Vanessa

New Final Copy with Corrections made!!

2008-12-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

Vanessa Torres
December 15, 2008
Eng 4070: Peer Tutoring
Final Essay: Eye Contact Observations

Eye contact is something that is very brief but very powerful. The eye contact made in a tutoring session can determine a lot from what the student comprehends throughout the session. It would seem obvious that students who make the most eye contact are the ones who understand the most. This conclusion is not always the correct one. There are many different reasons why students don’t make eye contact. If the student and tutor are different gender then there may be a difference to the amount of eye contact in the session. Also, pending the status of the tutor, as a peer or professor, the student might give more or less eye contact. The laptops students use today have a lot to do with the lack of eye contact. Technology has changed the amount of eye contact the students used to show comprehension. Although tutors still feel the need for eye contact from the students to equal understanding, the students might not feel the same way. In most tutoring sessions tutors feel like it is essential to make eye contact with their students. When there is a lack of eye contact, the tutor draws up many conclusions for what may be wrong with the student.
In A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, Muriel Harris writes a chapter about a tutor and student who are in a session, but the student shows a lack of interest. This is an excellent example of how difficult it is for a tutor when a student doesn’t make any eye contact. In Harris’s example of a session between a considerate tutor and uncaring student, Harris shows a student who is reluctant in acknowledging her tutor’s help. To show the reader how the student is not engaging in the session, Harris states in her example how much negative body language the student has and the lack of eye contact. This goes to show how lack of eye contact is a sign that the student is not retaining any information, and is not giving the proper attention to the assignment. The tutor in this example can draw up many conclusions from the students’ behavior, and can go about handling this situation in many different ways. Muriel Harris writes about seven different measures a tutor can take to try and fix the lack of attention the student has. The tutor could talk to the student about some of the fears that might occur in writing the paper, or the tutor could try to empathize with the student for being forced to be at the writing lab. Minimalist tutoring is also an option for a tutor with an uncooperative student. Perhaps a sign of improvement for the tutor would be if the student would start making more eye contact.
To my knowledge there are no sources that discuss the way laptops in a tutoring lab affect the amount of eye contact the tutor and student make. If I would have found a source that discussed the way laptops influence the use of eye contact I could have made a strong conclusion to my observations. Electronics are changing the way eye contact is use in the tutoring lab in multiple ways. There is a strong use for eye contact as well as there is a strong use for laptops. The research could have helped me to come to a stronger conclusion.
As said in the literature, there are many factors to why a student does not show interest in the session at the writing center. There is an issue with lack of eye contact.
I five different situations in which eye contact served its significance. I was strictly an observer in these situations. I sat across and away from the tutor and student I observed. Also, I wrote in my notebook which was on my lap. I looked up very frequently to make sure I caught my main focus, which was eye contact between the tutor and student. In these observations I had differences for; stature, such as peer vs. professor, students and their essays, such as completed papers vs. uncompleted thoughts, gender, such as male vs. female tutors and students, and essays, such as laptops vs. paper.
Eye contact is a representative for understanding in many different ways. In different observations I saw that the tutor does not feel comfortable until there is a closure of eye contact to show that the student has comprehended what the tutor just stated. To begin with, the students who were working with female tutors opposed to the male tutor. There was a lot of eye contact with the female tutors. On November nineteenth, I observed one female student, Lucy, and a male tutor/peer, Hector, who hardly had any mutual eye contact. As Lucy and Hector met, Lucy only smiled at Hector when he first began the session. Lucy hardly made eye contact throughout the entire session. There were only a very few times when Lucy glanced at Hector. Hector constantly made eye contact with Lucy but she would just nod and write down different points on her paper. Throughout the session, Hector tries to make funny comments which grab Lucy’s attention, but this does not make her give Hector eye contact. Lucy begins to give eye contact to Hector when she needs him to answer a question. Then she goes back to looking at her essay, once he answers her. Even when Hector asks Lucy questions she either looks across the room or she stares at her paper. It could be concluded that this student is not getting anything out of this session because Lucy is uncomfortable with Hector since he is male. Yet there was a specific situation where Lucy shows that is getting help from Hector even though she is not looking at him. Hector tells Lucy, “I will give you some time, just write down everything”. Hector thought he was going to have some time alone because he put back his chair and sat forward with his arms on his knees. Lucy doesn’t just write down her list, but she speaks out everything, and the entire time she doesn’t make any eye contact with the tutor.
