Peer Observation Examples
Table of Content
(pg)
Bio 20C - Hannah Cundall………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………(2)
CMPS – Cody Childers …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(6)
Economics – Thomas Campbell …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(10)
Economics – Jin Li ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….(16)
Math 2 – Corrine Rushing …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(21)
Math 100 – Jackson Hsu ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(27)
Math – Whitney Russell-Holcomb ………………………………………………………………………………………………………(34)
Math 3 – Jessica Pearson ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………(37)
Spanish – Karl Griggs …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(41)
Spanish – Cristina Camacho ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(45)
Sociology – Nicole Brunn …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….(52)
Writing – Haakon Williams …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………(58)
Writing – Maya Wagoner ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………(64)
1
Hannah Cundall
10/28/12
EDUC 96 5-6:45pm
Peer Observation Assignment
1)
I observed Bob ’s BIO 20C session on Wednesday 10/24/12 from 2-3pm in Science and
Engineering Library. His main goal for the session was to answer questions and prepare the three
students for an upcoming midterm exam. He also informed me that he tries to make the sessions
interesting by relating the relevant information from BIO 20C to helpful/interesting things he’s learned
in his upper division evolution class, since BIO 20C is a basic ecology and evolution class. The goal of the
session was presented at the beginning—he handed the two students that arrived on time a practice
exam that he had permission from the professor to use, and asked them to look through it and tell him
what they thought looked difficult and what they had questions on. I think Bob’s goal for the session
was accomplished—he answered the student’s questions and guided them through the big questions on
the practice exam.
2)
Two of the students were on time and they looked through the practice exam and seemed to
feel a little intimidated. Neither of them said anything about the exams at first so he asked if they had
any questions from lecture. One girl started asking some questions which led the discussion. They went
over the five steps to make life, and synapomorphy vs sympleisomorphy, which were questions from
lecture. After this the group was very quiet and despite opening the floor for questions, Bob couldn’t get
anything else out of them.
He directed their attention to a problem on the practice midterm worth a lot of points and
asked how they felt about it and if they wanted to go over it. By this time the third student had walked
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in and was just as quiet as the others. He wrote the problem (which was a table to fill out) on the
chalkboard and had the three girls talk about it. No one knew where to start so he showed them a
helpful strategy to fill out the table, which after hearing they were able to help him fill it out. After this
Bob asked the three girls a few questions like “Can anyone tell me what _____ means?” This approach
got the three of them more involved, they all flipped through their notes to answer his questions. The
rest of the session went like this, the students asking questions and Bob making sure they understood
the information most important to the upcoming midterm.
3)
The main interactive learning strategy that I observed in Bob’s session was “Group Discussion”
in which the group talks about a topic in an informal way and everyone is free to contribute. He put up
the Cladogram example from the practice midterm and had everyone talk about it and give him the
answers to fill in. After he gave them a basic technique to fill in the table they were each able to
contribute to the group discussion and solve the problem together. A few times they disagreed on
answers and one student would explain to another why their answer was correct. I think the
environment was one of interactive learning because the students were helping each other solve the
problem. Learning was demonstrated by the students answering correctly or by saying things like “Oh,
that makes sense” when their incorrect answers were corrected by other students.
4)
One of the girls was very quiet and seemed worried about the upcoming midterm, so Bob made
a special effort to try to get her to ask and answer questions and make sure she understood each
concept. He asked her to answer questions frequently, and usually she didn’t have an answer, but after
the group discussion he made eye contact with her and asked her to give an example and make sure she
understood the concept. All three of the students in the session were girls. I didn’t observe anything in
particular that he did to address their “gender differences.” Bob treated them just the same as he would
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treat any male student, as far as I could tell. As far as cognitive needs go he facilitated them in finding
the answers to relevant questions.
5)
The following are a few questions that the students asked: “What are the five steps to make
life?” “What is primordial soup?” “What is a synapomorphy?” “What is the difference between a
synapomorphy and sympleisomorphy?” “What is a Cladogram?” “What is a notochord?” “What is a
tetrapod?” “What is a lamprey and a lancelet?” “What is the difference between monophyletic,
paraphyletic and polyphyletic groups?”
6)
The students seemed to understand basic definitions of terms such as primordial soup,
phylogeny and molecular clock rather easily, but understanding how they fit in to everything else was a
bit more difficult. For example, they knew what a Cladogram was, but when Bob drew one on the board
with a table next to it to fill out they didn’t know what to do at first. They knew the definition of
“synapomorphy” but they couldn’t easily answer a question asking for a synapomorphy on the practice
exam. Bob asked them what the molecular clock was and they looked through the notes and one girl
was able to tell him it’s a way to tell how evolutionarily far apart two species are, but wasn’t able to tell
him how it actually worked. Definitions were easy for the group, but applications of the concepts were
more difficult.
7)
One strength of the session was that Bob was prepared to help them study for their midterm
with a practice exam. I think it benefits students to see old exams written by professors so they can see
the format, kinds of questions they will be asked and the depth to which they are expected to know the
material. Another strength was the interactive learning atmosphere created by the “Group Discussion”
strategy. Interactive learning allows students to teach each other, which is really the best way to learn
something yourself. One last strength was that Bob made an effort to include every student and get the
quiet girl participating.
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8)
From meeting with Bob and observing his session, I first learned how to reserve a study room in
McHenry or Science and Engineering Library, which I think would be useful if I were to tutor three or
four students at a time. Having the study room reduced distractions to the group and also eliminated
the tutoring session’s distraction of other students studying in the library. I also picked up on his group
discussion interactive learning strategy, which I will use when I have a group of two students or more.
None of the students I observed him with were difficult per se, but seeing how he dealt with the very
quiet girl was helpful in case I ever tutor a similar student in a group setting.
5
Cody Childers
Edu 96
Peer Observation Assignment
For my peer observation, I observed Bob ’s tutoring session for CMPS 25, Introduction to 3D
modeling. The session was held at the tables near Perk’s Café in the ground floor of Baskin on the
evening of 11/13.
1) The tutor’s goal for the session was to help prepare the tutee for the next project, which
involved making three different 3D model scenes. The tutor did not explicitly make clear what
the goal was, however this can be overlooked. Having taken CMPS 25 in the past, I know that
the class is very project oriented, with a very simple midterm and final. Given that the midterm
is over and the final is still a few weeks away, there was nothing else to cover. In another class
this may have been necessary, however the class railroads exactly what would need to be
covered in a tutoring session. Given that the goal was well implied, I feel that the session was
successful, because assistance with the upcoming project was what was covered.
2) The session started out with Bob clarifying the parameters of the next project, presumably
because he does not attend the class and did not get any details covered in lecture. Once he
understood the assignment, he had the tutee explain what he was doing for each of the 3 parts
of the assignment and how he planned to deal with various problems that his project may
encounter. The session did not consist of any lecturing at all, he let the tutee guide the session,
walking him through his project verbally, and only stopping to ask a question when he met a
hurdle he couldn’t quite meet. There was a lot of explaining of various methods for achieving
different effects in Blender, which I barely understood because I have not done 3D modeling
since I took the class almost 2 years ago. Once the tutee had gotten through all of his projects
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and had an idea of how to approach his upcoming technical challenges, the session ended with a
quick recap on those specific techniques.
The student learned because his project reflected the results of what the tutor explained. He
was working on his laptop through the session, and the tutor was looking over his work and
making suggestions, and they were, in a way, working together on the project. Bob was not
directly involved, but as the tutee had questions, Bob was able to show him what buttons to
click on, as well as make small suggestions for different artistic techniques here and there which
weren’t necessarily part of the assignment, but did make the final product look better. I feel
this mix of collaboration on the (optional) artistic aspects and his hands off approach towards
the (required) technical aspects was very effective.
3) The teaching strategy that can most closely be equated to what was covered was reciprocal
teaching. The tutee reacted well to this approach, because this assignment involved techniques
that had not been covered yet in lecture, as well as techniques that had been well established in
the class previously. Since the class is all project oriented and individual, you have to know the
techniques because they are not hard, but you must master them as they are presented to pass
the class. Since there was just 1 more technique being demonstrated and it was already in a
menu that the student was familiar with, so he just had to get clarification on how best to apply
it. This made it effective for the student to walk the tutor through how to do it because he had
already mastered most of it, and had a good idea of how to approach the last bits. The
environment was one of interactive learning, driven largely due to the fact that the assignment
was being done in parallel, and the student interacting with the tutor directly led to the student
interacting with the computer and getting the work done. Since doing something in Blender a
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couple times reinforces it quite well, the student covered quite a bit of ground by doing the stuff
as it was explained to him.
4) The biggest strategy used to customize the session to the tutee’s specific needs was the fact that
the tutee and the tutor were both Game Design majors, and being one myself, I understood that
certain things being explained in the context of games, and references in how this could be used
in CMPS 170 later on was good, because it gave motivation to do well in this class so you will be
better prepared for the senior game design classes.
5) The student asked a handful of questions, mostly directed on how to best approach a certain
technical challenge in the project. Examples of such questions include:
1) What is the best approach to modify the texture and geometry of a primitive to make it look
like a realistic rock?
2) How can I change a model of a cloud to look like an actual cloud using a normal map?
3) How can I make it look like the screen of the computer monitor (that he modeled) glow.
6) The student understood what was covered previously in the class, and just had a bit of trouble
with the new material that he hadn’t finished a project for yet. He struggled with how to modify
materials with a normal map to create realistic, high-polygon effects on very low polygon,
computationally inexpensive models, and how to modify the surroundings (including diffuse
maps and models of other objects in the scene, including their respective diffuse and normal
maps) to complement each other.
7) The biggest strength of the session was that the student got a lot of work out of the way, and
had a good understanding of how to do the project. Since some of the material was going to be
covered in lecture this week, he now has a head start since he is almost done. Armed with this
basic understanding of what was to come and something done to go off of, he can absorb more
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information from lecture and improve his project over the coming week before it is due on
Saturday.
8) From this session, I learned a new approach to tutoring for computer science classes. It is
harder with my classes because they involve lots of code and much larger assignments, so they
cannot be covered in a one hour session, but if there is a way to do this, I would like to have
students walk me through a problem, explaining how to approach something. Sadly, pure
programming doesn’t have nice easy to conceptualize models and immediate results that would
help students make it able for a lot of progress to be made in a session, but perhaps doing this
with the theory would be effective for some of the higher level classes, although more code help
is needed in the lower classes.
