies to relate material to other, more personal things so I can remember the topics better.

The top websites I would recommend for studying aids would be:

1. Spreeder: A website that allows you to paste text into it and enables you to speed read it.
2. StudyBlue: A website that allows you enroll into a class and have access to other previous student's notes as well as making your own flash cards and viewing others. It also has a smartphone application that allows you to take it with you and use it on the go!

Webster - Methods of Tutoring

I had a tutee come in that needed help on writing and formatting a narrative essay in the style of APA. They had a topic, but were unsure of how to get started and what exactly to write about. I explained to them that since they were telling a story, to make it personal and to tell it as detailed on paper as they would to their best friend. From my experience, I cannot write to my full potential on a topic unless I am passionate about it. I also printed off handouts to help them with forming a thesis, an introduction, a conclusion, outlining the essay and guidelines for APA style. They were grateful to receive those handouts and loved how they simplified things in a step-by-step format. To do this day, they will come up to be and talk about how they use those handouts on every paper they have to write!

Webster - Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

I agree completely with David Kolb, because I too feel that it is essential to meet the needs of every learning style to ensure that every student makes a connection with the material. I think it would be very beneficial to help each tutee determine their learning styles and then go from there. From the information I have learned about learning styles that I don't possess, I think it will be much easier to pick up on a person's learning style. I think it would also be a neat idea to pass on the learning style tests to the professors so they can implement them in their classrooms to form an idea of what ways to incorporate all the styles during class.

Webster - Communication Skills

This week I had a tutee come in that needed help with their English paper. She was panicking because she thought she done terrible on it. The paper had almost no errors and contained a brilliant anecdote that appealed directly to one's emotions. I quickly realized that they were their own worst critic, which is just human nature. Sometimes all a tutee needs is a few encouraging words to uplift their spirits and make them realize that they have all the potential in the world even though they may not realize it at first. Communication skills play a huge part in this because while I took her concerns for the literal statement, it was not the underlying issue.

Webster - Goals and Planning

I plan for tutoring sessions by looking ahead to their future assignments to give myself an idea of ways I can relate their assignments to real life situations. For example, when working with Publisher to create a flyer tutees tend to wonder when they will use that in relation to their future career. I explain to them that creating stuff like that would come in handy for several different reasons such as creating something to advertise a yard sale, something for their church, selling a car, ETC. I also tend to give them a little mini-assignment or task to complete to show that they fully understand what we covered in our sessions. I do that mainly to show them that they are understanding the material and to alleviate some stress they were experiencing due to feeling hopeless. A lot of times, they surprise themselves. I help my tutees set goals by using their syllabus or an assignment checklist to represent how far they have come and what is yet to complete. The only difficulty I have ran into would be, when I first began tutoring I underestimated the time it would take to cover a set assignment because it actually took longer. I am much better about this now.