ED 299W: Workshop Final

Shawn Ford
ED 299W
Final Report
Spring 1997

ED 299W: Strategies in Action

During the spring '97 semester, I took an independent study course entitled ED 299W. This course was designed for me to practice my tutoring skills acquired in ED 101 and to develop strategies for tutoring content area courses such as history. By taking ED 101 and ED 299W, I learned many valuable skills that I am able to apply to my current position as a tutor in the college's Learning Assistance Center (LAC). The most valuable of these skills are patience, leading group tutorials, and note taking and essay writing strategies.

Perhaps the most important skill for a tutor to have is patience. I first realized this while taking ED 101. During my ED 299W course, I was able to practice being patient in many different settings. I tutored many ESL students one-on-one, I conducted a series of workshops, and I was even able to lead book quiz discussions during my practicum teacher's classes on a few occasions.

In my current position as tutor for the LAC, I am required to be patient at all times. This is sometimes very difficult given the different personalities that I have to deal with. However, I feel that the situations that I were exposed to in my ED 299W class helped to make me a more patient person. Most of my student clients are ESL students. I am much more used to the types of questions and the common errors that they have, so I am able to help them better. Being a more patient tutor has made me a more relaxed tutor, and that in turn, I believe, has made me a better tutor.

During my ED 299W class, I frequently led group tutorials. Group tutoring can be very difficult. At the beginning of the spring '97 semester, I watched the video in the LAC that deals with leading group tutorials. I watched the video in anticipation that I would encounter problems with tutoring groups. The best advice that I gained from the video had to do with managing problem students in a group. I had to put this advice to practice many times during my ED 299W course.

In my current position as a tutor in the LAC, one of my duties is leading book discussion groups for the Pre-College Communication (PCC) classes. This part of my job is actually very difficult, because most of the students seem as if they would rather not be there. Some of them tend to get off of the subject and often display disruptive behavior. I always try to remember the video that I watched and the more trying tutorial sessions that I conducted during ED 299W. The main strategy that I learned seems to work well with my current group of PCC students. I usually will humor the offending student briefly by acknowledging their comments, but then I will immediately change the subject by directing another question at a different student. This strategy has worked for the most part. I think that the students who disrupt the groups are just craving some attention, so I try to give them a little before I change the conversation back to the main topic.

During my ED 299W class, I also learned very good note taking strategies from watching another video in the LAC I also developed a good formula for writing essays. I taught my ED 299W practicum students these strategies during the workshops that I conducted at the beginning of the spring '97 semester. I believe that these strategies were very helpful to the students; therefore, I try to teach them to student clients who I currently have in the LAC .

The most useful strategy that I teach my LAC clients is the essay formula. Most of the clients who come to me in the LAC need help with writing papers for their classes. If I see that a student is missing a clear thesis or has bad organizational problems with their paper, I will write an essay outline for them to follow. I will then have them go through the outline and write down the parts of their paper that correspond to the parts of the outline. In this way, I feel that I am providing the student with a foundation that they can refer to and rely upon when writing other essays. Most of the time when I show students this approach to writing an essay, they seem to understand immediately. Perhaps this is because many students have never been given or shown a formula for writing essays.

The ED 299W course that I took over the spring '97 semester provided me with a valuable opportunity to practice the skills that I learned in ED 101. ED 299W also gave me a great opportunity to develop strategies that are currently helping me to tutor my LAC clients more effectively. I feel that without the experience of this independent study course, I would not have progressed as quickly as I have as a tutor.

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