When I observed the same student again on December first, Lucy’s second tutor was female and also her professor. Lucy made eye contact with her professor for most of the session. She was discussing her paper with her professor and she looks confident and productive with all of the eye contact she is making. Lucy is doing most of the talking and eye contact since her professor has told her “I am acting as your secretary and at the end of the session I am going to give you this list and hopefully it will help you”. While Lucy talks, she is excited about how much her professor is listening to her. Lucy does not take her eye contact away for anything. Even when the professor asks her questions about her essay, Lucy looks interested in answering her professor.
Lucy made much more eye contact with the female professor. This could be due to a lot of different reasons. Lucy and Hector had a paper that both were looking at, and they were both sitting side by side. In Lucy and her professor’s situation, Lucy was sitting at the side of the table and her professor was at the head of the table. Also in Lucy and her professor’s situation, they did not have a written paper they were sharing. The fact that Lucy chose to make triple the eye contact with her female professor rather than her male peer is important. It is unknown why she chose to do so, but at the same time it could be due to many of these reasons.
Lack of eye contact is not necessarily meant to show that there is no understanding between the tutor and student. In an observation done on October twentieth, and two more observations done on November seventeenth, there were laptops involved in all of these observations. Both the tutors and students were women. First, on October twentieth there were two female peers doing a tutoring session on laptops. Jackie, the student, and Ana, the tutor, were both looking at Jackie’s essay on the laptop. Ana asked Jackie to read her essay to her and then they discussed what Jackie felt like she needed help on. There was minor use of eye contact, but both tutor and student mainly looked at the screen. Ana is taking notes as Jackie speaks about how she could improve her essay. Ana tries to take the mouse out of Jackie’s hand to help her fix a part of the essay, but Jackie stays in control. Jackie continues typing as Ana makes minor eye contact with her, almost in a reassuring way that she is on the right track. Although Ana and Jackie aren’t making a lot of eye contact, Jackie knows that she is doing a good job and Ana knows that Jackie is listening to her. This is because Jackie is nodding her head in an assuring way when Ana keeps giving Jackie positive feedback.
On November seventeenth, Paula and her professor were doing a tutoring session using laptops as well. In this observation I noticed just how important eye contact is to some people. The professor was very adamant to get Paula to look at her. Paula had her own laptop and the professor had her own laptop. Both laptops had a copy of the essay on it. Even though Paula would nod her head in accordance to what the professor said, Paula’s professor did not like it at all that she was looking at her laptop more than she was looking at her. Paula would occasionally look at her professor, but that was not enough. The professor would lean far on the table trying desperately for Paula to look at her. Paula’s professor also had very strong hand gestures and she would catch Paula’s attention with this occasionally. Paula mostly types down the points her professor makes and nods to make it clear that she understands. Paula’s professor still asks “Does that make sense” and Paula says “yes”. Then the professor/tutor wants to feel reassured that Paula understands her points, so the professor tells Paula to “tell me back what you understood”. I feel that the lack of eye contact from the student might have the tutor unconfident in whether or not her student really understood.
In the second observation I saw that day, I saw the same professor with a previous student that I observed with her peer, Jackie. Jackie and her professor both look at the essay which is on the professor’s laptop. Jackie is taking notes in her notebook since she doesn’t want to reach over the professor to get onto her laptop. The professor looks at Jackie as she does this, but does not interrupt since she knows that Jackie was just listening to her. Then after a short while, the professor starts to get impatient that Jackie is still not looking at her, and she moves closer to Jackie to catch her attention. Once they both move on to a new point, Jackie and the professor don’t make eye contact that much. They continue discussing the essay, and then the professor ask “how will you sum that up” and Jackie responds “I have no idea”. The professor looks like she is honestly trying to help Jackie and she continues asking Jackie questions that lead up to the answers Jackie needs. They both make semi eye contact, mostly looking at the computer and Jackie’s notebook. It is almost as if there were another person in the room with the way they both try to give the laptop enough eye contact.
