Students, Prison and Court

     Today on class we watch a video about school, students and prison. Some of the questions that are on my mind are: is there anything behind this actions were only color people suffer their penalty of having problems with the police and courts? What is going on in society that it's making me think that it's all racism? Why they need to put a mark on these children that later will stop them from subside on life, like most of the cases of the students in the video? I am sure there most be a different way to make students understand that they need to change the way they behave.

      I am completely disagree with the way these students are treated, how you are going to put a child in court because of a graffiti? I understand he was wrong but they needed to do something else to make the students understand and change. Think about it, now you had put the student in a situation were he needed to be presented in a penalty court which will stay on the student's record for life and every time the student go outside to look for a job it will be the first thing that will come up and stop them from success. What is the choice that the student have now that he's an adult and cannot find a job to pay for his bills? He will find a way to get money and subside, that means he will be forced to do worse things in order to get the money he needs since he cannot get it in a right and legal way. 

Observation #4, Tutoring Session 4, The Last Observation....

This is the last hour of tutoring observation, I feel that I had gain a lot of experience observing all these tutors and tutees, I have my positive and negative observations which will help me to make decisions on my own tutoring session.

This time I observed a student that in currently taking ENG 102, which is a “Writing Though Literature Class” the title of her paper is “Immigrants to the USA” and the paper that they are working on is a first draft already graded. The tutor goes over the paper and correct the grammar errors that the student had has she reads the essay. The tutor realized that the problem the student has is that she needs to re-write the thesis all over, though talking is that the tutor made the student write the new thesis and correct her sometimes “You do not want to use WHAT you want to use WHICH” or “You want to use EXPLAIN”. This session was short since the tutee came late to the writing center but what I liked the most is that the tutor explained everything to the tutee by examples that make the student think and explain in her own works the understanding of the topic.

Session #3 on the Writing Center!!!

                                                   Great Experience (Session # 3)

On my third opportunity I had finally the   chance to observe a female tutoring a session. She had the whole time a smile on her face and showed herself very friendly. The writing center secretary introduced us inside the tutors’ office and the tutor seen to be happy of having me observing her on her tutoring session. Once again as we were alone she introduced herself and invited me to go to the session as soon as we get there she introduced me and herself to the tutee and invited me to have a set.

To begin with the session she asked the student to tell her what was the topic of her paper and what were the ideas that she had plus what is that she knows? The tutee explains her that her paper was about the education and the money. There is when the tutor starts asking about her personal opinion about the subject. After the tutee finished talking the tutor suggested the tutee to let her read the paper and then will discuss it. I really enjoyed the session the tutor was really pleasant and respectful. After reading the paper she noticed that the student had some part of the paper that wasn’t that clear so she states, “This is really good, I love this paragraph but I think this could be even more clear, we can’t work on the grammar since the paper haven’t being grade but we can work on the structure to make it more clear” I truly liked the way the tutor referred to the tutee she was very careful to not heart her feelings and to make her comfortable whole they work  on the paper.

This session was the best session I had so far I enjoyed and love the tutor, she was always positive and with a smile on her face. The tutor ended the session saying that if the tutee wants can always come back and she will take a look at it at any time even after the professor make comments on it and grade it.

Observation # 2 (Session 2)

The second session that I had observed was with a male tutor as well. This time he presented himself and welcomed me to the writing center, he told me that he had took the same class ENG220 a few years ago and that he was glad to help me now. Actually he was graduated from LAGCC a few years ago and now he is a full-time tutor. This tutor is Hispanic and during the session I was observing he get to tutored a student that were not native English speakers. This combination was great to me because he knew the feeling of having a language barrier and could understand the tutee’s needs.

The tutor knew the tutee from previous sessions and had a nice relationship since he’s being working with her from few months and she keeps requesting him. The student was taking ENG102 class which is a research paper class, at the beginning of the session the first thing that the tutor did was introduce me to the student. After read what the student has to start he explained that what the tutee had was an abstract and that he needed to see the assignment which later he handled to me, in order to give me a better understanding of the situation. Subsequently, he states “Everything that you have is good, just narrowed down” which make me realize that he was motivating the student to keep writing, which is a very good. The tutee needed to write the thesis statement as she started “I will discuss fact one, fact two and fact three, using this, this and that” the structure of the paper was a great start for a student with language barriers, since most of them does not know how to start. Later the tutor helped her to combine the sentence since that is her most common problem, on his effuse trying to help the student he adds, I remember that you took philosophy before think on something that you can apply here to help you from the experience and knowledge that you gain on that class.  Now that you have the idea that you can apply from the philosophy class think in a way you can apply it though the character. He made the tutee think about the main idea of the paper and asked questions that helped her to think. After a quiet time he gives an answer which made the tutor to ask for more and so on.