9
Thomas Campbell
12/1/12
Peer Observation Assignment
Name of MSI Learning Assistant: Sally MSI for Econ 1
Date: 11/27/12 Location: ARC 221
1. Sally's goal for the session was to review a few core concepts to prepare for the final, this
session followed a midterm the previous week. In particular Sally was interested in reviewing
monopolistic competition, product differentiation, and production possibility frontiers. Sally was
explicit about her goals for the session, and organized the majority of the session around
reviewing lecture notes and graphs on the concepts. She also devoted some time to concepts
the students wanted to review, which turned out to be a game theory example problem, giffen
goods, and some other class concepts. I feel that the goal guided the lesson very well, and that
the goal was accomplished during the session. That is that the students had a better
understanding of the concepts after the session in preparation for the final.
2. I decided to only observe a portion of the session in the detail described in the session in order
to avoid an overly long answer. I think this excerpt is representative of the rest of the session:
◦
In this session there were three students from the class seated at one table with Sally
standing.
◦
At the very beginning of the session Sally asked the students what the definition of
monopolistic competition was.
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◦
The students answered, “I don't know” “What chapter was that in?” and another did not
verbally respond but did not appear to know the answer.
◦
Sally waited for a moment, and asked if anyone knew what chapter this was from. Two
of the students looked through their notes. This took about a minute. They were
struggling to find the chapter, so Sally provided them with the correct number and
waited for them to find it.
◦
Sally then spent some time drawing a supply and demand graph for a market with
monopolistic competition. There was a line missing however, and she asked the
students what line was missing.
◦
The students all responded with “I don't know”
◦
Sally said, “I know you know this!” and there was a pause. She waited for about 10
seconds before she hinted that it might be the demand line by holding up her hand and
mimicking what the line looked like. The students immediately got the hint and quickly
stated that the demand line was missing. I noticed that proverbial “Ah ha!” look on the
students' faces, and that their body language was a bit more energetic. Contrasting this
from when they were concentrating and all three were silent with somewhat 'closed'
body language, I concluded that they indeed understood what was missing and why.
◦
Sally quizzed the students about some regions of the graph, asking where the producer
and consumer profit regions were. The approach was similar to her approach to asking
where the demand line was: if they didn't get it immediately then she would slowly hint
but never outright give the answer.
◦
Once Sally was satisfied with their review of monopolistic competition she changed the
topic of discussion to oligopolistic markets, and started with a real world example to
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hint at what these markets were like. The approach was similar with all three concepts:
she asked them what the definition of a concept X was, had them answer or find it in
their notes, she would draw a graph or figure and ask them questions until she was
satisfied with their understanding.
◦
Sally did break away from this style about two thirds of the way through the session to
ask them if they would like it if she should make a packet.
◦
Two students responded “Yes.” and the other seemed distracted with his notes.
◦
She responded with: “I will make a final review session next week.”
◦
She then opened up the session to concepts the students wanted to review, such as
marginal utility functions, production possibility frontiers, etc.
◦
Another memorable quote I enjoyed was when she was asking about equilibrium in
markets:
◦
“Remember every market always goes to its happy point”
3. I identified the interactive learning strategy that Sally used as a modified version of Group
Discussion. I believe it was modified to cover topics quickly, and keep the pace of the session
quick. There was more structure than how the strategy is described in the LSS handout, in that
Sally was leading the discussion by asking questions. The students reactions in response to
questions for them to discuss was that they were more often quiet than not, but they would
become talkative when they knew the correct answers. If they were quiet Sally would prompt
them with hints, and generall work to keep the discussion flowing. I believe that the
environment was an interactive learning environment, in particular the students were engaged
in collaborative learning and all seemed to contribute at some point. Their body language and
12
verbal responses such as “I see it” were indirect indicators of their learning. The most direct
examples were when she would ask the students to re-answer a question succinctly and they
did, or once when she asked a student to draw a graph for her after the group discussed what it
should look like. In particular Sally would ask students to repeat answers by saying “What is a
better way to describe this?”, and they would all contribute to answers.
4. I believe that Sally addressed the affective and cognitive needs of the students by leaving time in
her session plan to guide the students to the knowledge they required for the final, and by using
time to address and review certain materials. She was careful not to put too much pressure on
any particular student, she was positive throughout the session, and referenced what I
perceived to be mnemonic devices that they had developed in prior sessions. I perceived that
the students, did not seem to have any special affective needs, but one student seemed to be
quieter than the others. Sally did not put that person on the spot at any point, but still engaged
him. In terms of cultural differences and gender differences, I did not notice any point in the
session where a student's gender, or cultural background was discussed or that a student was
treated differently than the others with the exception of the shy student.
5. Sally left time for the students to review material that they wanted to over, so the students
could ask specific about specific problems. The way they would ask her was generally a “Can we
go over the game theory problem?” or “Do you mind going over Marginal Utility again?”. Other
questions included, “What's a Giffen good?”, “Why are potatoes a Giffen good?”, “Are all nash
equilibriums where all the players cheat?”, “What chapter was that in?”. The questions asked
demonstrated to me that the students were not accustomed to being given answers.
6. The students seemed to have the most trouble with interpreting the graphs for the class. The
students also had difficulty recalling the exact definitions of concepts. I would also say that they
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were not always engaging in metacognitive thinking since they had trouble extracting how
particular stories related to the class. The students were very good at recalling specific examples
from class, and I believe Sally used this fact well to instruct and guide them. I think that what I
have described is typical of beginning economics students. The graphs and formulas are the
most difficult information in the course, and economics students are not always accustomed to
using memorization techniques at first.
7. I think that the strengths were as follows:
 Students communicated with each other in a comfortable way.
 The students were talkative when they knew material, and not absolutely silent
when asked questions. This makes the environment more comfortable for students
and tutors in my opinion
 The students appeared to be regulars, and so they could build off of previous
examples and use familiar mnemonic devices.
 Sally appeared to have a good rapport with the students I think because of the
positive reinforcement that she used effectively.
 Sally was good at using stories to segue into formal definitions or difficult concepts.
8. I think that what I should take away from Sally's sessions is that having a good relationship with
students helps considerably in keeping the sessions on track, and avoiding uncomfortable
environments. Sally effectively used positive reinforcement, by saying things like “I know you
know this.” or “You got this!”, and I believe is genuinely encouraged them. I think that her use of
the group discussion was effective for reviewing material rapidly, and also good for a small
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group of less than five students. I think I will try this this week. I would probably take a more
structured approach if there were more students. I think that using Sally's style would be maybe
more effective if there were two things: letting students graph on the board more after a couple
examples, and if there was a quick assessment at the end of a session like this. I think that
getting students to do more of the graphing can be time consuming, but it functions like a quick
assessment in that what they know is readily apparent to the tutor and the student.
15
Jin Li
Peer Observation
MSI Learning Assistant Observed: Sally
Date of Observation: November 2, 2012
Location: ARC 221
The learning assistant, Sally’s goal for the session was to go over the old midterm that
they took a week or so ago and make sure they understand the material from there, while hoping
to leave some time to go over some new material. She made this goal very clear to both of the
students when they arrived at the session. I feel that this goal did guide her MSI session as she
went from one question to the next, and she knew how long the midterm was so she had control
for time. Midterm review was accomplished really well as both students worked through and
argued their point of view for the right answer, with Sally as a facilitator.
Two students have arrived for Sally’s MSI session. Both are greeted with a large smile
and confirmation if they are here for Econ 1. Sally has told me before during our pre-observation
meeting that she loves having everyone sit at one table and so both students were sat right next to
each other so they can work together for what she had planned for the session. The goal for the
session is made very clear, review the old midterm because of a really low average score and
economics is always a subject that builds on top of itself. Also, she wanted to leave a bit of time
to review some new material. Both students show their agreement with her session plan by
nodding or saying ‘yes’. The two students were paired together as Sally asks them what they
think is the correct answer for each question. Many times, the students did not really know the
16
correct answer or their answers would differ. Sally would always listen to both input and when a
student arrives at a correct answer, she would ask for an explanation at how the intuition came to
be. She’d also try to build on top of the explanation or explain it another way with a graph or
hand gestures to make sure both students understood the concept. A few times both students
were stumped with a problem, but Sally helped move the thought process along by hinting at a
graph that they should think of when they come across that sort of problem and had both of the
students draw the graph out. Once a student voiced her confusion and the learning assistant were
more than happy to explain the concept in a different, more simplistic way to assess the situation.
Throughout the session, Sally made sure that both students were participating by asking if there
was any more input, made lots of eye contact and spoke with positivity even in face of ‘not so
right’ answers. After moving from the old midterm material to new material, the learning
assistant made much effort to reassure the students that if they did not fully understand the
current topics in class, it was okay because the material is a bit difficult and they may not be
familiar with it. At this point of the session, both students were encouraged to role play along
with Sally in the situation that they opened a bakery. The example was meant to help with their
visualization of what fixed costs and variable costs were. Sally’s session was giving them time to
go over their notes to help along the understanding process.
In this MSI session, Sally asks questions to grasp what the students know and don’t
know. In addition, the learning assistant liked to have the student’s explain how they got the
correct answer, which allows for the other student who may not have gotten the right answer to
hear/see the thought process. A couple times, she could see that a student had the correct idea
toward a question and the student even mentioned a graph so Sally instantly asked her if she
could draw the graph so it could be shown to the other student. The student drew it out and
17
explained away her argument and the other student really thought the graph to be helpful when
she proclaimed, ‘Oh I see it now’. I feel like this really got the student in a position where she
may have been unsure of what she was saying but the moment the graph went down on paper,
she was more certain of her response. The environment for the session was definitely good for
learning as Sally shows much enthusiasm and passion for the material, always relaying
explanations with a smile or using jokes to give examples. There is dialogue that goes on in the
session that is casual but on topic without students feeling pressured that they must know all the
material and correct answers.
In assessing whether the students have learned, one instance was really easy to spot. This
instance was mentioned previously, where a student was asked to draw out the graph to help
explain the correct answer to a problem and the other student was able to clearly see the intuition
behind it by proclaiming, “Oh I see it now.” Learning was shown many times when the students
were asked to draw out graphs to explain their intuition. They are sometimes able to draw te
graph but unable to fully utilize it or vice versa, but at least it shows some understanding of the
concepts of the course. These students were not afraid of voicing their confusion and Sally made
sure that when they nodded or acknowledged that the material was clear to them that it was clear.
She made lots of eye contact and would give her students her full attention and would always ask
if her explanation helped or not.
The session was a weird one with the old midterm as the focus. Questions the students
asked were many times what they thought were the right answers and they wanted a
confirmation. A couple times, questions were of confusion asking to have a concept clarified.
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Observing this session, I felt that students had the most trouble with multiple choice
questions on their midterm. Too often, it was because the problem was hard to visualize in their
head. Sally did a great job with trying to explain elasticity with having the students visualize a
stretchy rubber band for elastic goods. The rubber band is flexible. Her consumption of that good
can be thought of as flexible, that is if the price goes up, she may not want to purchase it as often
while comparing it to a frozen rubber band for inelastic goods, will buy even if price goes up (a
frozen rubber band is not flexible at all).