To conclude on my laptop observations of only females in this study, the use of laptops take away eye contact between the student and the tutor. The laptop may act like a third party in the discussion, but it is to the students benefit. The tutor does feel like she is competing with the laptop at times, but then again the tutor uses the laptop to help the student. The tutor always seems to be trying to catch the student’s attention when the student is staring mostly at the laptop. The student is more reluctant to look at the tutor if she has her work on a laptop. Although the student makes head gestures, such as nodding occasionally to show that she is listening to her tutor, the tutor feels disconnected from the student. This is proven by the fact that the tutor always seems to bend forward and is constantly trying to make eye contact with the student. If and when the tutor stays quiet, then the student seems to look at the tutor in a way of “help me”. The student breaks the eye contact when the tutor begins giving feedback to the student. This is the way the student deals with the fact that they can write down fresh ideas quickly before the tutor goes onto a different point.
Overall, whenever the student is not making eye contact, the tutor is always trying to get the attention by leaning over or making a humorous comment to get the student to recapture eye contact. There has been several times where the student laughs at the joke the tutor makes and continues to stare at the laptop. Also, the student always makes eye contact when they ask the tutor a question. Once the tutor puts the student back on track, they loose the student’s eye contact, but this does not necessarily mean that they have lost the students attention.
Eye contact does follow understanding most of the time, but just because the student lacks eye contact does not mean that the student is not following what the tutor is saying. The tutor might be talking and trying to make the student look at him/her, but the student (especially if the student is on the laptop) nods and repeats back what the tutor is saying. The student keeps a connection with the tutor by either adding hand gestures, or nodding, or speaking aloud what is being added to the paper. When the student feels like the tutor is not responding to a question, the student always makes eye contact to make sure the tutor is paying attention. The tutor is always looking at the student, and in the case when the tutor was writing notes for the student, the student was constantly looking at the tutor.
For essays that are written on paper, the student tends to look at the tutor more because the student cannot write as fast as the tutor talks. This gives the tutor more control since the student has to pay more attention to the tutor to grasp the concept, rather than just grasp the answer. For a paper essay, the student and tutor have to sit directly next to each other. This would seem to make eye contact more difficult since the two people are tightly together, but really it doesn’t affect the amount of eye contact the two people have together. The fact that the same type of seating has to be had when the essay is on one computer screen has a huge effect on eye contact because the student seems glued to the screen. In the one observation where the tutor and student had their own separate laptops, they both took an interest in looking only at their screens for long periods of time. Then the tutor took notice of this and made a strong effort to make eye contact by leaning far over on the table to catch the students attention.
Eye contact is mostly given by the tutor at all times. The only time there is lack of eye contact is when the tutor is taking notes on what the student is saying. The student, however, makes eye contact with the tutor when the student is trying to get an answer to a question. In the cases of the students who were on the laptop, they make even less eye contact when they are asking a question because they are looking for a place to type in the answer the tutor gives. When there is a paper essay the student looks more at the tutor in asking questions, but then when the tutor starts talking, the student usually looks down as if they want to start writing the ideas the tutor is making. There is not much varying with the frequency of eye contact. The only time I observed a huge difference with the amount of eye contact given was when the tutor was male and the student was female. In this case, the tutor did not fail to give constant eye contact, but the student hardly looked at the tutor. The communication still seemed to flow well between the male tutor and the female student, even though there wasn’t nearly as much eye contact as in the other observations. This could mean that the student was uncomfortable with a male tutor, or it could have meant a number of different things.