The tutee and the tutor had a good relationship and understand each other, they know what they expect to get from each other and make a good team work. As the session is over the tutor ask for any final questions that she may have, for what she positive says that she is ready to go and may come back with the paper done so he could look at it. After the tutee left the session the tutor nicely asked me if I had any question referring to my needs which I found very nice from him based on my previous experience.  

Observation # 1

Today was my first observation at the Writing Center at LaGuardia CC. I was very nervous since I didn't know how it will be. On the session (my first session) I was assigned to work with a male tutor and I had observe some thing that I will like to share.

OBSERVATION # 1:

The session was from 13:00-14:00pm. the tutor and the tutee seen to me that know each other from before, and it looks like the have a good relationship. They just started working having me there without even asking for my name. The assignment was to write a paper about "Community" I guess from what I was listening to, since they did not informed me of anything and where working on a paper that the tutor knew. The tutor used to ask open questions like " why this is important?" to have the tutee cooperate but the girl usually makes a silence and the tutor start talking again, "I think this is important because...but lets see if you can think in something else" the silence still there, it make me think that she (the tutee) wanted him to think for her. He start "Okay, talk about a 24hrs service, a public transportation".

 

The tutee start writing the information down to start building the essay. The tutor kind of guide the tutee pointing out where to put the information on her paper. The tutor later on asked her what she was thinking to put on her paper, after having the tutee answer he again asked why was it important? what made her confused? The tutor after talk about the confusions gives the tutee a lot of examples that can guide her with her paper. But again it seen to me that the tutor talk more then the tutee she did not participate a lot on the session, he give her a bid list of facts that she may use and she left the place with a smile on her face with a loosely paper full of ideas and ready to start her essay.

 

The appearance of the tutor was professional and his vocabulary was developed but his personality and he's way of approach the situation wasn't that much. The idea that a have now respecting him is that he basically write the papers for the students and do not work on develop the students critical thinking since he does the thinking part. He's actions wasn't the actions of an tutor that is on he's work place, I think he was very comfortable that he forget he was working he continuously lay on the table and touch his hair and head, he didn't introduced me or presented himself "follow me, set there and watch" was one of he's words to me.  I feel that this is not a positive experience "I hope" but let see what I found next time.

First Experience Tutoring a ENG101 Students...

                                       First Experience Tutoring ENG101 Students      

     Hello everyone today me and my classmates went to a classroom where a ENG101 class was in session. We offer them help as tutors. Our whole class was divided to help those ENG101 students, every classmate was selected to tutor two of these students. Their assignment was to write a paper about the culture strange and weakness or the struggles that a college students suffer for being an immigrant based on the language.On my tutor session I get to tutor two females that were excellent. One was born here but her parents were Colombian-Puerto Rican and she speaks English-Spanish or how she described it "broken English". The other girl was born here as well but her first language was bangladesh since that was her parents decision based on their culture. 

      When I was assigned to work with these two ladies I was nervous and scared but I made myself strong and with a smile on my face I went close to them. I presented myself and I asked for their names with I prefer to reserve for me. I friendly asked what was the assignment about, student number one who was the Colombian-Puerto Rican descendent explained to me more clearly them the student number two. But it is good to mention that student number two even though she has more problems with the language barriers and learned English as she was seven years old (only practice English at school) had more ideas about the paper that student number one and I think it's because her personal experience give her more details to apply in the paper. Does not mean that student number one does not have personal experience that can help her with the paper because that was what I was trying to make her think of but she was more shy and I seen that student number two used to speak over her a lot. 

     What I had found that the students where struggle with was trying to find sources. Girls number two had some notion of how to look up for sources online on LaGuardia library but needed to get push a little bit. Girl number one was just starting with the paper, she didn't know what to do or how to begin but as number two girl was talking to me about what was interesting to her girl number one started alone to look up for sources and quickly found something that may help her with the paper. What I noticed about these two girls was that none of them wanted to write about their experience, for example, girl number one for the personal experience that she has was more likely to write about a college student with difficulties on the language but she chooses to work on culture . Girl number two was more likely supported by her arguments to work on culture and chooses to work on College and the language barriers that also apply on her personal life but she does not have that much argument about it then what she has for her cultural experiences. 

