My Third observation session

The tutor that I got to observe this time was slightly different because she was tutoring two students at the same time. Her specialty is helping students with grammatical mistakes. The first impression I got from her was that she is a good tutor because she said she has been working with one of the students for a long period of time. Whenever she was having a hard time understanding the student she will suggest other words and explained the meaning of the words, and also to expand their English vocabulary. To help the students when they came into her office she had index cards put up on her wall so she can refer to them when she needed to. The second session happened to be the same student that was in the session the day before. As she explained to her anything about her paper she let the student know if she didn’t understand she can stop her and ask her. When she gave the student new words to use throughout the paper and the student didn’t comprehend she told her to always look up the meaning. The student told the tutor she didn’t want to read her paper out loud and the tutor told her it’s for her own good. That’s one way she will be able to recognize her own grammatical mistakes. She successfully helps her students and enjoys seeing them succeed. At the end of the session the student even asked if she was a teacher because she really helped her, and thanked her many times. 

                                        My second tutoring observation   

When I walked into the second observation I noticed he looked very sophisticated, and intelligent. He introduced himself to her and explained to her why I was in the room with them. i thought that was a nice gesture because most Students feel uncomfortable with me in the room. He first asked for the assignment, and he read the assignment out loud to her, so that they both were clear on what they were reading. He read her title to see if the title matched the title of her essay, I think it’s always important to pay attention to those things. While he read he made sure to make marks on the paper to go and discuss confusions with her. He also wrote notes to himself about the paper, this is a good strategy because that shows the student that you are there to help them and as a tutor you’re doing your best to do so. He was always specific on things that she needed to work on. One concept I did like was when he brought outside issues to help her with her topic better. There was a point during the session that the student asked for grammar help and eh explained to her that grammar isn't that important when writing a paper, that professor look for the more complex things like structure, organization and a clear thesis. But he gave her a suggestion that by reading out loud she would recognize her own grammatical mistakes. 

      In ENG 220 class we had a group project, this group was not an ordinary group project, we had to make our own video about tutoring. We were put in groups and we had to figure out our title it could have been anything that you thought was interesting related to the class topics. Also come up with scenes for the video, and the message that we wanted to send to the audience. Each individual had their own task to worry about. My team and I chose to write about "why writing centers do have rules". Each of us had one scene to think about, in our video we had three different scenarios of our choice.So we filmed all the things that would happen if there weren't rules in writing centers like the use of cell phones, the "therapy" session , and why studying other than a quite place is not a great idea. we chose this topic because we think its important for students to understand why tutoring and studying spaces have rules that they have. I think my group members and I were effective because we related it to events that would happen we did exaggerate a bit but it was to make the video humorous , for example who does not have a phone now a days and always want to be on it? everyone, but in our video we show how that can be a major distraction. Also we show how studying in different locations is a distraction, and we also show that some students will get so comfortable with the tutor that will fall out of track. These all are events that are possible to happen. I think the audience will understand why tutoring spaces should be respected, because not every student can study the same. For example while walking in campus I see students studying out in the courtyard, and I'm the type of student that won't be able to concentrate in that environment.

      The video "The US schools to prisons pipeline" stood out to me because a map was shown and in the map there was a display of how the high school was right across the street from a prison and a juvenile detention center, to me that was shocking. As a future teacher that's one of the things that educators should think about, why have schools around prisons period. We are suppose to help students become better adults not discourage them. By having prisons around schools I think is unnecessary, like there's no benefits, why not build a field where students can play sports, and have events for schools? In this video they also mentioned that if the principal caught you with a hat on several times it will lead to suspension, that is ridiculous we should not pay attention to small things, and look at bigger issues within the school. I'm not saying that hats is not a form of disrespect but take the consequence down a notch suspension is not needed, maybe detention for the whole day or something but in my opinion suspension is overboard, and it's not like it  would not happen again  because in my high school it was prohibited to have hats on, and if a hat was seen on your head the principal would take it off, but the students did not care they would have it on and bring it to school anyway.
     In the video of "Colorado's schools" I think they also have exaggerated responses because a student for writing in a bathroom stall was taken to jail, like really that is not necessary. Again I'm certainly not saying its okay to do that but going to jail shouldn't be the solution. And like one of the men on the video said the student wont learn from his mistakes because he went to jail, he will just be mad at the police. 