The strengths of the session were great use of time, good probing questions to get the
students show that they know a lot more than they think, and comfortable, positive learning
environment with each student participating. Also, there were many instances by the learning
assistant acknowledging the students’ efforts and she’s always at the same level as the students
(sitting down) having a discussion of the problems, giving them her full attention.
I enjoyed observing this session mainly because of Sally’s enthusiasm for economics and
her wanting the students to really understand the material because she knows it’ll only help them.
I would not say that she is aggressive in any sense when she asks the students to sit close to one
another so they can share materials and in a closer proximity for discussion. She is fully aware
that students are uncomfortable talking with strangers or have trouble publicly voicing their
opinions, but she knows that her ‘sit like you’re squished inside a sardines can’ method forces
some people to give their input. They may not like it but there isn’t any other nicer way of doing
it. They gradually don’t mind it because learning with other people really is a better way of
learning, which I can see when everyone was giving input and creating a bigger and clearer
picture of an Economics topic.
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Sally had full control of time, was extremely prepared and knew her material. I would
love to be as prepared as she is and sticking to an agenda. Many times, I find myself failing to
stick to an agenda because time is always a constraint and the course material is very novel to
me. I am to try harder to be more prepared for my sessions, along with using group learning
techniques with pairing off students to work on problems and share their insights.
20
Corinne Rushing
EDUC 60
Peer Observation
For this observation, I observed Sally leading a Math 2 section. This section meets only once a
week so it qualifies as the section with the more advanced students. However, Sally feels like some of
the students may have chosen the once a week section even if they were recommended the twice a
week section because this is her weakest section and a lot of her students struggle with basic concepts.
1. Sally had several goals for her session. The midterm was in a week a half so her first goal was to start
preparing the students for the midterm. She wants them to feel prepared and answer all their
questions. Since this is the once a week section, they only have two sections until the midterm including
the section I observed. She also wants to get through the worksheet the students have assigned for this
week. Each week, the students work through a worksheet in section. These students only have one day
to work on it in section. Some of the students may still be working on last week’s worksheet so she
wants to help the students get as far as possible so they will have as much practice as possible before
the midterm. She also has to give the students a quiz today so that is also a priority of this section. The
quiz usually takes about fifteen minutes so that takes away from question asking time but it is important
for the students to be assessed on their knowledge and to receive feedback on what they know and
don’t know in preparation for the midterm. If she completes all of these goals, another goal would be to
go over any homework problems the students are struggling with. However, this goal is not as important
as the other three goals. At the beginning of the section, Sally started with a couple of announcements
to the students. These announcements included what she wanted to accomplish in the section. She
reminded them that their midterm was next week and she sent out an email with a lot of information
about what they should be focusing on and available resources to help them prepare. She also reminds
21
them that there is a quiz today and tells them what material the quiz will focus on and they will have an
opportunity to ask any last minute questions before she gives the quiz. She tells them what worksheet
they should be working on and finished this week, but she knows some of them are behind on the
worksheet. She tells them not to rush the worksheets because she wants them to really understand the
material of each worksheet before moving on to the next one. After she is done with announcements
she lets the students start working and is available for questions. Sally made her goals clear for the
session and really set up her students for success with the quiz. Her goals shaped the section because
the section was broken up into different segments with allotted time to accomplish each goal. I believe
she accomplished all goals to set herself for the section.
2. The start of the section began with the announcements as described above. After the
announcements, Sally lets the students work in small groups on the worksheet. The students have
limited desk space as the room is set up awkwardly for group work so most of them end up working with
the person sitting next to them. The talk quietly as they work on problems together. Sally begins by
handing back last week’s quiz to her students. After she hands them all back, some of the students ask
her questions about what they did wrong on the quiz and she explains how to do those problems right
to those students. They work through the problems together and these students realize where they
made mistakes. Then Sally walks around to each group asking how they students are doing and if they
have any questions. She does this constantly throughout the entire section. At the beginning of the
section, most of the students don’t have any questions yet so she just wanders around until someone
raises they hand. By the end of the section, she is constantly being asked questions as the students open
up and figure out what they have questions on. When the students ask Sally questions, she usually goes
to a blackboard they are next to (these are situated around the room on several walls), and will work
through the math on the blackboard as the students guide her. She uses these boards so that all the
students can see her working. It is always a possibility that a student somewhere else in the room has a
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question on the same problem. By using the blackboard instead of working on the student’s paper, she
allows every student to see her work through a problem. I notice that some of the students on the
opposite side of the room will look up from their work and watch what Sally is doing as she works on the
board. Sally continues to work through problems with students and answer their questions throughout
the section. When there is only about twenty minutes left, Sally asks if there are any last minute
questions before they take the quiz. After answering these questions, she then writes up the quiz
questions on the board. Most students finish within fifteen minutes but a few are left and she gives
them two extra minutes to finish up. Once time is up, she asks for the quizzes and again asks any last
minute logistic questions the students have about the midterm.
3. Sally wants the students to work in groups. She believes they can get more done in groups because
they can work through problems together and one might have questions another student knows the
answer to. She can’t possibly answer every single question every student has during the section because
there is simply not enough time. If they students work together, then they can answer each other’s
questions first. She encourages them to talk and work on the board as well. This way the learning is
more hands on. She students are talking out problems and working on them together. Most of the
students do well in this environment. Some of the quieter students eventually opened up and started
asking their neighbors for help. A few of the students were very vocal and talked to each other the
entire section only asking Sally for help when they were both stuck and surrounding groups around
them couldn’t help them either. A few students worked alone the entire section. However, these
students seemed to be ahead of the other students. These students finished the worksheet early and
also were the first couple to finish the quiz. These students may have benefited from working in groups
as well but since they were ahead, it wouldn’t have benefited them to work with the students who were
struggling. They could have formed a group together though. Overall, this group work was very useful. I
have been in math sections where group work is encouraged and I have also been in sections where the
23
T.A. would do one question on the board at a time. I believe the group work method works a lot better
and benefits the students a lot more. If the students can work together and help each other before
asking Sally, they will have a greater confidence in themselves and as a result, have more self efficacy.
I do believe these students learned. Sally would guide them through a problem. She wouldn’t do
it for them. They would tell her what to do and many times this resulted in an “Oh!” of realization from
the student. They would figure out how to do the problem with Sally’s guidance. If she asked a follow up
question to see if they truly understood, they could answer it.
4. In this section, there seemed to be more females than males and a range of cultural backgrounds.
However, this did not seem to be a hindrance in any way to the students learning. The students did
seem to have a range of ability with those few students who seemed more advanced on the material
while the rest struggled more with some working on last week’s worksheet. In order to address this,
Sally made herself available to every student but she was a little more available to the struggling
students. They had more questions than the advanced students and so she spent more of her time with
them. If the advanced students raised their hand, she still made time to answer their questions as well.
Some of the students seemed more panicked about the quiz, midterm, and overall material and Sally did
her best to reassure them. She gave them ample opportunities to ask clarifying questions, told them
that if they brought in study guides an flash cards to the next section, she would give them extra credit
and told them how good they were doing when they answered a question correctly. She tried to seem
friendly and was relatable to her students. This allowed her students to open up to her and feel better
about asking her questions. They didn’t have to be scared if they were wrong or feel like they were
asking dumb questions. I didn’t really notice any cultural or gender differences affecting the section.
When I asked Sally about this, she said that sometimes it comes up with the word problems and some
students have difficulty understanding the problems based on these differences but she doesn’t see if
very often with this section.
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5. Most of the question the students asked were permitted to the material and they were often
confused on how to do a problem correctly. They also asked a lot of questions about the quiz and
midterm information. They wanted to know specifically what was going to be on these tests so they
could prepare by studying these types of problems. A lot of the problems had to do with polynomials
and a common question Sally got was asking how to find the “degree” of the polynomial. She explained
this to several students. Other problems qualified as word problems. A lot of the students had trouble
working through all the fluff of the word problem. Sally explained to them how to pick out only the
important information from all the text.
6. The students struggled with just about every concept on the worksheet though not every student had
trouble with every concept. One student had a lot of trouble with exponent rules. Some other students
had trouble with the word problems. Many students had trouble with common denominators. That
seemed to be an overall struggle for the group and I watched Sally explain it several times to different
groups of students. They all struggled with the concept even after she explained it and did several
different examples. Sally told me that the concept of common denominators is something these
students should already have knowledge of and it is one of those basic concepts that students are
struggling with that hold back their ability to progress with the material being taught in class. She told
me that this section especially seems to struggle with these type of basic concepts that they should
already know before entering this course.
7. I think the strengths of the section were that Sally was so available to her students and that she
wanted her students to work in groups. Group learning in a math environment works well for a lot of
students. I think that these students benefited a lot from this. They could ask each other questions and
teach each other concepts. I really do believe that you have really learned something if you can teach it
to someone else. Sally was very open to her students and friendly. She would share confusion with her
students about problems and they would work it out together. She would talk to her students as equals
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and would sometimes talk about things other than math with them briefly. Instead of doing the
problems for the students, the students would guide Sally through the problem or she would start with
an example that is very similar to the problem that students had. Often, she would do an example that
involved numbers and then relate it to variables because a lot of the students struggle with doing
problems that only contain variables. When she introduced numbers, the students could understand the
concept better and then they could apply it using variables. Overall, I think Sally did a very good job
teaching her students and I think the majority of them benefited from her teaching style.
8. The main thing I learned from watching Sally’s section that I will use in my own sections is the fact
that when addressed with a problem, Sally would begin by doing an example that was similar to the
problem. This way, she wasn’t doing the exact same problem that the student needed to do on their
own but instead was teaching the student the concept. Then she could tell if the student really learned
the concept if they student could then do the original problem on their own. I really liked this way of
teaching and I decided I would try to use in my own tutoring sessions. Since my observation of Sally, I
have implemented this technique and use it quite often. I think it truly does asses if my student has
learned what I just taught through a similar example.
26
Jackson Hsu
EDUC 96 – Peer Tutoring
Observation Assignment
October 28, 2012
On October 23, 2012 at 12:30 pm, I met with Sally and observed one of her Math 100
Subject Tutor Sessions. She had four tutees, two of whom were having their second session, and
other two who were having their first session. Math 100 is the perquisite for all upper division
mathematics at UCSC, thus it is the class that separates those potential mathematics majors and
those who may want to pursue a different field; the class consists of conceptual fundamentals
and proof acquiring skills which is significantly different to the prior computational lower
division classes (however many new lower division textbooks begin to hint at the conceptual
significance!); the class requires new ways of thinking and new approaches towards problem
solving. These new changes in mathematics can first “scare” the new learner, because all of a
sudden writing, unfamiliar notations, and nonnumeric symbols that come into play; this class is
where math starts to become more of conceptual thinking, which requires an open mind,
patience, and a lot of thinking. Throughout these responses to the questions, I will try to clarify
the math terms and also input my own experience with Math 100, so the reader can relate a little
better.