To conclude, laptops do act like another person in the tutoring session. There are multiple ways laptops are convenient to the student, but the tutor has to get the student to connect with them in order to have a functioning session. If the tutor lets the student become overly interested in the laptop, then it would be as if the tutor weren’t even present. When the student is on the laptop there is a lot of hassle for the tutor to get the connection of eye contact, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the student is not paying attention to their tutor. Also there is a thought on male vs. female tutoring that was inconclusive. I saw only one gender different tutoring session which had a strong lack of eye contact. There must be more to this topic of how females and men tutors get eye contact across in the tutoring lab, with their students that are of the opposite sex, in order to keep the students focus.
The research between eye contact and laptops in the tutoring labs could have helped me come to a stronger conclusion. Also observing different tutoring sessions with the opposite gender could have showed me a conclusive point on how eye contact is affected. Overall, I would have liked to have had the benefit of observing different people other than my classmates. It would have been interesting to see how two people who have never met make eye contact in different situations at the tutoring lab.

Works Cited:

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide : Helping Writers One to One. By Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2000. 24-34.

Final Essay...Hope you like it

2008-12-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

Vanessa Torres
December 8, 2008
Eng 4070: Peer Tutoring
Final Essay: Eye Contact Observations

Eye contact is something that is very brief but very powerful. The eye contact made in a tutoring session can determine a lot from what the student comprehends throughout the session. It would seem obvious that students who make the most eye contact are the ones who understand the most. This conclusion is not always the correct one. There are many different reasons why students don’t make eye contact. If the student and tutor are different sex then there may be a difference to the amount of eye contact in the session. Also, pending the status of the tutor, as a peer or professor, the student might give more or less eye contact. The laptops students use today have a lot to do with the lack of eye contact. Technology has changed the amount of eye contact the students used to show comprehension. Although tutors still feel the need for eye contact from the students to equal understanding, the students might not feel the same way. In most tutoring sessions tutors feel like it is essential to make eye contact with their students. When there is a lack of eye contact, the tutor draws up many conclusions for what may be wrong with the student.
In A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, Muriel Harris writes a chapter about a tutor and student who are in a session, but the student shows a lack of interest. This is an excellent example of how difficult it is for a tutor when a student doesn’t make any eye contact. In Muriel’s example of a session between a considerate tutor and uncaring student, Muriel shows a student who is reluctant in acknowledging her tutor’s help. To show the reader how the student is not engaging in the session, Muriel states in her example how much negative body language the student has and the lack of eye contact. This goes to show how lack of eye contact is a sign that the student is not retaining any information, and is not giving the proper attention to the assignment. The tutor in this example can draw up many conclusions from the students’ behavior, and can go about handling this situation in many different ways. Muriel Harris writes about seven different measures a tutor can take to try and fix the lack of attention the student has. The tutor could talk to the student about some of the fears that might occur in writing the paper, or the tutor could try to empathize with the student for being forced to be at the writing lab. Minimalist tutoring is also an option for a tutor with an uncooperative student. Perhaps a sign of improvement for the tutor would be if the student would start making more eye contact.
As said in the literature, there are many factors to why a student does not show interest in the session at the writing center. There is an issue with lack of eye contact.
I five different situations in which eye contact served its significance. I was strictly an observer in these situations. I sat across and away from the tutor and student I observed. Also, I wrote in my notebook which was on my lap. I looked up very frequently to make sure I caught my main focus, which was eye contact between the tutor and student. In these observations I had differences for; stature, such as peer vs. professor, students and their essays, such as completed papers vs. uncompleted thoughts, gender, such as male vs. female tutors and students, and essays, such as laptops vs. paper.
