Final tutoring paper

Today was a great day. After two weeks of uncertainty (due to me being sick and the office not doing their job) I am happy that this experience is finally over. If I am going to be honest I really did not like tutoring, for a whole host of reasons. every week I was anxious from the time I got into the school until the time I left. This anxiety was solely based on my intense fear of the kids. The day before I tutored I would spend most of the night worrying about what I was going to wear or stressing over whether or not the kids would see my pimple, I felt like I was back in middle school the second my foot stepped inside the classroom. I know from this experience that in no way shape or form do I want to teach middle school. 

I did get a boost of confidence from my students this week that I think would have been helpful if I had received it earlier in the semester. This week we were covering the antebellum period directly leading up to the civil war. This is my absolute favorite area of study, so I came into the lesson with a great deal of confidence. Due to scheduling around 8th grade standardized tests the class times were mixed up and I stayed for two of the hours. After the first class Mr. Jones asked if I wanted to lead the next lecture over the top 10 reasons that lead to the civil war. I was nervous but took the opportunity to get up in front of the students and really teach something that I was passionate about. At the end of the hour the same little girl that called me ugly the first week told the class that she thought I was smarter than Mr. Jones. However inappropriate the comment was it really showed me the change that I had made. They kids went from picking me apart based on my appearance to viewing me as an intelligent helpful tutor in their class. 

I am glad to have had the experience working with urban schools. I don’t know if this is the environment that I will choose for my career but it was great to see teachers that are working really hard for what they believe in. I can’t wait to see what is in store for me next year 

 

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Tutoring reflection

Unfortunately I had food posioning this past week and could not make it out to the school. Stay tuned for tutoring reflection #6.

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tutroing reflection #5

This week I was lucky enough to be put into a totally new and different atmosphere. Mr. Jones was showing a movie for the entire class time so he prearranged for me to be in a science class with Mrs. Green for the hour. I haven’t taken a science class in three years, so I was a little apprehensive about how affective I could be in helping out the class. What I didn’t expect was how different the relationship is between teachers and students.

 

 I am so glad that my first experience working with a teacher has been a positive one. I never realized how affective my teacher is at reaching the students. The level of respect that he has compared to Mrs. Green was obvious within the first five minutes. She was repeating the same rules over and over again without any results. She never raised her voice, she never asserted any type of authority and the children played her the entire hour. I don’t understand how one woman can stand up in front of the class and keep her cool while being disrespected all hour. This relationship dwindled all the way down to me. Her relationship is so bad that she didn’t have the sense to introduce me to her students and many of the kids spent the hour looking back asking me what I was doing there. It really made my learning experience very difficult; due to the fact that I was too busy answering off beat questions. Kids are curious, when there is a new adult in the room they want to know who I am and what I am doing inside their classroom. I sat in the classroom observing her teaching style and for 10 minutes I helped one girl finish up her assignment. I was happy to leave the class and go back over to my students.

 

I really thought that I wasn’t comfortable with my student, but being away from them this week made me appreciate my situation and my class a lot more. I truly appreciate the environment that Mr. Jones had created for me inside of his classroom. He trusts my education and my abilities enough to work right along side him, instead of putting my in the corner until the last five minutes. Because of him I am more confidant in my abilities to work with kids and really see my work in progress. I am glad that I was given an opportunity to work with another teacher to see that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

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Today I witnessed the great division between being “cool” and school work. During this time in a child’s life being cool is of the utmost importance. It determines how you feel about yourself as a person. Life during your early teens is shaped by how others view you. My eighth grade class is in exception; being both cool and an active student is simply not an option.
As discussed in earlier tutoring reflections Mr. Jones starts off each day with of a question of the day. If the students are struggling with the question he opens the it up for discussion. During this time he asks questions similar to the topic in order to get the students moving in the right direction. For the four weeks that I have been inside of the classroom I have only seen the same four students answer the questions. At first I thought this was due to the fact that many of the students simply didn’t know the answers. What I found was that they just simply didn’t want any of their peers to know they knew the answer.

