Blog Video Review

Good morning guys! Hope you guys are having a good morning. What my morning consist of is answering a question that my professor assigned my class and i: "Name a couple useful - and not so useful - strategies for tutoring that appeared in the videos we watched this week.".  As a class we saw three videos: Difficult Situations, The Texting Student, and Plagiarism and Tutoring. I will provide you guys the answer to this question based on these videos.

- Useful:
(Video: Difficult Situations): What was useful that I saw in this video was that the tutor was trying to calm down the tutee because he was over reacting about how he felt that the professor didn't like the tutee. I feel like this is useful because the tutor could of over reacted himself and just finish the session or leave, but instead he tried talking to the tutee to calm him down. Another thing that was useful was that the tutor tried helping the tutee even though it was a math assignment.

(Video: The Texting Student): What I found useful was that the tutor was trying to make noises to try and make the tutee notice that it bothered him that she was using her phone in the session. This was useful because sometimes you don't know how to approach someone when you don't like what they are doing.

(Video: Plagiarism and Tutoring): What I found helpful was that the tutor didn't over react that the girl didn't have any citations. On the other hand, the tutor was suggesting to add the citations because it would be considered plagiarism. 

- Not So Useful:
(Video: Difficult Situations): What wasn't so useful from this video was that he didn't seem strict about the session. I know the tutee was complaining about his professor not liking him but the tutor could of said that he isn't here for personal things but to help him with his paper; or he could of asked the tutee to come back or take a bathroom break to calm down and come back to work on his assignment.

(Video: The Texting Student): What wasn't so useful from this video was that the tutor didn't actually ask the tutor to stop using the phone. I felt that if the tutor would have asked to stop using the phone, the session would have gone better and they would have also went over the paper a bit more.

(Video: Plagiarism and Tutoring): What wasn't so useful from this video was when the tutor told the tutee "Its excepted at a college level", that wasn't useful in my opinion because the tutor just judged the tutee and could of made them feel bad. A tutor is there to help and suggest,  not judge and hurt. Also, what wasn't useful was that the tutor just let go the last tutee leave, instead of trying to stop her to help her or make her understand that she was plagiarism and pointing out the rules from the college stating that she shouldn't plagiarize. 

Well these are the few things I found useful and not so useful, HAVE A GREAT DAY GUYS!

Blog Questions

Hello guys! Well, this is my first blog of the semester, kind of nervous. Last week my professor gave my class two questions to answer:

  - What makes a tutorial successful and what are we looking for as we begin our observations next week?

  - What are the common points between what makes for good 'teaching' and what makes for 'good writing'?

I will provide you guys my answers to these questions.

1. In my opinion what makes a tutorial successful is when both the tutor and tutee feel comfortable; there shouldn't be tension between both peers. But at the same time you shouldn't feel that comfortable where you guys go off topic and go on asking questions or talking about your personal life that doesn't have to do with the paper the tutee had brought into the tutoring session. The tutor and tutee should feel comfortable to a certain extent. They should both feel comfortable to be able to revise the paper together. There are a couple of things I will be observing next week in the writing center. Some of the things I will be looking at are the ways the tutor talks to the tutee and he/she approaches the writer when they find something wrong with their paper. I will also observe how the tutor gives suggestions to the writer and how and what questions to ask regarding their work piece. 

2. Some of the common points that makes a 'good teaching' and what makes a 'good writing' is:

      - get involved in the subject (because if you get involved in the subject even if you don't know much about the subject, the relationship between tutor and tutee would be mutual which would make the tutoring session smother.)

      - strict but friendly (because you can not be so friendly with the tutee because you might go off topic in the tutoring session; you should be strict so the tutee takes you serious because most likely you as the tutor, the tutee might be around the same age as you.)

      - good communicators (because you both have to communicate in order to revise the work piece together, it should be a A & B conversation, not just A or just B.)

      - listens and responds (because this relates to being good communicators. Especially as a tutor, you have to be able to listen and respond to the tutees questions.)

Well, these are my responds towards both questions my professor assigned. Have a GREAT day guys!