Sally’s goal for this particular session was to review and discuss anything pertaining to
the upcoming midterm on the coming Thursday; this included the midterm review sheet, in class
notes, and homework problems/papers. In particular, she really wanted to have group discussions
on any troubling concepts that her tutees might have had because understanding the concepts
makes a significance towards not only the midterm, but also the latter portion of the course and
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future mathematics. This is important because while computations can be practiced alone,
concepts should practice aloud in discussions with a group.
She stated her goal after introductions and signing in, and the tutees all nodded in
consent. I think this goal was good for the time being (and the nature of the session coming
before the midterm), and it definitely brought up much discussion and clarification on various
topics. Overall, I think the goal was accomplished for all the tutees, however the female tutees
also got to discuss some of their individual questions answered, while the male tutees may not
have gotten as much out of the session (as we will discuss later).
After stating her goal, Sally asked everyone their current status about the upcoming midterm.
Before we continue, I think I should talk about the tutees in the tutoring session: one tutee was a female
who was confident in asking for help; one tutee was a female who was quiet during discussion, but was
able to ask for help; one tutee was a male who seemed ahead in the topic discussions; and one tutee
was a male who was a bit shy, but was able to input his voice for discussion. All four tutees responded
with the topic of proofs by induction, which in itself was a computational/conceptual based proof. The
confident female tutee also had questions in the format of writing direct proofs. Knowing this feedback,
Sally began with a quick review of direct proofs, asking questions around of what important statements
should be placed in the beginning of the proof and what important statements should be placed in the
end. Here the confident female tutee and the confident male tutee were the major contributing leads to
this discussion, but the quiet tutees were able to jot down important tips and notes for reference.
After this discussion, Sally put a typical proof by induction problem on the chalkboard for the
tutees to attempt on their own. Sally’s goal here was to have the tutees to understand the conceptual
nature of the problem and not so much the algebraic computations that were required within the
problem. As the tutees continued with the problem, the confident female tutee asked clarification
questions regarding to how to formally write up the proofs such as “Is this phrasing correct?” or “Where
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would this [portion of proof] go?” and Sally responded directly with reasoning from her experience and
also to making the proof flow better by asking “Well, read to me what you have to say” and “Does it
make sense or flow well?” Throughout the course of this problem solving session, the confident male
finished early and got out his laptop to search for harder problems. After a while, Sally asked everyone
their status of the problem, and it seemed that everyone else was having problems with the algebraic
computations which Sally knew would happen before hand. She explained she wouldn’t go through
with computations, but she wanted to go through the conceptual ideas to make sure the concept was
clear.
She began asking everyone if the first part of the problem was doable, which was showing the
base case was true, and everyone was alright with it. Then she asked for what was the second part of
the problem, and what should we do. After a moment of silence, two tutees the shy male, and the
confident female, gave responses, but both were not correct. Sally looked at what the shy male tutee
had done on his paper (which seemed incorrect) and also asked the other tutees for input, but there
wasn’t much response. It followed that the idea of induction was not clear, so Sally began the
clarification discussion with a question, “What are we trying to prove when we use induction?” From
there, the confident female responded, and also wrote her “written” response on the chalkboard; the
discussion became lively, and the tutees along with Sally were able to go over the concepts idea of
induction as well as the conceptual background and format for a written proof of the given example. She
also used the analogy of stairs, where if the first step was true, assuming the nth step was true, then
show the n+1th step is true, which means all the steps are true.
Now that the understanding was a little clearer, Sally was able to correct the shy male’s
mistake, not only where he went wrong, but also the important reason for why it was wrong. She left
the third part of the problem (the algebraic computations) for the tutees to attempt later, which may
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have bothered some of the tutees as the algebraic computations were tricky. For the remainder of the
session the female tutees continued to ask questions regarding the midterm review sheet and in class
notes, the confident male continued away on his laptop, and the shy male was quiet. Despite these
conditions, Sally continued to attempt at group discussions and group work, by asking everyone to
contribute to the given problems, even if the tutees already knew the answers or methods. The session
ended (in my opinion) on a high note, and Sally wished everyone good luck on the midterm.
Sally mainly used group discussion and group survey to incorporate in group discussions and
individual problem solving sessions. After taking the class, I see the importance of needing to discuss
concepts with other individuals, as it encourages group work and group study. For me it also encourages
me not to be shy and to seek help when I need, and instead of thinking I know the answers. Sally also
used small individual presentations (although they were more of “Do you mind writing your response on
the chalkboard?”) to showcase the confident female’s responses, which allowed everyone to compare
answers, have group discussions, and allow the female tutee to test her knowledge.
When the induction problem was reviewed, it was evident that the tutees understood the steps
within the methods of induction, but not the concept itself. Sally’s review of the concept with the
example problem and the analogy definitely helped and I could tell that tutees learned not only the
important second step, but the idea of induction. The confident female in particular was able to
regurgitate information back to Sally. Also with the in class notes and midterm review questions, it
seemed that female tutees were learning and understand their questions. When Sally incorporated the
males into these discussions, the shy male seemed to be learning by inputting ideas and feedback at
times throughout the discussions.
I talked to Sally regarding if she ever had to address students’ personal issues or any
cultural/gender differences, and she has not had any major tutee issues. She tells me that many of her
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tutees are sometimes intimidated by her, and that she deals with this by talking to all her tutees as
friends and not a lecturer (in the friendly way she can). She responded that many girls tend to sign up
for tutoring than the males. In terms of cognitive needs, she explains conceptual backgrounds very well,
paring the explanation a problem used during problem solving sessions, so both the conceptual and
computations can pieced together; she usually leaves the computations for the tutees to do later. In
particular, she had to correct the shy male in this session, and she corrected him in a very careful that
did not result in a “You did this wrong,” attacking claim, more so “This is how you want to think about it”
way. Although being wrong, the shy male was not so shut down and was able contribute later to the
latter discussions.
The student’s questions are listed throughout this response but other questions included:
1. “What is the correct format for a direct proof? What is a good outline for the
proof?”
2. “What does this notation mean?” (for induction practice problem)
3. “How did that happen? What happened in that last step?”
4. “Would there be strong induction (a special case of induction) on the midterm?”
5. “Is this the correct wording for this statement: ______ ?”
6. “Will the questions we have seen before be asked to be proven in a different
method than the ones we know of?”
Mentioned before, the students seemed to understand steps, but not the concept itself; this
tends to occur frequently especially in the maths and sciences. As sciences and math move from high
school to university level, the concepts become just as important as computations. In high school, the
computations were stressed mostly as to build a foundation for problem solving skills. Now the use of
conceptual thinking is implemented in the university level (and even as early as AP Calculus or AP
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Physics) as the nature of the sciences and maths require solely on the use of critical thinking in addition
to problem solving. These two tools: critical thinking and problem solving helps all with in mathematics.
The strengths in this session were definitely reviewing the concept of proof by induction, and
also addressing many of the individual questions by the female as a whole group. Sally was able to
discuss test taking strategies, when and when not to use induction and certain analytical details within
some of the practice midterm problems. Personally, I think that the females gained a little more out of
the session, since they asked many questions and contributed to discussion more often than the males.
The shy male was quiet most of the time, and the confident male remained on his computer throughout
the session. Overall, I think it that Sally bringing the group discussions (instead of just answering the
individual questions) was very engaging for this session, and just having a nice discussion about the
questions really brought together good insight within all the tutees (and me!).
I learned before the session, that Sally likes to gets everyone involved in problem solving
sessions and group discussions. Group discussions and group work, especially within a class like Math
100 is significantly more effective than one working on their own. If a tutee had an individual question,
Sally made an effort to include everyone in on the problem, so everyone could discuss the methods and
concepts. I can relate when I took the course last spring: since I was a younger student than the rest of
the class it was intimidating at first to work with the older students, but I learned that the older students
were students just like me, both going through a difficult course and trying to master material pertaining
to mathematics; later on, group work with these older students were really more effective than the
many times I sat down alone in my room attempting to understand concepts. Sally also reiterates the
conceptual background of proof by induction using an example and also an analogy which (well in my
opinion) was helpful, so using different approaches to learning is important. Finally Sally is also clear
and very honest in the approach she uses to correct individuals. For the shy male, she did not confront
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with “That’s wrong”, rather she points the issues by explaining the concepts with a group discussion,
why the technique does not work or how it conflicts with concept, and asking the other tutees for what
should be done, or what the next step is. I think pointing out the issues by asking questions allows one
to see their own mistake, which is a much stronger and effective approach, than just saying “That’s not
right” or “You’re wrong.”
Currently with my tutees, I am having issues with having them come prepared with questions, so
I have been going over lecture material as if I was reteaching or teaching the material, which is definitely
not the correct approach. Even if I could teach the material, my job is mainly to develop these tutees so
that they’re able to learn independently, using all the resources given to them and their peers, so they
can learn and find methods to help themselves succeed. I plan on using a lot of the group technique
teaching strategies including group discussion, and cooperative note taking and learning cell strategies
in the event my tutees come unprepared (these will be further discussed in the next assignment). If one
tutee is ahead and caught up, I will definitely ask the tutee to explain material as well, so not only will he
or she review the material well, they will engaged with the session instead of waiting for their questions
to be answered. Sally’s session, really opened my eyes to new teaching strategies that I should try in my
own sessions so I am not dependent as the role as a teacher, rather I am another student like my tutees,
all trying to help each other succeed.
33
Whitney Russell-Holcomb
EDUC-96
Observation Write Up
24 October 2012
Name of MSI Learning Assistant that was observed: Sally
Date of the Observation: 24 October 2012, 11:45-1:30
Location: McHenry 1247
Sally had one group in her section that seemed to not be able to focus. They were messing
around, were talking about things that were not math related and weren’t getting through the worksheet.
They weren’t able to stay on task without her intervening. Therefore, one of her goals for this section was
to get them to focus on math and work on their worksheet without having to be constantly reminded by
her to stay on task. Because the midterm is on Friday for this class, her other goal was to get the section to
go through each section of the worksheet and understand how to do the problems. She presented this
second goal to the students by telling them that each group would be working on a type of problem and
then would have to explain it to the class. This way, they had to understand the problem well enough to
teach it to others. Thus, it was clear to them what the goal was. This goal helped set up the structure for
the section and allowed the students to work through the problems more efficiently. Each group was able
to efficiently and accurately explain their problem, so this goal was completed.