Eye contact is a representative for understanding in many different ways. In different observations I saw that the tutor does not feel comfortable until there is a closure of eye contact to show that the student has comprehended what the tutor just stated. To begin with, the students who were working with female tutors opposed to the male tutor. There was a lot of eye contact with the female tutors. On November nineteenth, I observed one female student, Lucy, and a male tutor/peer, Hector, who hardly had any mutual eye contact. As Lucy and Hector met, Lucy only smiled at Hector when he first began the session. Lucy hardly made eye contact throughout the entire session. There were only a very few times when Lucy glanced at Hector. Hector constantly made eye contact with Lucy but she would just nod and write down different points on her paper. Throughout the session, Hector tries to make funny comments which grab Lucy’s attention, but this does not make her give Hector eye contact. Lucy begins to give eye contact to Hector when she needs him to answer a question. Then she goes back to looking at her essay, once he answers her. Even when Hector asks Lucy questions she either looks across the room or she stares at her paper. It could be concluded that this student is not getting anything out of this session because Lucy is uncomfortable with Hector since he is male. Yet there was a specific situation where Lucy shows that is getting help from Hector even though she is not looking at him. Hector tells Lucy, “I will give you some time, just write down everything”. Hector thought he was going to have some time alone because he put back his chair and sat forward with his arms on his knees. Lucy doesn’t just write down her list, but she speaks out everything, and the entire time she doesn’t make any eye contact with the tutor.
When I observed the same student again on December first, Lucy’s second tutor was female and also her professor. Lucy made eye contact with her professor for most of the session. She was discussing her paper with her professor and she looks confident and productive with all of the eye contact she is making. Lucy is doing most of the talking and eye contact since her professor has told her “I am acting as your secretary and at the end of the session I am going to give you this list and hopefully it will help you”. While Lucy talks, she is excited about how much her professor is listening to her. Lucy does not take her eye contact away for anything. Even when the professor asks her questions about her essay, Lucy looks interested in answering her professor.
Lucy made much more eye contact with the female professor. This could be due to a lot of different reasons. Lucy and Hector had a paper that both were looking at, and they were both sitting side by side. In Lucy and her professor’s situation, Lucy was sitting at the side of the table and her professor was at the head of the table. Also in Lucy and her professor’s situation, they did not have a written paper they were sharing. The fact that Lucy chose to make triple the eye contact with her female professor rather than her male peer is important. It is unknown why she chose to do so, but at the same time it could be due to many of these reasons.
Lack of eye contact is not necessarily meant to show that there is no understanding between the tutor and student. In an observation done on October twentieth, and two more observations done on November seventeenth, there were laptops involved in all of these observations. Both the tutors and students were women. First, on October twentieth there were two female peers doing a tutoring session on laptops. Jackie, the student, and Ana, the tutor, were both looking at Jackie’s essay on the laptop. Ana asked Jackie to read her essay to her and then they discussed what Jackie felt like she needed help on. There was minor use of eye contact, but both tutor and student mainly looked at the screen. Ana is taking notes as Jackie speaks about how she could improve her essay. Ana tries to take the mouse out of Jackie’s hand to help her fix a part of the essay, but Jackie stays in control. Jackie continues typing as Ana makes minor eye contact with her, almost in a reassuring way that she is on the right track. Although Ana and Jackie aren’t making a lot of eye contact, Jackie knows that she is doing a good job and Ana knows that Jackie is listening to her. This is because Jackie is nodding her head in an assuring way when Ana keeps giving Jackie positive feedback.
On November seventeenth, Paula and her professor were doing a tutoring session using laptops as well. In this observation I noticed just how important eye contact is to some people. The professor was very adamant to get Paula to look at her. Paula had her own laptop and the professor had her own laptop. Both laptops had a copy of the essay on it. Even though Paula would nod her head in accordance to what the professor said, Paula’s professor did not like it at all that she was looking at her laptop more than she was looking at her. Paula would occasionally look at her professor, but that was not enough. The professor would lean far on the table trying desperately for Paula to look at her. Paula’s professor also had very strong hand gestures and she would catch Paula’s attention with this occasionally. Paula mostly types down the points her professor makes and nods to make it clear that she understands. Paula’s professor still asks “Does that make sense” and Paula says “yes”. Then the professor/tutor wants to feel reassured that Paula understands her points, so the professor tells Paula to “tell me back what you understood”. I feel that the lack of eye contact from the student might have the tutor unconfident in whether or not her student really understood.
