Catawba County Tutor Training September 15, 2011

The Definition of Tutoring Tutoring means very different things to different people. Some believe that tutors replace classroom instruction. Others believe that tutors are to do unfinished homework/classwork with students. Others still may view tutors as support personnel.

Tutoring… Given all of these definitions of tutoring think of your own definition. What does "being a tutor" mean to you? On the note card in your basket, list three things that you associate with tutoring

Does your definition include all or part of Websters? Webster's New World Dictionary: defines a "tutor" as "a teacher who gives individual (small group) instruction to a student(s)...." Tutors are a vital part of the educational support network in any institution. Tutors have the time an energy to provide one-on-one instruction outside of the classroom setting. Tutoring…

Tutor Etiquette 1.As a tutor you are an additional resource to help students succeed. 2.Patience. Patience. Patience. 3.Create a positive learning environment. 4.If you do not know the answer, it is alright to admit that and let the students know that you will find the answer. 5.Establish and maintain communication with the classroom teacher.

Tutor Dos and Donts There are several things as a tutor that one should do in order to maximize the experience for the students.

Introduce yourself and wear a name tag. Maintain confidentiality and Academic standards: Any personal information such as medical conditions, disabilities, test sores should remain between you and the teacher. Punctuality: If meeting with a group in a specific location, please do your best to be there before they arrive. If you are picking up a group, allow for travel time so that you will arrive to pick them up on time. Honesty: Dont hesitate to say that you do not know about a particular concept. Let the students know that you will find out the information and share it with them. Enthusiasm: If the tutor does not display a love for the subject they are tutoring, how can they expect the student to enjoy it. Hard work: Make sure you are familiar with the materials. Positive Reinforcement: Use verbal and nonverbal positive reinforcement. Listening: Use good listening skills so that you will understand students misconceptions and errors. Tutor Dos and Donts…

Willingness: Be willing to step out of your comfort zone and embrace current best practices. Good questioners: You should ask the student(s) questions in order to evaluate their understanding Use questions for both diagnosis and teaching. Questions are classified as closed- or open-ended and by the first three levels of Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain (memory, comprehension, and application). Patience: This is probably one of the most important characteristics of a tutor. Even if they ask the most basic question, always practice patience. The Student's Ideas: Emphasize the importance of building on the student's own ideas. Strategies include: encouraging and acknowledging student ideas, active listening by paraphrasing ideas, and effectively redirecting student ideas. Importance of Student Verbalization: Demonstrates the importance of student verbalization for both student and tutor. Advantages include: clarifying thinking, increasing the number of student questions, helping the tutor gage understanding, improving student confidence, and helping students answer their own questions. Tutor Dos and Donts…

Do not allow your students to just scrape by. Challenge them to reach for their goals. Do not let one student monopolize all of your time. If you see that a particular student needs more time, share that with the classroom teacher. Do not work the students' assignments for them. We have to hold them accountable. Do not share information about student performance with anyone other than their teacher. Tutor Dos and Donts…

Challenges Time Space Range of students abilities Materials Communication Time

Active (or attentive) listening is demonstrated by giving the student your full attention. This makes the student feel that they are important. Listen carefully to all of the messages being sent. How you act is sometimes as important as what you say. You should create an atmosphere of appearing interested in helping the student.. Your role as a tutor is multifaceted. One of the most important abilities you will need is that of active listening and paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing communicates accurately what is heard by reflecting and then summarizing. Organizing the students thoughts into one concise statement involves listening completely to the students own concerns and then summarizing the problemhopefully providing new light to the student. Some good phrases to use might be: What I hear you saying is… It seems to me what you are saying is… You sound… It sounds to me like… It is sometimes important for the tutor to summarize when the student has all the information on the table but might not know it. If possible, try to get the student to do the paraphrasing. Again, the more talking that you do, the more reliant the student will be on you.

There are two types of questions: Closed-ended questions and Open-ended questions.

Closed ended questions: Usually have short responses like yes or no. This type of questioning is good if you are short on time. Closed- ended questions typically do no lead to other questions or discussion. EXAMPLE: Do you understand how to add two digit numbers?

Open-ended questions: Encourages more interaction. They usually require an explanation for a response and may lead to further questions, hopefully revealing the true cause of the misunderstanding. EXAMPLE: Why do you think the author used spunky to describe that character?

Open-ended questions continued: This does require a lot of patience on the tutors part. It would certainly be easier for the tutor to simply work the problems for the student. But these types of probing questions allow the student to do most of the thinking, which will hopefully provide a stronger foundation.

Probing Questions In order to assess students knowledge, it is important that tutors pose good questions. The tutor should explain the concept/skill, but should be careful not to do all the talking/thinking. Questioning can and should encourage students to think and work through tasks.

Questions continued… In order to encourage the student to think, try to avoid a lot of questions with a yes or no answer. Demonstrate patience because questions that require thought will take more than the usual 5-10 seconds. While the student is answering the question, listen very carefully. The student is demonstrating exactly what he knows at this moment. The tutor should also avoid question like Do you understand? or Is that clear to you? Instead make the student demonstrate the concept by either working out another example (if its math) or clearly showing he understands a particular concept.

In order to make the student interested in the subject you are tutoring do your best to actively engage the student in the learning process. You may try using examples that relate to real life experiences. Ask questions that will help students develop the concept.

Techniques include: giving feedback, correcting errors, pacing explanations so that students can participate, including questions with explanations, using visuals and real life examples, and summarizing key points. Making the Most of Your Group Time

Four Structures of Math

Reading Wide variety of genres: fiction non-fiction poetry content consumer: recipes directions advertisements menus brochures tables/charts/schedules

Pre-reading Strategies Allow students to take a picture walk of the text prior to beginning reading Student should make note of any text features: ex. title, charts, pictures, graphs, bold, italics, headings Introduce any vocabulary that may be new Have the student make predictions about what the text may be about Discuss any background knowledge or connections that the student can make with the text

Foldables Door fold Examples: KWL, Beginning, Middle, End Characters, Setting, Problem, Solution Compare/Contrast (venn diagram= characters or stories) Summarizing fiction: Somebody Wanted But So Then non-fiction Somethings Purpose But Then So Vocabulary booklet fold: genres, text features, unfamiliar words math vocabulary s

Vocabulary Consider having the student keep a vocabulary notebook/folder that will be used during tutoring sessions Record words that the student doesnt know along with a kid friendly definition and maybe a visual to represent the word Help the student use clues to help determine the meaning of unknown words, such as reading ahead, using context clues, looking for common word parts, etc. Try to provide examples of the use of the word outside of the context of the reading selection

Active Reading - no round robin -no popcorn * Use choral, shared, echo, partner or silent reading instead -Show students how to chunk the reading selection and then stop and think about what has been read (summarize) -Allow students to use sticky notes to record thoughts, summarize, mark portions that they did not understand, record unknown vocabulary, etc.

Questions Marzanos Levels of Questioning Thick vs. Thin

Text Features Vocabulary Text Feature Scavenger Hunt

Some closing thoughts… Animal School

Thank you for your time and dedication to the students of Catawba County Schools!

Questions Alycen Wilson Math Curriculum Specialist Mia Johnson Literacy Curriculum Specialist Lora Drum Literacy Curriculum Specialist