I remember when I was tutored in math all throughout high school and every week I went to my tutor's house and worked in her living room while her three children ranging from the ages of infancy to three years old where always nearby and at times very distracting. My tutor was amazing and always helped me raise my grade but there was always some frustration as I tried to concentrate when the baby started crying or the toddlers demanded attention. My alternative to service learning is to look at the environment of tutoring. What is the best setting for this situation? What fosters the best learning? What about you guys' past tutoring experiences?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Academic Environment
Three days a week I go to Lusher Charter School to tutor kids in the writing lab. Before my first day two weeks ago, I imagined what the setting would be like. I pictured a room of about a few students and tutors working separately and quietly. It surprised me when I walked into the library to find it crowded with kids signing in and lining up to be handed off to a tutor, and there are about twenty of us. There is no loud noise but but the environment was more crowded than I anticipated. It's not a negative environment and I'm thrilled Lusher students have plenty of people to come to when they need help, but it was different from my expectations. The experience is very enriching, and it's helped me work on my own writing skills as well as strengthen the kids. In fact, not being in a solitary setting has given me the opportunity to meet more people my age from Tulane that I probably wouldn't have met normally.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is such an interestig topic as I believe that each student learns differently. Some students need groups with interactions while others need silence and alone time in a cubby on the third floor of the library. Personally, I'm the student who needs the cubby. My mom is a special Ed teacher and has to cater to 15 different styles of learning in her self contained classroom. It's a really difficult thing to assess for a collective group of students because every student is so different than the next. Lusher's tutoring environment seems interesting. Can students opt for a private room with their tutor to create a quieter and more focused environment?
ReplyDelete