During this section, Sally first made sure that they were working together in groups and then
assigned problems from different sections to each group to do. Groups immediately had questions but she
encouraged them to look at their notes and consult with their group mates. After they did this but
remained stuck or made some progress, she went around to answer their questions. When answering their
questions, she would write things out on the board, such as the graph of ex. This helped the visual
learners grasp the information. For their questions, she would often answer with questions or ask them
open ended questions. This encouraged the students to come up with the answer. If they were still stuck,
she would give them small hints so that they could work as independently as possible. Around this time,
some groups started finishing up with their problems while groups with lengthier problems continued to
work. She told these groups to continue working on their worksheets until they presented. Once each
group was finished, she had each group come up to the board and present their problem. During these
presentations, she would correct any mistakes and give additional explanation where needed so that the
other students could understand. After each group was done presenting, she briefly discussed topics on
the quiz from earlier in the week. Afterwards, she had them go back into groups to go through the
worksheet.
Sally used cluster work and group presentation as her main interactive learning strategies. By
working in groups, the students could bounce questions and ideas off of each other. This allowed them to
be not as dependent on her. This also helped strengthen the idea that she is not there to just give them
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answers, they need to be able to work through it and understand the steps. Presentation ensured that the
students knew the steps very well. Because they had to teach it to the rest of the class, they had to
understand why each step occurred. After all, people say that you truly know something once you can
teach it to others! Thus, they had a very good understanding of the type of problem they had to do by the
end of the section. It was apparent that they were learning because of how Sally approached problems
with them. She would have them walk through each of the steps and explain them to her, almost as if she
was the tutee and they were the tutor. By doing this, it was clear to her whether or not they understood the
information.
Sally addressed the students’ affective needs by encouraging people and giving them positive
feedback. In this way, they would not get defeated and keep a positive attitude about math, even though
they might have been struggling. In the pre-session, she explained that cultural and gender differences
didn’t seem to play a role in her sections. She described how when she’s tutored for higher-level
computer classes, gender became important. However, this is not the case in her sections at this level. To
address their cognitive needs, she would use different learning techniques so that each type of learner
could grasp the material. She would talk through the information so that the auditory learner could
understand her. She would draw and write on the board so that the visual learner could grasp the
information. She had the groups do the presentations, so the kinesthetic learners could have something
hands on to do. In this way, each learning type was presented with a way that suited them best and would
allow them to best learn the information.
The students had many questions for Sally. Their questions ranged from fairly simple questions to
more complex questions. She answered each of these completely and fairly, never making those with the
simpler questions feel like their question was bad. Their questions ranged from what is the exact way to
write domain to how to do long division with polynomials. When they had these questions, she first
would have them look at their notes. If they were still stuck after this, she wanted them to talk with their
group mates and try to figure it out together. If at this point they still were stuck, then she would give
them the tools to figure the problem out and understand it.
On the worksheet, there was five different types of problems—finding asymptotes, graphing e
and ln, solving for x when it’s in exponential or logarithmic form, evaluating a logarithmic function and
finding the domain of a logarithmic function. After the groups worked on their problem and then
presented to the class, they seemed to have a good understanding of how to do each type of problem. The
only big issue that people seemed to be having is trying to remember how to do long division with
polynomials. Sally walked them through the steps and explained it to the groups. Some students seemed
like they got it but not very concretely.
The strengths of the session were the strong group dynamics and the group presentations. Putting
the students into groups allowed Sally to maximize the amount of time for helping each student. Being in
groups also helped teach the students how to work through the process of figuring out a problem that they
are uncomfortable with. Since this is the first time that most of these students have seen this information,
they are all in the process of learning it. By bouncing ideas off of each other about how to solve the
problem, this helps teach them to solve it independently, just working it out by thinking about it and
brainstorming. The group presentations were also a strength because it allowed for any questions and
answers on a problem to be heard by the whole class. This is good because someone else might have the
35
same question but be too afraid to ask it. This way, everyone would hear the answer and have it answered
for them. It also ensured that they students had to know how to do their problem well enough to teach it to
the whole class.
From watching this session, I learned how effective group work can be. When the students are
doing group work and have to talk to each other, it helps ensure that no one can fall behind. As a result, I
plan to make my sections have a stronger, more focused group dynamic. I will make sure that my groups
are actually working with each other and that they are consulting with each other before they ask me a
question. This way, everyone will get more attention and the help that they need. I also liked the way she
did group presentations. This may not work on every worksheet, but for the ones where it would be
effective, I’ll definitely make use of that technique so that my students can get a clear understanding of
how to do each type of problem.
36
Jessica Pearson
10/31/2012
7-845
Educ 96
Peer Observation write-up
Tutor observed: Bob
Date of observation: 10/30/2012
Location: Science and Engineering Library
Time: 9:30
Pre-tutoring meeting:
Goal: The goal of Tony and his Tutoring session was to have the students bring in their laptop
and homework that they have been working on. He will then go over the problems that they were
struggling with. He uses this tactic so that the students will be encouraged to do the work before
coming into their tutoring session. His main goal is to have the students prepare in advance for
his sessions so they can get the most out of their tutoring session with him. They won’t have to
spend time going over simple problems that they could’ve done at home.
Overview of the student: The student took calculus in high school but placed into math 3. She
has issues with factoring and completing the square. She is in a sorority and wants to better her
grades in order to stay within her chapter as well. She makes some simple mistakes because she
will often rush through problems.
Strengths and Weaknesses: The students strengths are that she is good at graphing exponential
functions and she thrives when she is able to do problems on the board because that helps in all
areas and ways to learn. As stated before, she struggles with rushing through problems and will
often times make simple mistakes. She also has some problems with completing the square.
37
Affective issues: An affective issue that fosters her learning would be that she is open to learn
and seems like she really appreciates the tutoring that is given to her. She addresses her issues
and likes to talk about them but also likes to get to work. However, at times she talks to much
during the session and instead of tutoring it ends up being more of a talking session which
impedes the effectiveness of tutoring.
Tutor meeting question responses:
1. The session begins with a check in of homework and then they go over the problems that
the students were having trouble with. This is essentially the goal for the session as stated
above. He did make the goal clear to his students. He had a set schedule and it is very
routine-like throughout the session. The goal guided the lesson very well and produced a
very affective session that the student was able to learn from and understand the material
better.
2. On the brisk morning of October 10th I made my way to science and engineering library
at approximately 9:15. I descended the steps of the library to meet Tony outside the
individual study rooms at about 9:30. We shook hands, sat down in the study soaked
atmosphere of the small room, and proceeded to discuss his plan and tactics for said
tutoring session. He then waited and gave the student 15 minutes to show up, which she
did at exactly 10:15. She pulled up her homework on her laptop and gave Tony and
overview of the problems that they have been working on. She asked a few questions
about the notes she took in class and then proceeded to show Tony the questions that she
38
was having difficulty with. Tony went up to the board and would start the first step of the
problem then the student would follow to finish the problem at the board. Once the
session was over, the student thanked Tony and left. I then thanked him for letting me sit
in on his session and we went our separate ways.
3. Tony helped the student through using interactive learning strategies that catered to
kinesthetic, visual, and audio learners. He had her go to the board and speak out exactly
each step she was doing. In doing this, he succeeded in helping her interact visually,
kinesthetically, and through audio. The student reacted really well to these tactics because
it made them really understand the information. Yes, the environment was very
interactive. Tony used the blackboard and so did the student and they both have their
computers to check her answers once she did the problems. I do believe the student
learned a very good amount. In particular, the student did not know how to do half-life
problems or how to manipulate the half-life equation. Tony then told her how to do the
problem and walked her through it. Then she did a separate problem that was similar to
the one Tony did involving half-life’s all on her own.
4. A strategy that was used during the session was the use of the blackboard in the study
room. The student would write on the board and as she was writing she would voice what
steps she was taking back to him so she could better understand exactly what she was
doing. There were no real cultural or gender difference issues within the studying session.
Even though Tony is a male and the student was a female there were no real issues that I
could detect. As far as cognitive needs, he always made sure the student knew exactly
how to do the problem and made sure she was understanding his way of explaining it.
5. The students asked the following questions
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a. How do you do a half-life problem?
b. Am I doing this correctly?
c. Is this answer correct?
d. How do you explain this problem with words rather than numbers?
e. What do I need to do to manipulate this equation to use this for your answer?
6. The student understood exponential graphing very well and could understand how a
graph moves in response to an addition or change of a graph. She didn’t understand how
to do half-life equations and word problems involving half-life’s.
7. The strengths as stated above were the use of the black board, they successfully got a lot
of homework done, learned a very difficult concept such as half-life’s and he was very
understanding when it came to his student not getting a concept for a long time.
8. I learned that patience is very key in tutoring sessions and that a tutor needs to assess
what the student needs and cater to those needs in order to implement a good session
when tutoring students. I will use what I learned in my own sessions by starting the
problem myself and having them finish it. I could also have them talk me through a
problem and then let them use the board to do a problem themselves.
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Karl Griggs
Holly de Cordova
Education 96
10.16.2012
Tutor Observation Assignment
On October sixteenth, 2012, I observed Sally conducting a tutoring session for Spanish
IV at 4:15PM in room 308 of the Science and Engineering Library. Here are my observations:
1. Sally’s goal was to become acquainted with her student, as it was the first time they had
met. She confided to me before the session began was unsure of what to expect from her
new student, so beginning to build a trusting relationship and assessing the student’s
abilities and challenges were both major goals of the initial session. This wasn’t made
explicitly clear to the student, but it seemed implicitly conveyed by the amount of time
Sally spent discussing their personal histories in the subject and the amount of time she
spent quickly going over a wide variety of grammatical and vocabulary issues, like
gender, tenses, vocabulary, and phonology to assess the student’s general competencies. I
think Sally did well in this regard, as she seemed to connect well with her student and
covered many issues in the language.
2. After introducing herself, Sally let her student explain what she expected to gain from
tutoring. Initially, the student said that she did not need tutoring, but that it was merely
required of Sophomore Academy students. Sally then showed the student a website
which tests Spanish grammar, and used the results as a diagnostic blueprint of a range of
issues upon which to focus. Afterwards, the student admitted that she was concerned
about an upcoming midterm, and said that she did not know how to study for it. Sally
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shared her Spanish study strategies (flashcards, sticky notes, et cetera). For the rest of the
session, she posed questions to her student about certain grammatical constructions, like
the near future tense and adjectival gender agreement, taking some time to explain the
grammar when her student struggled and then checking for her comprehension with
subsequent examples, only moving on when she seemed to have strengthened her grasp
of the material.
3. Sally made her session interactive by frequently asking her student the same questions
the student asked her, often revealing that she already knew the answer. When neither of
them recognized a particular vocabulary word, Sally was upfront that she did not know it
either, and the two looked it up online together. Sally’s explanations were generally
tailored to respond to the student’s difficulties, and that made the session clearly
interactive. I could observe the student learning when, after one of Sally’s explanations,
she answered another question utilizing the same constructions and effectively explained
the syntax back to Sally.