 The majority of the time Mr. Jones avoids giving me the students with behavioral problems, most of the students I tutor are just too far behind to complete the assignment on their own. Today the students had the entire class hour to work on their review sheet for the test on Friday and he felt that it would be better if I took some of the more disruptive students so the rest of the class would not be distracted. What I found were these students that I had previously written off as poor students became really motivated when separated from the rest of their peers. What took that rest of the class the entire hour only took my two students twenty minutes. Their attitude about school and the assignment totally changed once no one was their to watch and judge their actions. As educators we need to be thinking of ways to make school “cool.” (The concept sounds cheesy, but I have seen the results when you take away the judgmental part of being successful.) Ideas that I have been thinking about are: Taking thirty minutes a week to show how school and being successful can be glamorous and that many” popular” people are smart. Bring in articles of famous people historical and recent. You can show individuals like famous actresses and people of power and what it took for them to get where they are. Kids need that reassurance that they are not going to be social outcasts for being smart. If this concept of”cool” was taken away I know that many of my students would be immensely more successful. 

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tutoring reflection #3

Tutoring reflection #3

Week three and I am beginning to get excited about going to class and seeing the students. I still find myself a little intimidated by them and their lack of seeing me as an authority figure.  I haven’t found a way to assert my authority inside the classroom. My position as a tutor does not give me the opportunities that I feel is necessary for the students to think I am someone they need to respect. I would be happy if they saw me as someone they can ask for help from.

 This week I found myself getting more comfortable in front of the students. Unfortunately Mr. Jones is given a stack of movies that he must watch throughout the year. He, as do I feel like students who are already far behind should not be wasting valuable class time watching movies that frankly they are not watching. This day however, was very helpful to me. The students were instructed to work on an acrostic poem during the movie. I used this opportunity to interact with the students. During the movie I walked around the classroom helping kids find sentences for their poems. I know that for the students this assignment was fairly easy, the hard part was staying motivated to finish it. I came into class early today so I saw how far the other class got on their poems; many of them did not finish them. It was my goal for every student to finish the assignment today; I felt that 40 minutes was ample time to finish the assignment. Finally a goal that I set for myself was reached. It felt really great to have each students finish all of the assignment. Motivation to do an assignment while watching a movie seems almost useless. The movie was roots, this is a movie about slavery, which was the root word for the poem, but it didn’t help get the assignment done any easier. Because of these forced movies the children lose their focus on learning. This idea was made very apparent when they were trying to do their poems. It has to be frustrating as an educator to have barriers and restrictions put in place by the state. With all of the reading we have been doing about time management against the readings on state board regulations and requirements I haven’t figured out a way to solve this ever present problem.

This week was about trying to find an affective place in the classroom. I don’t see me being an effective tutor in the eyes of my teacher; therefore it is up to me to get something out of this experience. Every week I hear yet another student complaining about how they are not getting the experience they had envisioned, all they are doing is cheating themselves. All experiences are what you make of them, and if you go into every situation with high expectations, chances are you will find yourself constantly disappointed.

 

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Tutoring Reflection #2

This week I started off motivated to connect better with the students. Last week my teacher gave me opportunity to jump in and I hestitated, because I was nervous. I was not going to let that happen again. Before walking into class I thought about all of the things that I had done wrong the week before, and decided focus on one of them to work on today. This week I was going to shake out my nerves and speak up.

At the begining of every class period Mr. Jones* has a question of the day, the kids write all of their responses in their journals. This method of teaching was discussed in the Weinstien reading as a way to increase actual learning time. It is a vary valuable tool in my class because it forces the kids to be in their seats working. Many times kids are confused and ask for help. Today I walked around the room guiding kids towards a correct answer. Due to absenses the kids I tutored last week weren’t present on this day. For this reason I really need to focus on interacting with the class as a whole.