My first tutoring session

      As we were walking to the class I was really nervous about how was I going to keep the conversation going and I was worried about what the students would think about me as a tutor because i want to be helpful to them so they will be able to succeed and want my help. When I was assigned the students I was happy but nervous at the same time but than I told myself that I have to maintain good body language and come out as friendly and helpful so they won't react shy or nervous. Before I sat down with the students I introduced myself and shook their hands, and asked their names, I realized they were both friendly and I became less anxious and some nervousness went away (although I was still nervous).  The first thing I asked about was their topic, and after I asked them if they had a copy of the given assignment, student J let me borrow hers, and I read it and got a better understanding of what direction they should be going. The focus of the assignment was whether they thought that biculturism is a confusion or was it positives/strengths. When I was finished reading, I asked them to tell me what were the readings about that they read in class in which they have to connect to the paper, and I asked both to see the different ideas they both got from the texts. I asked them both what side they were on they were both on the same page they had written a little about both in bullet points. I asked for them to read it out loud to me, of course one at a time, to get an insight of what should I be suggesting for each students and their needs, while one student was reading I was taking notes on what was her view, and I asked the other to expand on her ideas, I did this for both students.   
      After that, I asked them both to choose three ideas that they feel most strongly about, and than I asked them to expand the three ideas into more of a paragraph form. Student J, did it but not completely, I did not take it offensively because maybe she has her own way of organizing herself when it comes to writing. Student A was a little lost, but I helped her with the argument that she wanted to make in her paper. Towards the end of the session, we got a little off topic but I found a way to connect it to their paper. Although I was really nervous and didn't know what to do, I think by talking and  all three of us communicating, and suggesting opinions it was not bad at all. Before I left they both told me "thank you for helping me, you were such a big help, I did not know I was going to get this far", and it felt good hearing those words.

My first tutoring observation

When he first introduced himself he started off by saying "what can i help you with today" and i think that he should of taken the time to actually introduce himself because its like hes rushing like let me help you and get finished with this session. he did not read over the essay first he just went straight to the professors comments to analyze what the professor was looking for, and what the student needed more help in.Something that I personally did not like was that he was paying attention to LOC'S since the beginning of the session he didn't even ask her what her paper was about. But than he started to help her with organization which is more of a HOC which I was glad to see because i was getting bored of listening to him correcting her sentences. Personally I agree with Lauren I think that I was sitting way to close to them, and I noticed the student begin to feel uncomfortable. She was understanding what he was explaining to her, which is good and he would always ask her if what he suggested made sense to her and i think that's an important question to ask because if a student does not understand what you are saying the session is already a failure. During the middle of the session he THAN asked what was her thesis, something that should have been established in the beginning. His behavior and body language at the beginning he looked helpful and sounded like he wanted to do his best to help her but after a while he began to put his hand on his face, like his head leaning on his hand while the student was asking him some questions and I thought that was rude, and it looked as if he was not interested. He was also yawning constantly that was also rude and didn't even say excuse me, my first experience was not the best but I do hope the second would be better.

hello my name is jarisel and in my ENG 220 class we watched a couple of videos
What is pedagogy? In my opinion pedagogy is the practice of teaching, and how you as a person view education. Pedagogy explains how a subject is presented, and as a teacher evaluating yourself to see if the process is working correctly.
          Ken Robinson's video he talks about how everyone is born a genius but the education system sucks it out of you. As a future teacher i do think that education does not allow you to pursue what you really want to do in life i thought that when i went to high school that was the place i would find myself to what i would want to become in the future and that didn't go as planned, high schools just prepare you before you to become a college student. I had NO type of extracurricular activities at my high school one of the main reasons why i wanted to get out of that place, they didn't have activities that you will enjoy and get you motivated. Another point that Ken spoke about was "creativity is as important as literacy, we should treat it the same" i also agree with him in that point, when I was observing at a charter school they did not have art class because they did not have the money for it , but I think that they should include art classes because it gives the student the ability to get creative and have fun. Another important point that he spoke upon was that all education are the same, they introduce all subjects math,science, social studies, etc and leave music and dance class out as if its not important, when your a child you might have often have heard a saying that goes like this "you cannot study music because you wont become an artist" or "you have to go to school because you wont become a dancer" and these are the type of things that kids don't want to listen to, and that's when the interest in school decreases. I know kids that say I want to become an actor but coming to school is a must, why is it a must because " i wont get anywhere with that career" and I think its important to follow your dreams and not just become professional to HAVE a job, one of my favorite quotes are "if you don't build your dream someone will hire you to build theirs" -Tony Gaskins.