4. Sally analyzed the student’s particular cultural standpoint vis-à-vis Spanish by asking if
she knew it from outside of class; the student turned out to be a heritage speaker, which
meant that she was already mostly fluent in spoken Spanish. Heritage speakers tend to
struggle in the explicit recognition of grammatical constructs and some of the finer points
of linguistic meaning (e.g., during the session the student didn’t recognize the difference
between a stative sentence ‘the man is boring’ and a passive voice construction ‘the man
is bored’). After Sally learned that her student was a heritage speaker, she often tried to
draw upon the assets which lend to learning the language formally, while accounting for
the disadvantages in other realms.
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5. The student asked questions like, “How can you tell what gender something is,” and
“Why don’t you conjugate the verb after vas?” These are things which heritage speakers
would naturally struggle with. I differed with Sally in the answers she chose to these
questions: “You just have to learn each word, there’s no way to know otherwise,” and
“Because you already conjugated vas,” respectively. Gender (in Spanish as in all other
Romance languages) is generally predictable, like in Spanish, nouns which end in -dad, dora, and –ion are always feminine, while –dor, for instance, is always masculine.
Meanwhile, with the ir future (near future) construction, the second verb isn’t conjugated
because it functions as a complementary infinitive, just like he is going to do X in
English: the second verb (to do) is kept in the infinitive because it complements the
conjugated verb, to go. This would have been simple to explain and is parallel to the
English construction, so in Sally’s place, I would have drawn on that resource.
6. The student was very fluent in speaking and aural comprehension. Meanwhile, as I’ve
stated, she had issues with recognizing the minutiae of meaning in many phrases, gender,
and the logics behind the grammar.
7. Some of the strengths of the session included Sally’s friendliness and ability to swiftly
connect with her student, and her sensitivity in assessing the student’s difficulties. She
didn’t take her student’s claim that she didn’t need help at face value, and after a few
minutes the student was confessing areas in which she wanted help. When Sally found
something the student needed to work on, she explained the issue simply and sensitively,
even when I disagreed with her particular phrasing.
8. From observing this session, probably the most beneficial thing I learned was the value in
rapidly assessing a student’s competencies in a variety of topics at the first session, and
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thereafter asking students to explain aspects of the grammar using new examples after
I’ve spent a few minutes reviewing the constructions with them. Many of the resources
Sally drew on (like native speaker intuition) will not work for me, since nobody speaks
either Latin or Attic Greek. Nonetheless, I will strive to emulate Sally’s warmth and
enthusiasm towards both the subject and towards helping students.
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TUTOR TRAINING CLASS
PEER OBSERVATION AND WRITE-UP
Name of Observer/Author: Cristina Camacho
Name of Tutor or MSI Learning Assistant You Observe: Bob
Date of the Observation: October 23, 2012
Location: Humanities 1 138
1. What was the tutor/learning assistant’s goal for the session? Did he/she make the goal clear to
the students? How well do you feel that the goal guided the lesson and to what degree was it
accomplished?
First and foremost, tutoring for Spanish for Heritage Speakers is mandatory for all students who
are enrolled in the course and only Spanish is spoken in the sessions. They meet with the tutors
once a week for six weeks and have specific reading due for the tutoring session. The reading must
be completed by the time they have their session and tutoring is worth 10% of their final grade for
the class. Therefore, students are on a weekly routine and are aware of the expectations of the
sessions. They know that tutoring is extra practice for them, and soon they will be speaking and
expressing themselves in Spanish with more confidence. Bob ’ goals for her session were to help
her students understand and know how to interpret the assigned reading. She was prepared to
answer any questions and to clarify any confusion about the material. Bob also wanted to assist her
group with any difficulties that they were having with language work. At the beginning of the
session she reminded the group that during the first half hour they would discuss the reading and
the second half would focus on language work. Since the students are on a weekly routine, they
know that the tutors are there to help clarify any confusion about the reading and they are able to
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ask any questions. Bob’s goals were obvious throughout the entire session. She asked various
questions about the reading, guided students while they discussed multiple themes with each other,
answered comprehension and vocabulary questions, and when students no longer had any input,
she followed up with more questions and examples to ensure that they understood all of the
material.
2. Recount what went on during the session. (When reading this description, your reader should
feel that he/she is sitting with you in the room as you observed the session.)
As the four students settled down in the classroom, Bob asked all of them how their day was
going and had small conversations with them, creating a comfortable and welcoming space. Soon
after they finished signing in, she asked her group if they had completed the weekly reading and if
they had any general opinions and/or questions. A couple of the girls posed some confusion that
appeared during the reading. While answering their questions, Bob referenced to previous sections
of the reading and made connections to help them understand the new material. She then
reminded her students to have their worksheets out because they were going to identify the main
characters and give descriptions of them, summarize the events, and review a few of the main
themes. As the group answered questions about the main characters and events, they began to give
summaries about the assigned sections, making connections to previous readings and characters,
and also to other material they discussed in class. All throughout the session Bob played the role of
a facilitator; she had her students talking to one another and encouraged them to answer each
other’s questions. When she posed questions and the girls did not understand them, Bob would
rephrase them and give examples, referring to specific pages to help them understand her better.
As they moved on to other sections of the reading, the students were asked to provide a short
summary and while doing so they would start having discussions about the material. While they
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examined possible themes, Bob clarified some confusion here and there, answered questions by
asking some of her own, and always summarized what the students said to verify that everyone
understood everything that was reviewed. The students were often encouraged to share their
opinions and views about the events that occurred throughout the reading and they gladly
participated. A few times, a couple of students did not know how to say a word or phrase in
Spanish, therefore they would say it in English and Bob or one of the other students helped to
translate it in Spanish. After finishing the worksheet, Bob asked more questions about the reading
to close up the discussion and moved on to language work. The students reviewed diminutives,
augmentatives, and division of syllables. For each of these parts, Bob provided each student with a
word and they had to supply an example or divide it in syllables. Bob was very attentive to her
students learning styles. When she realized some students needed to visualize the word, she
spelled them out on the board, so the student had the ability to manipulate it. When they finished
their review, Bob answered some final questions, assured them that they did a wonderful work, and
then excused the group.
3. What interactive learning strategies did the tutor/learning assistant use? How did students react
to these strategies? Was the environment one of interactive learning? Explain.
If you believe that students’ learned, describe how you knew that they were learning. How was
the learning demonstrated?
All throughout her session Bob provided all students with positive reinforcement. She
encouraged them to participate and voice their opinion about the material, when they did so she
validated and respected everyone’s ideas. Bob focused her attention on all students; no one was
excluded. While reviewing the language work, she would pick on specific students and gave
everyone equal turns to participate. Bob posed various questions and rephrased them when her
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group did not understand what was being asked. She even answered a few questions with a
question in order to help her group see that they were capable of answering questions on their own.
It seemed that the students appreciated all of Bob’s positivity and felt comfortable discussing their
opinions with one another. It was obvious that the group was learning in their tutoring session. All
students participated and had the ability to make connections between sections and characters
without Bob’s help. When Bob made some clarifications, the students would often input their own
thoughts to what she would say. At some points the girls were answering each other’s questions;
they did not wait for Bob to answer because they had enough confidence in their answers to share
them with everyone.
4. What strategies did the tutor/learning assistant use to (a) address students’ affective needs, (b)
cultural and/or gender differences, (c) cognitive needs?
The week’s reading dealt a lot with religion, specifically Catholicism and Christianity. Bob
explained a bit about the Christian/Catholic view of the evil and good dichotomy so that the group
understood the section better; some of the students already knew this, but reviewing it was a good
strategy. At one point during the discussion, there was split opinions about whether the protagonist
was losing or attempting to retain his faith. Although some of the students had different ideas, Bob
acknowledged all of their opinions, and reassured them that their interpretation was valid. When
the group reviewed language work, Bob was very attentive to her students’ learning styles. A few of
her students needed to see the word spelled out on the board in order to be able to divide it in
syllables. Bob realized that just saying the word out loud did not work for everyone; therefore she
accommodated to everyone’s needs and wrote the word on the board so that the girls could
visualize it and be able to divide it.
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5. What questions did the students’ ask?
The most common questions that the group asked revolved around vocabulary. They either did
not understand what a word meant or they did not know how to pronounce or say certain words
and phrases in Spanish. Whenever this occurred the girls would say the words or phrases in English
and Bob or the other students would help them translate. Then there were various questions about
matters that needed to be clarified about the reading. They found a few parts of the section
confusing. For example, there are a few parts in the story that are unclear whether certain
characters relate to one another or not, and the students wanted clarification on such parts. Other
questions that appeared dealt with the worksheet that they worked on during the session, and
these mostly involved ways of structuring their thoughts on paper.
6. What did the students understand and what seemed to be most difficult for them? Be specific.
Students understood with greater ease, diminutives, augmentatives, derogatory terms, and
division of syllables. This is probably because they practice this type of language work daily in their
homework. Therefore, they feel more comfortable with this type of work and when they reviewed
these during the tutoring session, they were able to answer questions without many difficulties.
Discussion is probably more difficult to them because it is not something they do every day; they are
not comfortable or used to sharing their ideas in Spanish. They have some discussions in class, but
they do not practice speaking Spanish for homework. Which is why they all have mandatory
tutoring sessions to practice their Spanish in an academic environment, forming conversations with
one another, and with time they will gain more confidence in sharing their opinions. I think one of
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the main worries that students have during tutoring is the fear that they might have interpreted the
reading wrong, but this is impossible. Everyone can formulate their own ideas about the reading
and they are viable opinions, especially when they have evidence to support their thoughts. The
students just need to realize this and know that this is why they are in tutoring, to practice.
Typically students do not speak much Spanish outside of the classroom, which is why they have
difficulty pronouncing or saying certain words and phrases in Spanish. But again, all they need is
practice, which is what they receive through tutoring.
7. What were the strengths of the session?
The tutoring session had various strengths, especially because everyone was willing and ready to
participate. When students complete all the assigned reading and are prepared to share their
opinions, the entire group has a much better discussion. Everyone was bouncing ideas off of each
other and helping one another to comprehend any confusion that arose throughout the session.
Bob gave quick summaries of what they had just discussed whenever they finished reviewing a
certain part of the reading or question, to make sure that they were all truly absorbing what was
being said. She did not completely manipulate the session and was not lecturing, but more
conducting and facilitating discussions so that they kept flowing. Something really important was
that Bob largely avoided the word “no”. She did not want to discourage any student or make them
feel like their opinion was wrong and impracticable. Bob would simply remind her students that
there are multiple interpretations to the reading. Overall, she provided a comfortable and
respectful space, where everyone was encouraged to participate and everyone was given positive
reinforcement for their participation.