I really like that my teacher allows me to interact with the entire class, many times my hour there is spent idlely standing around. When Mr. Jones is in front of the class all I am doing is finding a way to blend in without anyone noticing me. Next week I really want to find a way to use this time to my benefit. If I waste time focusing on the time being wasted it benefits no one.

 

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first tutoring reflection

Walking into the hallway on my first day of tutoring was an eye-opening, nerve wrecking experience. At first glance it was easy to see that this is a school atmosphere I have never experienced before. Racially it is extremely diverse, from a quick overall assessment the school appears to be over 50% African American, 20% white, and 30% Latino. This racial diversity however does not hinder any of the children from academic cooperation. Esthetically Kiley middle school appears to be more on the lower socioeconomic sphere. The building is lacking many of the resources that i feel are necessary for a functioning school; there are no computers inside of the classroom and the text books are old edition and badly beat up. 

My main apprehension before my first day was whether or not I was knowledgeable over the material that we would be covering. Upon starting my actual tutoring experience I realized that knowledge was the least of my worries when it came to working with the kids. The two students i was given were apprehensive about answering any of the questions, even when it was just one on one time. I attribute this behavior to the idea of learned helplessness. After years of getting the answer wrong and falling behind they have a given up attitude. It is just easier for them to say I don’t know and let the teacher or their peers answer the question for them. 

My biggest challenged came when I was involved with the entire class. I forgot how mean middle school kids can be, unfortunately I experienced this first hand. While walking through the class keeping the kids on task I overheard a conversation between two girls. One girl whispered into the other ear, and the other girl responded, “I know you didn’t say Miss Cook was pretty because you know she ain’t pretty.” This was extremely hurtful to hear, especially from kids you are trying to help. I know that this back stabbing mean girl spirit comes from their own insecurities but I felt like I was back in middle school again. I hope that next week will be a better experience. 

 

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TE 302 Tutoring Plan

 

Tutorting Plan

 

Goals

- Improve student’s motivation to learn material by effectively communicating the value and importance of education

- Effectively teach and aid in student’s understanding of at least one important concept in the subject matter

- Improve students organizational skills (i.e. keeping assignments organized, having assignments completed on time)

 

Establishing a Connection

- open each lesson with a few open-ended questions about the student’s life, hobbies, and goals. Such questions will allow us to better understand our students and how we can better teach them. For example, if they like to play basketball we can weave an analogy between math and basketball into the lesson

- Establish a healthy professional realtionship with your student

- Be patient with your student. They’re going to ask questions and give answers that may sound silly to you and this is because they don’t have as much knowledge as you do so try and be as patient as you can.

- Let them know whenever possible that just because they gave a wrong answer or asked the wrong question that these are still valid questions and answers. Don’t dismiss a wrong answer outright.

 

Pre-Assessment

- Ask student to try to complete some selected work on their own first. That way we can observe how they would attempt to solve the problem with no outside instruction

- Ask well-worded questions about the student’s strategies. This will help them become aware of their own mental processes and teach them how to monitor their own learning

- Discuss the student’s progress with their teacher to understand how the student has performed in the past

- Observe students attitude and contributions to the overall class enviroment

- Observe how the student interacts with their peers in a cooperative enviroment.

 

 

Strategies for Assisting Students

- Modeling can be helpful for understanding certain tasks. Have your student watch as you go through the sollution process step-by-step, while explaining the logical reasoning for these steps.

- Allow student to attempt work on their own, and be available for them to ask questions as they work

- Provide feedback that is immediate, clear and precise, and positive.

- Encourage students go to back over their work and find mistakes they may have made the first time.

- Before starting on an assignment make sure all instructions are clear to the student.

- Continue working on establishing a connection with your student

- If you need to explain or give directions make sure that you keep the student’s attention by asking questions every now and then within your explanation. Keep them engaged.

 

Ongoing Assessment

- work together with the classroom teacher to monitor student’s performances in class, and on quizzes and tests. This will be the easiest way to determine if the student is learning

- Provide the teacher with feedback on the students progression

- Provide the student with positive constructive feedback about the progress they are making

 

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