Biology Peer Tutoring - 12/15/09

Today was my first day of tutoring for biology. I'm coming into this activity with great hopes for myself and some goals that I've set. I really hope that I can be an effective tutor, given the fact that I have no prior experience in tutoring peers. My main goal is to teach the students about biology; I don't just want to tell them the answer, but instead thoroughly explain it to them. I also want to establish a symbiotic relationship in which I learn from them as well.

Zach and I both helped tutoring today. There were three students that needed help, two freshmen and one sophomore. They were all working on a worksheet that Mrs. Kehoe had assigned them for homework and that they didn't finish. It was about transcription and translation, a topic I know well, so I felt very comfortable in helping them. Whenever the students were feeling discouraged, either Zach or I tried to talk them through the problem. I certainly was not just giving the kids the answers, but instead I was approaching the problems by providing background information and encouraging the kids to remember the answer I knew they had in their heads. This seemed like an effective method and I definitely think that the kids learned what we were teaching them, not just guessing on the problem or copying what we said.

I was very happy with our first day of tutoring and I think the kids were satisfied as well. This was certainly a challenging new thing for me, coming in with no prior experience, but I think I developed some new skills in teaching methods. I learned that I should show the steps for the student to get the answer, not just give it to them. All in all, job well done.