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8. What did you learn from watching the session, and how will you use what your learned as you
plan and implement your own tutoring/MSI sessions?
After observing Bob’s tutoring session, I have seen that it is very important to be positive and
converse with the students, making them feel respected and comfortable. Never say “no”, is highly
essential in order to avoid discouraging students. When the students do not understand the
questions that are being posed, a good strategy is to rephrase the questions and to provide
examples. I think that answering questions with question could be very influential for a student’s
confidence because they will realize that they are capable of answering questions on their own.
During the discussions, there should be more emphasis on allow and encouraging students to
answer their peers’ questions and concerns, so that they start sharing their opinions and knowledge
with one another. Different learning style techniques should be used in order for the tutoring
session to be efficient for all students. I will definitely use most of these strategies, some of which I
already use, in my own sessions in order to help my students gain more confidence in speaking and
expressing themselves in Spanish. I want my students to feel comfortable enough with their
opinions, so that they could voice and share them with one another.
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Name of Observer/Author Nicole Brunn
Name of Tutor or MSI Learning Assistant You Observe Sally
Date of the Observation 10/31/12; 12:30 - 1:40 PM Location Cowell 222
We expect one or more paragraphs in response to each of the following questions. When
evaluating this assignment we will consider the depth and thoughtfulness of your response to
each question.
1. What was the tutor/learning assistant’s goal for the session? Did he/she make the goal clear to the
students? How well do you feel that the goal guided the lesson and to what degree was it
accomplished?
The MSI learning assistant was the learning assistant for Sociology 15. The class had a midterm
coming up in a few days. The learning assistant made her goals very clear because she created a general
outline for what she expected to cover in the session to help the very large group of students study for
the midterm. She informed them that she wanted to break them into groups and she wanted each
group to discuss a topic that would be important for the midterm. I think the goal guided the lesson
because her strategy was a very organized way of covering the most amount of material in the small
amount of time allotted. Also, the groups were able to talk in-depth about their topic, and then come
back as a group and explain what they had found. This allows for a better discussion of each topic,
instead of just a shallow overview.
This helped to accomplish the learning assistant’s goal very well, because when they came back
as a group the students were able to explain their topic to the other students and help their peers learn.
This also helped the students who were teaching their topic learn more, because they had to critically
think about their topic and explain it to the class, which requires a more in-depth level of knowledge. All
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the students were engaged for the whole period, because they seemed to get a lot out of the strategy
and out of each other.
2. Recount what went on during the session. (When reading this description, your reader should feel
that he/she is sitting with you in the room as you observed the session.)
The first thing the learning assistant did was give an outline of what she wanted to do in the
session, and she asked if that worked for everyone. The second thing she did was ask if anyone had any
questions about the material. She took a few general questions and used interactive strategies to talk
about what the students were having trouble with, and the group worked together to find the right
answer, because even though one student didn’t know, another student would know and be able to
answer the question. She asked specific questions about what they were studying, and wrote the
student’s answers on the board. For example, she asked what positional goods were, and wrote a list of
the different responses she got, like brands and clothing. She started a dialogue with the students on
what were positional goods and why they were important.
The learning assistant then broke the students into groups, assigning each group of two or three
students a few topics that would be important for the midterm. The learning assistant then went around
to each group to make sure they were all on the right track with getting information on their topic. All
the students were engaged and looking through their notes to find more information. The learning
assistant had to help a few groups who were stuck, but most of the groups seemed to figure out their
topics. At the end, the learning assistant brought everyone back together and she asked the groups to
present what they had learned about their topic. Almost every topic was followed by a more in-depth
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decision, and questions were raised and talked about. After every group presented their topics more
questions were brought up about things students didn’t understand in lecture and the learning assistant
led an interactive discussion about the questions for the rest of time.
3. What interactive learning strategies did the tutor/learning assistant use? How did students react to
these strategies? Was the environment one of interactive learning? Explain.
If you believe that students’ learned, describe how you knew that they were learning.
How was the learning demonstrated?
The big interactive learning strategy that the learning assistant used was the “turn to your
partner” learning strategy because she assigned each small group of students a few topics for them to
discuss with their partner. This was extremely effective because of the environment the strategy was
used in. The room was full of students who were worried for the midterm, and since there were too
many students to work with individually, the learning assistant told them to work with partners so that
they could get individual attention, ask questions, and work through the material. The students were
engaged with their partner for the whole session, and they all stayed on topic.
The students seemed to find the strategy effective because they were able to explain their
results to rest of the class, and when the class would ask them a question, the students were able to
answer without looking to the learning assistant for answers. This shows that the students have learned
their topic very well, because they were able to teach others and answer questions they may not have
thought of, which is exactly what they need to do for the test. The learning assistant also used
scaffolding, because she would first assess what the students knew about a simple concept and then she
would help them build on the concept by asking more complicated questions and building on previous
knowledge. The learning assistant was able to asses that the students have learned in this strategy
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because the students went from only being able to answer simple questions to being able to answer
more complex questions, give examples of complex concepts and ask advanced questions of their own.
4. What strategies did the tutor/learning assistant use to (a) address students’ affective needs, (b)
cultural and/or gender differences, (c) cognitive needs?
The strategy the learning assistant used to address the student’s needs was to ask questions and
assess what the students understood. She also wrote what each student said on the board so it felt like
everyone was listened to and everyone got to contribute. The ways the learning assistant attended to
individual differences such as cultural or gender differences, was when the students got into groups she
went around to the individual groups and asked about what they were working on, and if they had any
questions. This helped the students have more one-on-one time with the learning assistant, which
means that the learning assistant can attend to individual differences. The learning assistant attended to
different cognitive needs by explaining answers in many different ways. For example, sometimes she
would discuss the answer with the student, and sometimes she would put the question or answer on
the board to help students who are visual learners.
5. What questions did the students’ ask?
The students asked both general and specific questions. The specific questions that the students
asked were things like: “what is being distributed?” “What does social change mean?” and “what do
positional goods mean?” They also asked more conceptual questions like “how is this related to the
economy?” The students also asked questions of each other in their small works and they were able to
work together to resolve their own questions. At the end, the students also asked questions of the
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learning assistant on how she recommends studying for the test, and they also asked the students in the
class if they were interested in forming study groups and a google document.
6. What did the students understand and what seemed to be most difficult for them? Be specific.
The concept that seemed to be the most difficult for the students was the idea of “positional
goods,” and this is why the learning assistant took time in the beginning of the session to talk about this
topic and to ask the students for specific examples. The students also seemed to have problems with the
complex topic of social change. This seemed to be a major part of the course, and so the students
seemed worried about understanding this topic in its entirety and a lot of questions were asked around
this topic in the individual groups and asked of the learning assistant.
7. What were the strengths of the session?
There were a lot of strengths in this session. The learning assistant had a lot of students in the
session, but she was able to turn this to her advantage and place them into groups. This allowed her to
be able to cover more material and then the groups came back to discuss their topic. Teaching the topic
to the other students in the groups was also a big strength because the learning assistant was able to
assess if the students really did understand the topic, or not. Also, the students teaching the topic had to
think about what they learned more critically in order to explain it to other students. Another strength is
that the other students got the topic explained to them by their peers instead of just relying on the
explanation they got from their professor. Multiple explanations help different students learn the topic
in different ways.
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8. What did you learn from watching the session, and how will you use what your learned as you plan
and implement your own tutoring/MSI sessions?
I learned how to better organize a large group of students into groups, and how to better
distribute questions for them to work on together. I think the learning assistant did a good job going
around to each group and making sure they were all on track and that they understood what they were
doing. I would like to implement this more in my own sessions, and be more involved when students are
doing group work. I also like how she would write the student’s answers on the board and I think I am
going to do this more to help the visual learners in the group. I also plan to use this strategy of getting
into groups more in my sessions, especially if my sessions start to get bigger during midterms.
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Haakon Williams
11/6/12
EDUC 96
Peer Observation
As a new tutor, it can be overwhelming to realize one’s position as the primary
educational support for a struggling student. Armed at first with nothing more than a strong
desire to help, the first days of a tutor’s teaching are the most exciting, confusing, and probably
ineffective of them all. Add to this the extra dimension of facilitating interactive learning, as
opposed to a top-down lecture format, and meeting the needs of your student with the ideals of
tutoring becomes increasingly daunting. We learn interactive learning strategies to try out in our
sessions, get to know our students and how to help them become independent learners, and
gain experience in the tutoring setting. However, there’s no better way to learn how to be an
effective tutor (aside from the accumulation of experience) than to watch someone who knows
what they’re doing, and who has been doing it for a while.
Though I’m a subject tutor for HAVC 43, History of Modern Architecture, a large portion
of my sessions consist of helping students with their weekly papers. This and the absence of
any image-based courses (as Modern Architecture is) on the roster of experienced tutors led me
to the decision to observe a writing tutor rather than a subject tutor. Her name is Sally , and
she graciously allowed me to observe her session on Tuesday November 6th, at 1 o’clock at
Joe’s. She told me that in general, if she knows her student’s writing fairly well, she goes into a
session with the goal of helping them make their writing less “ranty”, find their thesis, and make
an organizational outline. She pointed out that often, going into a session with a predetermined
goal isn’t necessary because students tend to know what they want out of a session, regardless
of what their tutor thinks they should want. She told me that, for this
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session, her goal was to help her student clarify their writing, and bring a sense of organization
to their paper. This wasn’t explicitly expressed to the student, but it was apparent (at least to
me, the third party observer) in how the session was held. This goal guided the session in that
the whole thing was centered around it. Since this seemed to be the student’s main problem
area, focusing on the stated aims of the goal eased most of the difficulties the student was
having with their paper. The goal was definitely accomplished (and I shall go into more detail as
to the specifics in a later paragraph) for the student left the session with increased confidence
about their own writing ability, not to mention a clearer, better organized paper.
To get a better sense of exactly how the student and tutor worked together, I will recount
the details of the session. After the preliminary meeting with Sally (at Joe’s, which makes for a
delicious pre-observation meeting), her student, Mark, arrives. Mark has been informed of and
is open to my presence at their session; it is a bit awkward at first to be a silent observer of this
one on one tutoring, but we soon all ease up, and they proceed as if I weren’t there. A lovely
breeze blowing through Quarry Plaza cools us down at our outside corner table. Mark (a
participant of the STARS Write Mentor Program) pulls out the mostly-finished rough draft of his
paper for his cultural anthropology class. He says that he has a pretty good idea of what he is
trying to say in his paper, but needs Sally’s help in making his points more clear. Sally reads
over his paper quickly, making some small edit marks here and there. She then asks Mark to tell
her, in his own words, what his thesis is. After thinking about it for a few
seconds, Mark tells her that his thesis is that the economic embargo imposed on Cuba by the
U.S. has effectively frozen their culture in time, and so they are not privy to the many benefits of
modern society. Sally says that she did indeed get that from the paper, but that it’s not as clear
as it could be, and that he needs to focus more on his thesis. She then reads his paper aloud,
pausing for clarification, explanation, tips; together they edit his paper, going through all the
parts of his essay, him explaining what he means and what he thinks he could do to make this
more clear, her giving guidance and confirmation. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, the complete
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synergy of a student motivated to be better, and an experienced tutor engaged and committed
to helping their student on that path. As they finish up their time together, she gives some last
remarks (general tips, confidence-boosting compliments) and he asks a few last
questions. Mark takes off with a greatly improved paper and sense of where to take it next, and
Sally is left with me with an obvious sense of satisfaction.
