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01

Greeting & Climate Setting

Step One: Greeting and Climate Setting

  • Setting up the session for success

  • May involve rearranging furniture

  • Tutor and tutee site side-by-side

    • Tutor will sit to the right of a right-handed student

    • Tutor will sit to the left of a left-handed student

The Tutoring Process

Credit: Ross B. MacDonald, Ph.D., author of The Master Tutor: A Guidebook for More Effective Tutoring, outlined the twelve step tutoring cycle that I will be implementing in my tutoring sessions with students.

 

Goals of Tutoring:

Promote independent learning

Enhance studying and problem solving abilities

07

Tutee Summary of Content

Step Seven: Tutee Summary of Content

  • Light Bulb Effect

    • “Oh, I get it! Red blood cells are important for health because…”

    • “Oh, OK! A metaphor is just like a simile except that…”

  • Ask student to summarize or you can both revisit content.

  • This summarizing process transfers the newly learned information from the student’s short term to long term memory.

02

Identification of Task

Step Two: Identification of Task

  • Tutor will ask what the tutee wishes to work on?

  • Tutor will understand the tutee’s need and be empathetic.

  • Follow up – building on the tutee’s knowledge and attaining clarification

03

Breaking the Task into Parts

Step Three: Breaking the Task into Parts

  • This may help the student feel less overwhelmed

  • It is usually the best way to tackle a large problem

  • Example:

    • Tutee: I need to understand mitosis.

    • Tutor: Let’s understand it, diagram it, and label the parts.

04

Identification of Thought

Step Four: Identification of Thought

  • Processes which Underlie the Task

  • Help the tutee learn how to approach learning the type of task with which he/she is having problems

    • The tutor will show the tutee how to do the problem; not do it for them.

    • The tutor will talk about the different steps involved to solve the problem; simply providing the answer only meets your tutee’s short-term needs

    • Tutor will promote independence by showing tutee how to use textbook and other appropriate resources

05

Set the Agenda for the Session

Step Five: Set the Agenda for the Session

  • The efficient accomplishment of any task involves:

    • First knowing what the task is and secondly allocating available time to the task.

      • “Well, we have 30 minutes. How should we spend this time today?”

    • Involve the tutee in the agenda-making process; generally, the tutee should have an idea of his/priorities

08

Tutee Summary of Underlying

Step Eight: Tutee Summary of Underlying

  • Identify the thought process which underlies the task.

  • Summarize the learning process

  • The objective is to cause the tutee to explain the thought process he/she used, knowing that such an explanation helps move the understanding from short term to long term memory and also helps you and the tutee assess understanding.

09

Confirmation

Step Nine: Confirmation

  • Reinforcement of specific accomplishments

  • Thoughtful evaluation

10

What Next?

Step Ten: What Next?

  • “Well, where do you go from here in this class?”

  • “What will you do next and how will what we’ve done help you?

  • Reinforcement of connection between current content and future content

11

Planning Next Session

Step Eleven: Arranging and Planning the Next Session

  • Minimize the effort involved to schedule the next appointment

  • This is the time to determine if another session is necessary.

    • Same time every week? Just before exams?

12

Closing

Step Twelve: Closing and Goodbye

  • “Thanks for being so prepared.”

  • “I’m glad that this session was helpful to you.

06

Addressing the Task

Step Six: Addressing the Task

  • The tutor together with the tutee will address the content.

  • It is important the source of information are the course materials

  • Helping the tutee learn from the materials so as to promote independence.

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