Tori Pollvogt
Tutoring Philosophy
11/3/2015
My tutoring philosophy is encompassed by time. Considering time controls everything we do whether we like it or not, it is a pivotal part of both writers’ and tutors’ practices and processes. While writing and time go hand in hand, time is especially fragile for a tutor in the Ott Memorial writing Center. While tutors are given an hour at max with their tutees, and most commonly only a half hour, there are many tactics and skills tutors utilize to accomplish what they individually believe defines a successful conference. Therefore, in these short sessions, I try to focus on four main values that are important to me, all of which work together, and are easily remembered by the acronym, time. I find these tasks can be reasonably enacted in these short sessions,and if implemented, make for the most successful appointments. These values are the transfer of knowledge, the use of interpersonal skills to form relationships, the instigation and enforcement of metacognition, and lastly, the establishment of ethos. By creating interpersonal relationships with my tutees, I find that it is easier to transfer knowledge, as well as to build a trustworthy persona for myself as a tutor. Through instigating and enforcing metacognition I am able to get the writer thinking about their own thinking about writing, which essentially allows them to take full control of their paper, permitting them to make the changes they want, instead of me simply telling them what to do.
I truly believe that all four of these values work to create a comfortable atmosphere of mutual respect that allows for collaboration and progress to take place. That is why it is so important to me to try and accomplish these four things in even the shortest of appointments. Therefore, I am going to go through each value and briefly explain how they are exhibited and implemented in day-to-day practice.
The first value is the transfer of knowledge or “knowledge transfer.” I think that while this may seem like an obvious step in a conference, it is important to keep on our minds as tutors so that we can make sure we are not only transferring our knowledge to our tutees, but that we are also listening and incorporating the knowledge that they are transferring to us. What is most valuable to me is to not simply giving the tutee answers, but instead giving them something to build on.
The second value is the use of interpersonal skills to create a relationship with the writer. It is extremely important to create a relationship with the writer because it helps make them feel more comfortable and also builds trust. This value is very practical to achieve in any timed session and I consider it one of my strengths. I have always had a strong personality and I find that every time someone has come into the writing center, I have found a way to greet her and get to know her that allows her to feel comfortable, so we can have a successful session.
The third value, metacognition, is definitely the most challenging to achieve in a 30-minute session and even difficult sometimes to achieve in an hour session. However, even simply just instigating or enforcing metacognition in a session instills this idea in the readers mind and can aid them in the process.What is most important about the value of metacognition is to not only get the writer to show their understanding of the question, meet the needs of their specific audience, and fulfill the requirements of the genre, but to alsohave the ability to begin to notice, describe, and deduce their patterns of error as well as think about the necessities of the paper in their revision processes. I believe that metacognition is an important tool for all, but especially for writers and tutors. In the case of the tutor I believe it is important to use metacognition because if we think about our thinking it helps us to make things more clear and elucidated for the writer. Most of the time metacognition will not be able to be fully achieved, but if a relationship is formed with the student, metacognition will become much easier--and if not, even just the tutor’s use of metacognition can be helpful.
Last but not least is establishing ethos. As for day-to-day practice, ethos goes along with the three other values in the sense that it is based on the relationship I establish with the writer, the knowledge that I am able to transfer to them, and also my ability to put my thoughts into words that they fully comprehend. Ethos is significant because we as tutors want to build our credibility, as well as the credibility of the writing center. It is important that we stay on top of our game so that we are able to help each tutee to the best of our ability.
I value these four principles and believe that it is extremely important to try and accomplish these with each and every one of my tutees so that they can have a beneficial session and continue returning to the writing center.