Sally used a one on one writing tutoring strategy, though with a minor alteration. One of
the strategies is called “Tutor-Tutee paper read aloud”, which calls for the tutee to read their
paper aloud, with the tutor asking questions and pointing out errors. Instead, Sally read her
tutee’s paper aloud, still asking questions and pointing out awkward parts, but with a much more
interactive slant than the strategy on the handout indicates. Rather than talking her student’s
head off with questions and errors, she merely pointed out a phrase she didn’t understand or
passage she had a question about and then let her student talk about it. Her student, obviously
used to this method, reacted well. With the enthusiastic participation of her student, it became a
highly interactive learning environment. There was a constant give and take, one asking
questions and the other answering, and then switching roles. Mark learned more from talking
through exactly what he meant and the errors he recognized in his essay, facilitated through the
capable yet subtle hands of Sally, than he would have from listening to the sage wisdom of his
tutor. She told me in a follow-up email, “I don’t just edit and give it back to them. I like to make
sure that they understand where their errors are, and how they can fix them up.” By the end of
the session, it was clear that Mark had a greater understanding of how to “fix them up” on his
own. I knew some real learning was going on because, by the end of the session, Mark almost
didn’t need Sally’s help in identifying and figuring out solutions for errors and awkwardness in
his paper.
On the matter of addressing Mark’s needs, be they ‘affective’, cognitive, or cultural or
gender accommodation, there wasn’t much of this going on that I could see, for the simple
reason that it was not needed. If by ‘cognitive needs’ the prompt means working on the same
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cognitive level as the student, then this certainly happened. Sally didn’t talk over his head, nor
did she baby him. She had some familiarity with the student, and so knew pretty precisely how
to meet him where he is and help him take the next step. These two students are both
‘average’, in that there isn’t any strong cultural or gender affectation that would effect relations
with another human. They both seemed open; a woman of irrelevant ethnicity tutoring a man of
irrelevant ethnicity presented no problems, and so no accommodation strategies were needed.
To a student, their tutor is a resource for answers to their questions, and Mark certainly
took advantage of this. His questions were mostly geared towards the minutiae of his writing,
that is, his sentence structure, grammar, clarity, and overall structure of his essay. As in my own
tutoring sessions, the student wanted the tutor’s feedback on a variety of issues with their
paper. He would ask things like “I’m not sure this sentence really supports my point. Do you
think I should take it out?” Rather than giving a simple yes or no answer, Sally would then
engage in a brief discussion about the sentence and its relation to the rest of the essay. Though
she gave her own opinion, she stressed that Mark could take or leave her advice, leaving it
open for him to give his own interpretation on whether or not he should remove the sentence.
As I’ve already said, Mark left the session with a good understanding of how to make his
essay better. That being said, there were some areas he struggled in. Mark moved to this
country from Brazil four years ago; though he has for the most part mastered the English
language (you would never know he is a recent immigrant from a normal conversation with him)
he still has some trouble with the specifics of grammar, which resulted in some awkward
sentences and no inherent sense of how they were wrong and how to fix them. This was
actually a fairly big hindrance for him, for though he had a good handle on structuring an essay
to make his point effectively, as well as a command of the concepts he was writing about, the
execution of particular sentences presented some difficulty. Sally tried to help by pointing
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out his awkward sentence constructions, and once she explained what was wrong, he seemed
to understand. But the sense I got from Sally is that this is an ongoing problem that he needs to
get better at.
Overall, Sally knows how to lead a very effective session and connect with her students
(at least with this particular one). The strengths of the session were the strong connection
between tutor and tutee, fantastic communication with strong reciprocal and interactive learning,
and good analysis on the part of the tutor of the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Like I
said, the flow between them was fantastic, with an even, balanced give and take of question
and answer, of sharing knowledge and being receptive to new knowledge. Sally said she starts
off with all new students by assessing fairly in depth what their strengths and weaknesses are.
She does this through diagnosing their writing, either current or past, or simply talking to
students and having them self-diagnose their strengths and weaknesses. She
then sets goals with her students, which gives them a solid framework on which to build based
both on class expectations and their own needs as a writer. All of this adds up to a fairly indepth knowledge of her students’ needs and abilities, which directly translates to more effective
tutoring.
I learned three main things from watching Sally in action. The first is simply the attitude
to take to being a good tutor. She approached her session openly, and thus was able to better
connect with her student. Her relatability and down to earth attitude (while still maintaining an air
of professionalism) helped Mark feel at ease and be more receptive to her input. The second
thing I learned is a very good technique for writing tutoring, which is described above. I have
already incorporated some elements of this into my own tutoring (such as asking the student to
explain in their own words what their thesis is) but she has a very good framework for effectively
and efficiently critiquing a student’s work while maintaining a hearty sense of interaction. The
last thing I learned from her is a sense of the big picture, and that you can pull trends out of your
interactions with a student to see which general areas they need
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the most help in. The idea of structure, not only for the individual session, but for the tutoring arc
that takes place over the whole quarter, was a new one for me. Identifying specific problems a
student has time and time again and focusing on these seems a much better approach to
tutoring than trying to figure out what they need on the spur of the moment. I plan on
fundamentally changing my sessions to incorporate all of these, for though elements of each of
these lessons are already present in my sessions, the full implementation of them, which Sally
has clearly mastered, will be hugely beneficial to my own tutoring.
Within the context of my own tutoring, observing another tutor, and indeed one as
proficient as Sally , will prove to be immensely helpful. Though I feel like my tutoring sessions
have been productive and good (especially considering that this is my first time officially
tutoring), seeing an experienced tutor at work can only help. Through the use of a very focused
goal (or at least a very focused sense of how to arrive at a goal, though it may change student
to student) and strategy for achieving the ends of this goal, Sally proves to be a very helpful
tutor, both for her students in need of writing assistance, and for a new tutor like myself looking
for guidance and tips. I plan on using what I’ve learned in this experience to the fullest extent in
order to make my sessions the best they can be.
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Maya Wagoner
EDUC 96
November 6, 2012
Peer Observation Write-Up
My observation of Bob took place at 5pm on November 5, 2012, outside the ARCenter.
For my peer observation I chose to observe Bob , a fellow writing tutor, tutoring a Sociology
student. In our inital interview, he stated that he did not have a goal for the session beyond general
education and imrpovement of writing ability. He explained to me how writing tutoring can be such an
individually based thing that making goals before seeing the student’s paper can be futile. In addition, this
was only his second time meeting with the student, and neither time did she bring a paper. The tutee,
however, did have a goal of getting her ideas organized for a paper she had yet to begin writing.
During the interview, Bob facilitated brainstorming around the prompt. She explained that she
had a lot of ideas around the book she was writing from and from the prompt, but didn’t know how to put
them into an essay. Bob read the prompt and continually rephrased it and broke it down into smaller
questions. He made sure to ask the broken down questions one at a time, and if she was taking too long to
think of an answer, he would rephrase that part of the question. This appeared to help her understand and
to break down the prompt conceptually. In addition, it was not coercive on his part, but merely
clarification for the purpose of helping the tutee organize her scattered thoughts.
There were instances, however, where he would privilege certain ideas without clear explanation
why or insert his own ideas. This was slightly coercive. There were times when he began statements with
“I would focus on” or “If I were you I would” which remained on the border of helpful and coercive.
Sometimes I was afraid he would dictate to the student what to write, but instead gave suggestions like
“whether you disagreed or agreed with [the author’s] arguement, you have to write about it” or “create an
outline with quotes.” I noticed that although he (and I when I tutor) followed up his structural and
procedural instructions with the disclaimer “but you don’t have to do this plenty of people use different
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methods,” it appeared as an afterthought and as if the student could not really follow other methods. She
was dismissive of his suggestions that she could do it a way other than the ways he provided.
Throughout the session, he periodically refocused by asking her “what do you want to focus on”
and “okay, what have we got so far?”, or helping her narrow down her brainstorm through more specific
questions. When she could not think of any ideas for what to write about, the tutor would pause and wait
for her, and then eventually ask more specific questions. This helped the tutee, as she immediately started
telling stories when the right scope of questions were asked. After she was more comfortable telling
stories, Bob asked questions that subtly (or not-so-subtly) connected them to the prompt. Through this
process, the stories the tutee was telling became more interesting and usable in the essay, and she started
coming up with questions and answering them on her own. This was one of the ways I could tell the
student was learning from the process.
In many ways, writing tutoring, unlike MSI or class lecture, is always interactive learning. The
tutor did stay in constant dialogue with the tutee, and tried to mirror and affirm her thoughts. The tutee
did not appear to have any cognitive, affective, or cultural needs, and seemed to have fairly high selfefficacy. Her questions and need for help was surprisingly specific, and she seemed to have high
knowledge of her weak spots. The tutor expressed a similar sentiment to me in the pre-session interview.
No special interactive strategies were used, though I could see how they could be used to break up the
somewhat free form structure of the session.
The student asked specific questions and expressed specific needs throughout the session. At first,
they were broader questions and goals for the session: “I need help organizing my ideas,” “I don’t know
what point I want to make and how to incorporate it,” and “I don’t know how to make an outline.” These
seemed reasonable, but are hard to answer without giving the student too much. Bob handled the broad
questions by, in many cases, simply rephrasing and simplifying the professor’s question. This particular
prompt called for the student to recount a personal story in relation to the text. The student had difficulty
with both recounting personal stories and talking through the text, though she could do each separate task
fluently. The tutor helped by pointing out areas where her story had to do with what they were studying,
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or by asking questions about her personal life after hearing her descriptions of the author’s argument (i.e.
“did you watch TV at dinner growing up?”).
From watching the session, I will incorporate continual rephrasing and breaking down of the
prompt, as well as refocusing phrases like “what have we got so far?” I will make sure not to use subtle
body language that expresses disapproval of a student’s idea, or at least not with logical
explanation/questioning. I will try to give students concrete rules of thumb for how to start and continue
the writing process (i.e. “incorporate one citation for every paragraph”), as this appeared to give the
student a sense of stability about writing the paper, and a jumping off point.
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