As my first semester in our writing center ends, I've been reflecting on what have become key points to me. I view each and every interaction in the writing center as an opportunity to enrich lives – that of the student with whom I’m working, and mine – through the work we do around writing. It begins with checking the appointment notes: I want to call the person by name. If they took the time to note anything about the assignment they’re bringing in, I reference it: “So Amanda, you’ve got a personal essay on your experience with writing!” The interaction begins the moment she walks in the door saying “I have an appointment…” I want to demonstrate, right off the block, that “We’re here to work together, I am paying attention, and I’m so glad you came!” A warm, enthusiastic welcome – and acknowledgment of the information she has already provided – can set the tone for our work together. How many times have I called “customer service” and given a complete accounting of the issue I would like to address, only to repeat it six times to people that don’t bother referring to the information I’ve already painstakingly provided? Perhaps it seems like a tiny thing in the larger picture, but I believe it makes all the difference in that crucial first impression.
Knowledge does not occur in a vacuum; it cannot exist without interaction – human communication. The degree and quality of interactions are widely acknowledged to determine both acquisition and transference. This is truly a collaborative effort, though “collaboration”, it must be recognized, exists on a continuum.
I’ve come to understand “collaboration” as having many different degrees of involvement between partners…sometimes with limited focus and scope, and other times strongly connected in a broadly focused, wide scope. Dialogue is the connection factor, and dialogue can be verbal as well as textual. The interactions may be highly collaborative, or may involve a higher degree of direction from one of the partners.
I must be as flexible, intuitive and thoughtful as humanly possible, because each appointment is different in myriad ways. In a nutshell, it means being highly flexible and responding in-the-moment. It means doing my best to elicit the highest level of engagement I can from the student with whom I’m meeting, watching body language, looking into eyes, asking careful, open-ended questions, and responding thoughtfully. It is being an encourager, translator of professorial instructions, sometimes commiserator, and sometimes teacher or director – as opposed to peer – in our collaboration. It is using all of my senses, intuition, and knowledge to gage the support and assistance I can best bring to our work.
2 comments:
I really enjoyed reading your reflection here, Julieana, I've always looked up to you as being such an enthusiastic member of our 303 group. I do a similar thing in liking to read the appointment notes so that I can immediately greet people on a name basis. I haven't really been able to gauge their reaction to this first impression, but I've got to imagine it cannot harm your spoken desire to show the “We’re here to work together, I am paying attention, and I’m so glad you came!”-ness of what we do.
You brought up a good point concerning how we have to rely on dialogue to first determine what level of directive tutoring will be required. I had a very interesting experience in finals week today where an ESL student was actually resisting my efforts to help, which surprised me a little. Perhaps I was being a little too directive, but in the end I finally had my "ah ha" moment with her. It took an hour to do, but hopefully we both got something out of it.
I'm really hoping to be at the center and see some of the gang return as well. We've got a good thing going on and I want to keep it up.
These are all such wonderful points you are making. I recently became a tutor in the writing center, so it has been a slow transition for me from learning in the classroom about tutoring techniques, to actually executing them during tutoring sessions. Sometimes I am so focused on trying to help the tutee, that I forget to do the little things like addressing the tutee by name, as you addressed. I learned how important it is to personalize the short 30-minute relationship with myself and the tutee, through recent sessions. Making eye contact, showing a comfortable body language, and being focused are crucial in the tutoring session as well. The writing center reminded me to be mindful to people I meet, whether it is for a brief moment, or the beginning of a lasting relationship.
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