Tutor Self-Assessment Blog Post

 

1. This Friday, I had the opportunity to tutor a friend of mine who was also studying compsci.  We picked this day during the evening at 8pm since that was the only time he was available to call this week.  Our topic was Data Structures using C++.

2. I definitely needed to review this subject myself and I brought a lot of older materials from previous courses for reference.  I compiled a list of key topics for this course and made sure I had examples for each.  Demonstrations are very important for this topic because following along through abstract explanations can be very confusing.  I checked to see if all the programs were working properly.  The software we used to conduct the tutoring session was Discord since we’ve used it in the past.  It has screen sharing capabilities as well so I could project my Microsoft Visual Studio to showcase the code I was using.  Other than that, it was just making sure I had backup materials in the event that I forgot something.

3. The expectations were that we’d go over and review things from the class in its totality.  He’s studying for his finals so the amount of content we’re going over is quite large.  I planned on going over key points of the class and touching up on anything he might have forgotten.  I wanted to focus on his ability to use what he learned since the final tends to be practical just like the homework assignments.  He had a pretty good understanding of the key points and wanted to focus on going over examples that could be on the final.  This was a good thing since we could focus on specific areas that he wanted to go over and I already had many examples on hand.  We didn’t end up going over everything since we spent more time than expected on certain topics.

4. I mostly just asked a lot of questions.  I let him talk about what he knew and I asked him to clarify things where I felt there was more depth needed.  Since the class centers around data structures, there were a lot of similarities and differences to go over so I asked him to define them.  I also gave him a few mock prompts and asked him to design a program to address them.  This was really helpful in diagnosing what he struggled with and also served as good practice for him.  I used screen share to visually present various things during our session and it was very good for keeping track of what he understood.  He could look over what was on the screen and ask questions directly if he needed.

5. Since we were friends already, I didn’t feel uncomfortable speaking with him at all.  There were times where I felt that maybe my position as tutor would create a different atmosphere but we went through the session as though we were classmates.  I did my best not to sound awkward or imposing and just treated our conversation as a casual chat.  I think this kept us both open to adding to the discussion.  If he didn’t speak up when we were discussing something, I slowed down and asked him questions.  This was a good way I think to keep him engaged in the conversation and also prevent myself from speaking too much.

6. I think this tutoring session built a lot of confidence for me.  It validated a lot of my beliefs regarding tutoring.  I enjoyed a comfortable atmosphere during this session mostly because I was already familiar with my tutee but also because I presented myself as a peer.  I still need a lot of work to keep track of my time.  This is really important because I planned on talking about several topics that didn’t end up being discussed.  However, I also learned that the tutee may have something entirely different that they want to focus on.  Being able to adapt in the moment can be very jarring, especially since I feel that the tutor has a responsibility to keep the session on track.  At the same time, the tutee should be the one proactively seeking to learn and being vocal about their needs.  I think there’s two different solutions to this problem.  One is simply establishing an agenda with the tutee at the start of the session.  Another is simply checking in frequently and making adjustments to the agenda at will.  My goal is to keep track of time better so I can better help the tutee make these decisions.  The review at the very end is also a very good way to make the session feel productive.  During this session, we barely conducted a review and I thought it didn’t feel necessary since our entire session was reviewing things.  I do think this was a bit of a mistake since a review can do a lot for keeping things fresh on the mind.  I think I need to work on how to conduct a good review and allocate the time for it.  One last thing is I worry that I won’t always be able to communicate in the same casual manner as I did this time so I’m curious how things will go with a tutee I’m less familiar with.  I think the goal is definitely to be that level of comfort and that starts with a good introduction.