Tutor TrainingCRLA Level 1

Montgomery CollegeGermantown CampusAugust, 2005

Roles

The tutor helps create an atmosphere that assists learning.

The tutor helps the student gain self-confidence and learn skills to relate to learning situations more effectively.

The tutor’s goal is to help the student become a more confident and capable independent learner.

General Responsibilities

Initiate conversation Establish rapport Listen well Ask questions Provide instruction Refer to other tutors, instructors or materials as

appropriate Allow for practice

Activity

Think about a teacher or tutor who was particularly good.

List the qualities of this person that were helpful.

Reflect on what qualities from this list you have or would like to develop.

Activity 2

Think about an experience of learning with a tutor or teacher that was bad.

What was unhelpful or difficult about the situation?

How might you handle that conflict now? How could you have made the learning situation better?

Empathy

Empathy involves learning to understand the student’s point of view.

Empathy is demonstrated with verbal and non-verbal communication.

Listening Skills

Listening is one of the most important skills for a tutor. Listening is used to understand the students ideas, to understand the problem, and to determine what needs to be done to help.

Reflection

What are qualities of good listening? How do you demonstrate those qualities? How many ways can you think of to show

that you aren’t listening? What are some challenges to listening? What can you do to become a better

listener?

Communication Skills

What are some of the communication challenges you face when tutoring or what challenges might you envision?

What could you do to overcome these challenges?

Non-verbal

A lot of communication takes place non-verbally. Common Gestures Posture Facial Expressions Cultural Considerations.

Verbal Communication

Listen Pay Attention Respond Goal: to let the student know that he or

she has been understood.

Paraphrase

“I can’t understand any of the lecture notes. I don’t even know where to begin with the homework.”

How could you paraphrase the following? After paraphrasing, what might be your

next step?

Reflect

“I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this class. I’m a single parent. I have to work to pay the bills. Last night I got home from work, stayed up all night completing a paper, went back to work, came to class, and now I’m here.”

How would you reflect the above? What might be your next step?

Clarify

“I don’t understand how to solve this problem.”

What questions could you ask to clarify this situation?

Questions

Questions can be very helpful in showing empathy (that you have heard and understand the student).

Questions can help clarify Questions can help the student become a more

independent learner Caution: Too many questions can make the

student feel like he or she is being badgered.

Ineffective Communication

Scolding Lecturing Interrupting Teasing Shaming Dismissing

Activity

For the following situations provide one appropriate response and one ineffective response: Student: “You’re a tutor. What do you mean you don’t know the

answer?” Student: “I got a bad grade on the work you helped me with

yesterday!” Student: “Thanks so much for your help. I did very well on the

test. I couldn’t have done it without you.” “My teacher hasn’t covered this material yet.” Student: “My instructor is awful. Can you teach me the material

instead?”

Learning Styles

Visual Learners—Learn best with pictures and diagrams rather than hearing explanations.

Auditory Learners—prefer hearing information to seeing information.

Verbal Learners—learn better when the information is conveyed in words rather than pictures.

Kinesthetic Learners—Learn by doing more than by watching or hearing.

Activity

Come up with a visual, verbal, auditory, or kinesthetic way to tutor a common problem or topic.

Activity

Study Skills

Challenge: Our learning centers aren’t set up to allow for regular and extensive one on one tutoring.

Students who need a lot of assistance may be better served by the Student Success Center.

Study Skills-Personal Reflection

What are some of the ways that you study that work well for you?

Do you study differently for different classes? Why or why not? How?

What studying advice or tips might you have for someone taking a subject that you are tutoring?

Study Skills-Implementation

How might you be able to help a student in the learning center with his or her study skills?

Study Skills (continued)

Connect with learning styles… Earlier we talked about learning styles and how

to communicate effectively with students who learn best certain ways—visual, verbal, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.

You might be able to share some of that information with students…ideas for studying based on his or her learning style.

Study Skills-Follow up

Help the student determine what works best for himself or herself? Does the student prefer to study in a group or

alone?What study habits does the student already

have? How have they worked? What mightthe student do to improve?