Day five: February 27, 2015

Time: 9:15-10:40

7 hours and 5 minutes

       Today, James was not in class. Mrs. Clark is never surprised when this happens. She usually waits until about 15 minutes after first period is supposed to begin before actually starting class because students are often tardy to class. There were only about 7 people in class today which is relatively normal. Instead of staying in Mrs. Clark's room, she sent me across the hall because the students that she did have did not need tutors and were going to be working independently.
       In Mrs. Rook's class, she teaches math which immediately threw me off considering I'm an English major and Math has always been my weakest subject. She was going over some problems on the board rather than having all the students work independently on their computers because a lot of students were having some problems with the same questions. This was different for me because I am so used to the discussion driven classes in Mrs. Clark's class. Mostly, Mrs. Rook's was doing practice problems on the board step by step. Some students were paying attention but most were going about their online work normally. As a student myself, it always surprises me when students aren't paying attention to the teacher when they are standing up in front of the class teaching but in Classic City, it is normal because each student has their own plan of study and moves at their own pace.
       There were also a lot of tutors in class today which reminded of of the book that I read for my second book club, Americas Unseen kids:Teaching English/Language Arts in Today's Forgotten High Schools. I really enjoy seeing all of the tutors at Classic City like in the book I read but I wish that us tutors could work together to help out in classroom and possibly help teach but I understand that with the style of Classic City it would be difficult because each student is moving at their own pace so the lessons plans would not be beneficial to all the students.
       With James being absent as often as he is, it makes it very hard for me to strengthen the student tutor relationship but this experience has shown me how hard it is to help motivate students to want to come to school. It is also teaching me how to motivate students to do their work the best they can in order to create a better future for themselves.

Day four: February 19, 2015

9:15-10:40

5 hours and 40 minutes

      Today, when I went to tutoring it was about 12 degrees outside; one of the coldest days of the year. Knowing that attendance is already an issue at Classic City High School, I wasn't expecting many students to be there. When I got to the school, it looked like school wasn't even is session. When I got to Mrs. Clarks room, there were no students in the classroom and no students even in the hallway. Mrs. Clark had a sub that day so he wasn't sure what to tell me but said I could observe the students work. Mrs. Reed came by and said that there probably wouldn't be anyone I would be able to tutor since it was so cold but she told me that I was more than welcome to observe class. I stayed to observe Mrs. Clarks class but since there was a sub, there wasn't any lecturing so I just walked around the class keeping students on task while they were doing their online quizzes and answered questions if any of the few students there needed help.
      I can understand why there was very low attendance today was so low considering that attendance in an every day issue at Classic City but it was still disappointing that I wasn't able to tutor anyone. This reminded me of one of the books that I had to read for my book club for class Americas Unseen kids:Teaching English/Language Arts in Today's Forgotten High Schools. In this book, tutors go to an at risk high school every day to try and make the students more excited about learning and give them some guidance when learning in the everyday classroom. At their high school, they often had attendance issues as well considering students cannot learn if they do not come to school. In this book, the tutors tried to make learning more exciting and fun in order to make the students want to come to school; they also had a token economy program where they would be rewarded for coming to school every week day. This is something that Mrs. Reed does as well. The students are rewarded tickets for coming to school every week day and also for academic achievements. I can see how this works because if the students work with a tutor, they will get a ticket; so when we walk in and the teachers ask who wants a tutor, many students will say yes. This is extremely beneficial because even if they are just working with a tutor to get a ticket, they are still getting one on one time instruction so they are free to ask as many questions as they want. Although I didn't get to tutor today, I was shown what the reality of the classroom really is and how even if not all the students are there, the teachers and students have to improvise in order to make the day a successful school day. 

Day three: January 29, 2015

Time: 9:15-10:40

4 hours and 25 minutes

    Today when I arrived to the school, Mrs. Clark was a little off put because there were very few students in her class. She thought that maybe the buses were late but it turns out not many people came to school today. At first, James had decided that he didn't want a tutor today so Mrs. Clark directed me to a class across the hall but soon after she came over and got me saying James now wanted a tutor. This was nice because it showed me that James actually wanted to work with me and needed my help, so this made me feel like he's enjoying having me as a tutor. 

    Today, we were working on some online quizzes again. They consisted of finding the subject and verbs in sentences along with identifying dependent and independent clauses. James did fine with the first three quizzes we did but when it came to the last one he told me he didn't want to do it. We still had twenty minutes left in class so I told him we had to do something so he needed to find something else. In the end, he ended up clicking on the quiz and saw the first question which had something to do with prepositional phrases and he quickly closed out of it again. This raised a flag for me because in Bright not Broken, it talks about how students will come up with excuses when they don't understand something because they are embarrassed at not knowing how to do it. I told him to open it back up again and we worked on it together and eventually got through the entire quiz. These questions were a little bit more difficult and included a little bit more explanation in order for him to understand it all fully but in the end, he got it. These type of phrases and clauses are something that I want to focus on with him a little bit more because he did struggle with it next week when I go. 

