Why we tutor -- The writing process -- The tutoring process -- Examining expectations -- Observing in the writing center -- Tutoring practice -- Reflecting on the first session -- Reading in the writing center -- Working with ESL writers -- Writing center research -- Writing centers: historical and theoretical contexts -- Interdisciplinary and on-line tutoring -- What if
Grounded in current writing center theory and practice, The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring provides students with a comprehensive introduction to effective tutoring. Throughout the text, readers hear the voices of tutors and writers in first-person peer tutor accounts, reflective essays, and transcripts from actual sessions. Within each chapter, techniques, models, and exercises provide instruction appropriate for any level of tutoring.
The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice offers, in unparalleled breadth and depth, the major scholarship on writing centers. This up-to-date resource for students, instructors, and scholars anthologizes essays on all major areas of interest to writing center theorists and practitioners. Seven sections provide a comprehensive view of writing centers: history, progress, theorizing the writing center, defining the writing center's place, writing-across-the curriculum, the practice of tutoring, cultural issues, and technology.
The Idea of a Writing Laboratory is a book about possibilities, about teaching and learning to write in ways that can transform both teachers and students. Author Neal Lerner explores higher education’s rich history of writing instruction in classrooms, writing centers and science laboratories. By tracing the roots of writing and science educators’ recognition that the method of the lab––hands-on student activity—is essential to learning, Lerner offers the hope that the idea of a writing laboratory will be fully realized more than a century after both fields began the experiment. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, writing instructors and science teachers recognized that mass instruction was inadequate for a burgeoning, “non-traditional” student population, and that experimental or laboratory methods could prove to be more effective. Lerner traces the history of writing instruction via laboratory methods and examines its successes and failures through case studies of individual programs and larger reform initatives. Contrasting the University of Minnesota General College Writing Laboratory with the Dartmouth College Writing Clinic, for example, Lerner offers a cautionary tale of the fine line between experimenting with teaching students to write and “curing” the students of the disease of bad writing. The history of writing within science education also wends its way through Lerner’s engaging work, presenting the pedagogical origins of laboratory methods to offer educators in science in addition to those in writing studies possibilities for long-sought after reform. The Idea of a Writing Laboratory compels readers and writers to “don those white coats and safety glasses and discover what works” and asserts that “teaching writing as an experiment in what is possible, as a way of offering meaning-making opportunities for students no matter the subject matter, is an endeavor worth the struggle.”
Case studies and pedagogical strategies to help science and engineering students improve their writing and speaking skills while developing professional identities. To many science and engineering students, the task of writing may seem irrelevant to their future professional careers. At MIT, however, students discover that writing about their technical work is important not only in solving real-world problems but also in developing their professional identities. MIT puts into practice the belief that “engineers who don't write well end up working for engineers who do write well,” requiring all students to take “communications-intensive” classes in which they learn from MIT faculty and writing instructors how to express their ideas in writing and in presentations. Students are challenged not only to think like professional scientists and engineers but also to communicate like them.This book offers in-depth case studies and pedagogical strategies from a range of science and engineering communication-intensive classes at MIT. It traces the progress of seventeen students from diverse backgrounds in seven classes that span five departments. Undergraduates in biology attempt to turn scientific findings into a research article; graduate students learn to define their research for scientific grant writing; undergraduates in biomedical engineering learn to use data as evidence; and students in aeronautic and astronautic engineering learn to communicate collaboratively. Each case study is introduced by a description of its theoretical and curricular context and an outline of the objectives for the students' activities. The studies describe the on-the-ground realities of working with faculty, staff, and students to achieve communication and course goals, offering lessons that can be easily applied to a wide variety of settings and institutions.
Tutoring Matters is the authoritative guide for both the aspiring and seasoned tutor. Using firsthand experiences of over one hundred new and experienced college student tutors, the authors offer techniques for handling tutoring anxieties, teaching strategies, and tips for building relationships. This new edition has been fully updated to help tutors to engage the interest of their students. In addition, it features practical “tip boxes” that provide quick-reference guidelines on a range of tutoring challenges—from making a connection in your first tutoring session to becoming familiar with your pupil's life and tutoring needs. This new edition also provides practical experience-based tips "from the trenches" about how to tutor math and reading and how to help students develop other academic skills and interests.
The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors introduces two conversations to the tutor's preparation, one about the creation of knowledge in writing programs, the other about tutor research.
Writing centers are places where writers work with each other in an effort to develop ideas, discover a thesis, overcome procrastination, create an outline, or revise a draft. Ultimately, writing centers help students become more effective writers. Visit any college or university in the United States and chances are there is a writing center available to students, staff, and community members. A Guide to Creating Student-Staffed Writing Centers, Grades 6-12 is a how-to and, ultimately, a why-to book for middle school and high school educators as well as for English/language arts teacher candidates and their methods instructors. Writing centers support students and their busy teachers while emphasizing and supporting writing across the curriculum.
Peer learning allows a positive use of differences between pupils, turning them into learning opportunities. Yet education professionals often remain unfamiliar with the principles necessary to guarantee its effectiveness. The aim of this book is to help practitioners establish well-structured and effective peer learning projects using a variety of methods. It introduces and defines cooperative learning (mutual peer interaction) and peer tutoring (directional peer interaction) – outlining general organisational principles that will help practitioners implement peer learning in either of these forms. The authors consider how to prepare and train learners to undertake their roles effectively, and how to organise and monitor the process of interaction as it is happening. They then look at how these systems actually operate in the classroom, exploring how the organisational principles work in practice and giving many practical examples. Subsequently three successive chapters consider how to structure peer interactions in cooperative learning, same-age peer tutoring and cross-age peer tutoring. Finally, the advantages and problems, and the potential and challenges, of peer learning are examined. The book should be read in stages, with each part being able to be read on its own – thus providing time for reflection. Within each part, readers can choose to focus on cooperative learning or peer tutoring. The successive focuses on definitions, general principles of implementation and practical issues of implementation should help practitioners build their skills and confidence. Many choices between methods are described, and when teachers are confident in one method they may then consider trying a new method. It is the authors' hope that the book will become a model for peer learning by sharing with readers the skills of other practitioners, and thereby helping all children to develop to their full potential.
The number of students in higher education has expanded dramatically in recent years, but funding has not kept pace with this growth. The result is less contact time for lecturers and their students, and corresponding worries about how the quality of teaching and learning can be improved. Peer tutoring is one method which is growing in popularity, and has already proved successful in a number of countries. This book provides an introduction to the methods and practice of peer tutoring focusing on how to set up schemes and how to cope with common problems. It discusses the theory behind this form of learning and the beneficial effects associated with it. Summaries are included at the end of each chapter.
