Tutorial on tutoring

Tutorial on tutoring

Introduction

Lots of hard working folks in the OLPC community are not educators but they are having to teach others what they know. This is a great opportunity to start a collection of tutorials and guidelines to provide suggestions and support to accidental tutors and their tutees.

The actual tutorial lives at wikieducator.org as Tutorial on tutoring

Join the study group

If you would like to participate in a cohort working through the tutorial as a group, add your name below. This is an online workshop format with discussion, sharing and collaboration. Time: 5-8 hours over 2-3 weeks. Provide a summary of what you think you need, and what you already know.

Mel Chua

What I already know: I've tutored, taught, and done curriculum design for nearly 8 years now, and know some basics of education theory, classroom management (what a term!), making lesson plans and lecture notes (blergh), holding discussions... a lot of it isn't so much "I have X skill," but "I've been in these situations enough that I know how to improvise comfortably within them," which I learned by working under, talking with, and learning from some excellent teachers while I was myself a student. However, I've always taught under the "supervision" of somebody else - being a TA for a professor, running a summer camp session under the watchful eye of a master teacher who mentored several teams of newbies. (The exceptions are when I've taught coached my younger friends and family members informally through their schoolwork, but that's not a structured "teaching" arrangement per se.)

What I think I need: I'd like to learn how to better communicate the things my student and I are doing to their parents and teachers, because I tend to like exploring subjects with my students until we find something they're really interested in - the trouble is that this may not be explicitly on the syllabus. I'm not enthralled by standards, but I understand why they're there; I'd like to learn how to reconcile the "they must learn X" pace of standards with my belief that learning should be... well, fun, and dictated by an intrinsic motivation rather than an external declaration. I'd also like to know if there are any legalities you have to worry about as a volunteer tutor - I've been sheltered from any paperwork or fuss by always doing my tutoring under the umbrella of a school or program. I'd like to learn how to draw better boundaries between my role as a teacher and my personal life - I become good friends with many of my students, and while this is great, it's also potentially problematic. Finally, I'd like to learn where and how volunteer tutors can find resources, since buying learning supplies out-of-pocket for all my students isn't particularly sustainable on my lack of budget.

Ok, we can do most of that. Plan to look at formalizing the expectations and roles of the tutor and tutee. Learning theory is interesting and understanding the concepts and styles, these can be applied to your own tutoring.

Need more about who is being tutored. Adult volunteers? kids? How are tutees linked with the tutor - to address legal and/or paperwork issues. ..vt

For the purposes of this "class," I'll probably be working with two of my cousins, middle-school age. Mchua

How to help

This project is a collaboratively organized undertaking, so the best way to get started is to just dive in and introduce yourself.

No project mailing list, IRC channel, or other form of communication other than this wikipage, but watch this space for developments as they happen.

Help wanted

If you are interested in helping, you can help! We need people from all disciplines and experiences. If, after reading this page, you're still unsure of how to get involved, contact User:valeriet.

If you want help with your part of this project, you can post specific tasks below. Please detail what kind of help you are looking for here, a timeframe or expiration date for the posting, along with contact information or how people who are interested should get involved.

Improve this page!

We are looking for volunteers to help improve this project page and keep it up to date. If you see how you can make something more coherent or organized, please jump in and edit; if there's a resource you think would be useful to this project, please add it. If there's something about the project itself you have ideas about, you can add it to this page directly, or start a discussion on the talk page. You do not need to contact anyone about this job - just do it! This posting never expires.

Events

Upcoming

coming soon...

• review - review the material in the tutorial and provide feedback. Time: 1-2 hours over several days for each version review.

Past

Activities related to this project that have already occurred, for archival purposes.