    As time goes on, the tutoring sessions are going smoother and smoother. Its becoming a bit of a routine. I always go on Thursday mornings so James knows to expect me. At first, when he said that he didn't want a tutor today it kind of hurt my feelings because it made me feel like he wasn't enjoying or learning from our tutoring sessions. Then when he decided that he did want me, it made me feel like our relationship was growing. James is not much of a talker; he doesn't really care to talk about himself or anything that is not school related and this is fine as long as he enjoys the tutoring sessions and that we get the work done that was assigned. Overall, I would say today was a great tutoring session.

Day two: January 22, 2015

Time: 9:15-10:40 first period 

2 hours and 25 minutes

    Today, I only tutored James. We got a little bit of a late start due to his being tardy and me not being able to find anyone to unlock the room we were to be working in. Mrs. Clark told me that he has been doing better about coming to school everyday but still is usually a bit tardy but he is making progress.

    Today, we worked on some online quizzes on sentence structure. We got significantly more done than we did last time. We worked on two of the quizzes with 50 questions on each one. He was much more willing to do this rather than read like the assignment was last week. The questions consisted of making sentences parallel and subject verb agreement. James seemed to understand this easily and only needed some help and introductory explanation on how to make parallel sentences and what made subjects and verbs agree but he got it only after a few questions. He was better about asking for help this time if he didn't understand the question. I learned that if I read the sentences to him out loud, he can hear what makes the sentence sound right rather than just reading to himself and he began reading them out loud on his own eventually.

   The next assignment was how to properly use colons. We were running out of time when we got to this assignment but we went over the first ten questions pretty quickly and he understood the basis of how to use colons correctly and said he would finish the assignment at home once we ran out of time. 

    Overall, today was much better than the last tutoring session. He seemed to understand the material much better and I think he was more comfortable since it was just me and him,one on one, versus having another student in there with us. It made me feel like I was a better tutor because the session went by much smoother which made me not frustrated like I was last time. The type of exercise we were working on today is something that I personally thrive in so with James doing well in it too it made the tutoring session easy and effortless because we both were working together to get the assignment completed. I would say that my expectations going into the classroom were very low because I expected today to be as difficult as last time but I was pleasantly surprised because there was a vast difference in James. I think that maybe last time he was having a bad day or was just very tired so he wasn't nearly as motivated last time but today he was ready to go and reviewed a good amount. I'm very happy with today's session and am glad that James is trying harder to do his work in a timely manner. Hopefully next week will be just as promising.

Day one: January 15, 2015

Time: 1st period 9:15-10:40

1 hour and 25 minutes

    Today, I was tutoring in Mrs. Clark's English class. Once I got there, I was assigned to Amber who is 16 years old and would like to eventually become a Nurse. Mrs. Clark asked us to go to another room as to have some one on one time with Amber to help complete the assignment. Once we got into the classroom, Mrs. Clark brought in another student, James, who is 17, so I could help both of them with the same assignment. 

    Today, their assignment was to read a passage from The Outliers by Malcom Gladwell then answer ten questions about the reading and post it into a google doc and share it with Mrs. Clark. Amber read the passage in about thirty minutes and then started to read through the questions. She asked me to clarify the questions for her to help her better understand. She did need a little guidance in finding some of the answers in the passage and overall seemed pretty determined to do the assignment to her best ability.

    James took about twenty minutes just to sign onto the computer and stated that he didn't want to do the assignment because it was a lot of reading. Every time I walked away from his computer to help Amber he would navigate to another page to entertain himself instead of actually doing the reading. I had to be on top of him every ten minute to assure that he was staying on task. He ended up taking almost the entire period to do his reading and then only answered one of the ten questions after I read some of the passages to him. James did not seem the slightest bit motivated and it was very frustrating to have to check up on him multiple times within minutes because he was trying to do everything but the assignment. I do not know if James has a disability with paying attention or if he is just not motivated to do his school work. Reading may be hard for him and that may be why he put it off the entire period because when I actually read the passage to him he seemed to understand it better. In Bright not Broken, it talks about how everyone learns differently and James may be more of an auditory learner versus a visual learner. This is something that I will keep in mind when I go back next week. 

    I would say that today confirmed that not all people can learn like I do. This is the type of assignment that I would thrive in because it was reading comprehension and that is something that comes very easy to me. I now know that I need to be more assertive when it comes to time management because neither Amber nor James completed the assignment after an hour and twenty five minutes. 

    I expected it to be challenging to tutor these students but I did not expect them to just flat out tell me they did not want to do the assignment. It was also hard for me to explain things that were very simple to me but were challenging to them. 

    Overall, today was a good experience because it taught me what I should and should not do while trying to tutor. I've had a taste of the difficulty that I will experience on my journey as a tutor and there are many things that I already know that I can improve on in order to be a better tutor for Amber and James. For example, I may have them take turns reading portions of the reading aloud in order to manage time better and ensure that both of them have read in full and understand what is going on in the passage so they can answer their questions correctly. 

    I'm excited to go next week to see how much better I can do if I apply all that I have learned from this first tutoring session.