Collaborative Tutoring Plan
Goals
Despite the fact that we will only be in the classrooms at Meadow Valley Middle School* (pseudonym) for a total of six hours this semester, we do have some goals that we hope to accomplish. Here is a list of them:
1. Establish a professional relationship with the student or students.
2. Assist student(s) in identifying one classroom, organizational, or study habit that will help them academically.
3. Help student not only understand the subject area in which I am working, but help them to develop effective study and learning habits that will assit them throughout school and life.
Establishing a Connection
Even though we will be trying to establish a professional relationship with the student or students, it is important for the student(s) to feel comfortable working with us. Some of the ways that we can help the student(s) become comfortable working with us include:
1. Begin by introducing ourselves to the student(s) and telling them a little bit about ourselves. When we tell them about ourselves, we should incude why we are tutoring them, what we are majoring in, and what grade level we would like to teach one day. If they ask us why we choose our majors and why we want to teach, we should give them honest answers. However, we don’t think it is necessary to reveal too much about our personal lives because it will take away from tutoring time and we want to establish ourselves as professionals. Most teachers, for example, don’t tell their life story to their students on the first day of class. As the semester wears on, usually the students learn more about the teacher. Likewise, we don’t want to tell our life stories on the first day of tutoring. If the student has questions about us, we can answer them as they come up, but otherwise, we shouldn’t tell them too much about ourselves.
2. Asking the student(s) to tell us a little bit about themselves. For example, ask the student(s) if they play any sports or are involved in any extracurricular activities. If we share any of the same interests as the student(s) or participated in the same things when we were in middle school, we should try to generate a brief discussion with the student about such interests. Hopefully by doing this, we will establish a better relationship with the student(s).
3.Don’t be afraid to share your weaknesses. If the student sees that you have areas of difficulty as well, they may be more apt to open up to you. Sharing things about yourself lets the student know that you trust them, then letting them know that it is ok for them to trust you. Be careful not to give too much information though.
4. Before starting on any work on the day that we tutor, talk to the student(s) for a few minutes to see how their day/week has been going.
5. Be supportive of student(s) as they work through difficult material- this will let them know that you are there to help them out and will make it easier for them to talk about what they are having difficulty with.
Pre-Assessment
Since we have a limited amount of time with the student(s), it is also important that we can quickly determine what the student(s)’ needs are. We will accomplish such a task by:
1. Talking to the student(s)’ teacher beforehand to see if they can provide any insight about the strengths and weaknesses of the student(s).
2. Give student(s) the opportunity to ask any questions they already have when first meeting with them.
3. Ask what their most and least favorite part of a subject or assignemt is. Usually when students are good at something, they like it better. If it is their favorite part, is can most likely be assumed that they have reasonable skill at it.
Strategies for Assisting Students
While the task of assisting different students can vary a good deal, these are some general strategies we feel should be used to support students as we help them with their academic work:
1. Identify what parts of the subject matter seem interesting and engaging for the students.
2. Provide basic scaffolding for difficult subject matter.
3. Relate their area of study to a task used in everyday life. Proximal goals work best with student because at such as young age, it is hard to delay gratification.
4. Help students internalize the “summarizing” process by modeling how to reflect on the main points of content covered at the end of a lesson.
5. Be attentive to external and internal factors that may affect the student’s performance, such as organization of their class materials, their self-efficacy for a certain topic, their attitude about schoolwork in general, or a recent problem they have been experiencing.
6. Be prepared with extra materials (worksheets, thinking exercises, etc.) to supplement and/or clarify what is being covered in class.
Ongoing Assessment
Assessing the student(s) throughout the entire six week duration is crucial in determining if the student(s) are learning and if the strategies that we are using are working. Some assessment techniques that we will use include:
1. Reviewing each week what we worked on during the previous week.
2. Asking student(s) to perform problems or tasks.
3. Having student set goals at the start of the six weeks, and asking them every week where they feel they are at with them. By having the student(s) set goals and asking them about them every week, we are trying to teach the student(s) how to personally assess their work. Hopefully by the time we are done tutoring, the students will have internalized this assessment strategy and will use it in the future and in other classes.
4. To get the student involved with personal assessment, we need to show them WHY and HOW it benefits them. Simply telling them that it is going to help is not enough. Giving them personal examples of when you were their age and how you use this material today may make it seem more useful to them.
5. Ask the host teacher if it is possible to compare what the student has done in class to what they have done during tutoring sessions in order to further assess what areas need to be reviewed or reinforced.