     My experience was great and beside I get to have the experience of tutoring two students at the same time I get to know two different type of personalities that will help me in the future because there will always be a shy and a open student in a classroom daily bases. I am looking forward to see these two students again and see how they go with the paper since I left them with great ideas on their minds. 

Pedagogy, Ken Robinson and Tutoring...

                                           Pedagogy, Ken Robinson and Tutoring

My name is Natalia, I am attending a class for "Teaching Writing" and today we watched two videos on class. We heard about Dr. Sonwalker Nish abd Sir Ken Robinson. Those educators give us thier general meaning about "Pedagogy" and the theory on teaching children. Pedagogy is known as the children's teacher theory and/or method about the teacher's way to design the lesson and how it influence on the student.

Sir Robinson 2006's video teaches us about Robinson's opinion on education, future, academic abilities  and the idea that everyone born to be a genius. Robinson gives importances on his definition of intelligence and the modern education system. He divided intelligence in three major parts: diversity which are the differences that exist between each student, their way of thinking and processing the ideas and their learning process and their critical thinking skills. The dynamic part which is multi-tasking the tyle learning that the brain can undestand and process which make the teachers to generate different type of plan lessons. And distinct, what attracts a student's attention and make them be interested and develop their skills even more on the area that they are more interested on.  I need to keep in mind that Sir Robinson's definition of intelligence and he's way to divide it's definition can be linked with what we learned about James Moffett in the book Active Voice.

 

Extra Credit: videos

                                    What happens in a Writing Center Visit?

            During the writing center visit the tutor makes sure that the student feels welcome to the writing center from the minute they cross the door. It’s essential to build a good relationship with the student form the beginning to have them comfortable to start working with you. During the writing center visit it’s necessary that the tutor asks questions like what is the paper about, what are the ideas that the student has, where do the students see their ideas that they just mentioned on their paper. The writing center works to get feedbacks, ask questions about ways to improve the students writing.

                                    Visit the Writing Center at WCC

            The visit on the writing center at WCC used to be very helpful for the students. When the student talks to someone else about their writing they start to hear their own ideas on their head. Real writing goes through speech and thinking. Students feel that the writing center is a very helpful place where they found what they need, where they feel that there are people that take care of them and are interested on improve their writing skills. The tutor start a conversation with the student with I think… and convert this opinion on an idea to guide the students on improving their paper.

                                    The Do’s and Don’t’s of Peer Tutoring

Learning what to do and what not to do one a tutoring session:

            The tutor should never come in to a session late, act like he doesn’t care about the student’s needs. Tell the students that the class is easy that you don’t understand how they are doing badly. Leave them reading by themselves without giving them advice and end the session without giving the students any idea that can guide them. Tell them to read by themselves and find their own answers at home by their own.

            What a tutor should always do, be there waiting for the student to arrive to the session, make sure that they sign the paper after they read it carefully (contract). Ask the students what they are looking for. Ask the student what they already know to look for the answer of what they don’t know. At the end of the session (the last 5-10 minutes) ask the students if they have any other question if the answer is “YES” and the tutor does not have more time ask the student if they will like to schedule an appointment and bring in all the notes and questions they have the next time they meet.

                                                            The Texting Students

            The tutor will try to attract the student’s attention out of their phone and make them focus on the session in process. You (the tutor) don’t want to be disrespectful but you want the student to use the time efficiently and get out of the session with good ideas. A “no cell phone” sign in the writing center will be effective in order to have the student aware that tutoring session is like a regular class and not having a cell phone with them for only 45 minutes could be very efficient. It could be helpful that at the beginning of the session the tutor clarify that for the next 45 minutes which is the long that the session will be handled, the student turn their cell phone off, put it in silence or vibrate to fully focus on the session. If you tutoring the class where the student’s constantly checking the phone it’s very important that the tutor do not get nervous, mad or sad, they must be respectful all the time and nicely refer to the student  saying that if it’s not an emergency you will be glad that they put their phone away. Based on the video the tutor could had said to the student that he will appreciate that she put the phone away so they could work together on improving the paper.