In the second observation I saw that day, I saw the same professor with a previous student that I observed with her peer, Jackie. Jackie and her professor both look at the essay which is on the professor’s laptop. Jackie is taking notes in her notebook since she doesn’t want to reach over the professor to get onto her laptop. The professor looks at Jackie as she does this, but does not interrupt since she knows that Jackie was just listening to her. Then after a short while, the professor starts to get impatient that Jackie is still not looking at her, and she moves closer to Jackie to catch her attention. Once they both move on to a new point, Jackie and the professor don’t make eye contact that much. They continue discussing the essay, and then the professor ask “how will you sum that up” and Jackie responds “I have no idea”. The professor looks like she is honestly trying to help Jackie and she continues asking Jackie questions that lead up to the answers Jackie needs. They both make semi eye contact, mostly looking at the computer and Jackie’s notebook. It is almost as if there were another person in the room with the way they both try to give the laptop enough eye contact.
To conclude on my laptop observations of only females in this study, the use of laptops take away eye contact between the student and the tutor. The laptop may act like a third party in the discussion, but it is to the students benefit. The tutor does feel like she is competing with the laptop at times, but then again the tutor uses the laptop to help the student. The tutor always seems to be trying to catch the student’s attention when the student is staring mostly at the laptop. The student is more reluctant to look at the tutor if she has her work on a laptop. Although the student makes head gestures, such as nodding occasionally to show that she is listening to her tutor, the tutor feels disconnected from the student. This is proven by the fact that the tutor always seems to bend forward and is constantly trying to make eye contact with the student. If and when the tutor stays quiet, then the student seems to look at the tutor in a way of “help me”. The student breaks the eye contact when the tutor begins giving feedback to the student. This is the way the student deals with the fact that they can write down fresh ideas quickly before the tutor goes onto a different point.
Overall, whenever the student is not making eye contact, the tutor is always trying to get the attention by leaning over or making a humorous comment to get the student to recapture eye contact. There has been several times where the student laughs at the joke the tutor makes and continues to stare at the laptop. Also, the student always makes eye contact when they ask the tutor a question. Once the tutor puts the student back on track, they loose the student’s eye contact, but this does not necessarily mean that they have lost the students attention.
Eye contact does follow understanding most of the time, but just because the student lacks eye contact does not mean that the student is not following what the tutor is saying. The tutor might be talking and trying to make the student look at him/her, but the student (especially if the student is on the laptop) nods and repeats back what the tutor is saying. The student keeps a connection with the tutor by either adding hand gestures, or nodding, or speaking aloud what is being added to the paper. When the student feels like the tutor is not responding to a question, the student always makes eye contact to make sure the tutor is paying attention. The tutor is always looking at the student, and in the case when the tutor was writing notes for the student, the student was constantly looking at the tutor.
For essays that are written on paper, the student tends to look at the tutor more because the student cannot write as fast as the tutor talks. This gives the tutor more control since the student has to pay more attention to the tutor to grasp the concept, rather than just grasp the answer. For a paper essay, the student and tutor have to sit directly next to each other. This would seem to make eye contact more difficult since the two people are tightly together, but really it doesn’t affect the amount of eye contact the two people have together. The fact that the same type of seating has to be had when the essay is on one computer screen has a huge effect on eye contact because the student seems glued to the screen. In the one observation where the tutor and student had their own separate laptops, they both took an interest in looking only at their screens for long periods of time. Then the tutor took notice of this and made a strong effort to make eye contact by leaning far over on the table to catch the students attention.
Eye contact is mostly given by the tutor at all times. The only time there is lack of eye contact is when the tutor is taking notes on what the student is saying. The student, however, makes eye contact with the tutor when the student is trying to get an answer to a question. In the cases of the students who were on the laptop, they make even less eye contact when they are asking a question because they are looking for a place to type in the answer the tutor gives. When there is a paper essay the student looks more at the tutor in asking questions, but then when the tutor starts talking, the student usually looks down as if they want to start writing the ideas the tutor is making. There is not much varying with the frequency of eye contact. The only time I observed a huge difference with the amount of eye contact given was when the tutor was male and the student was female. In this case, the tutor did not fail to give constant eye contact, but the student hardly looked at the tutor. The communication still seemed to flow well between the male tutor and the female student, even though there wasn’t nearly as much eye contact as in the other observations. This could mean that the student was uncomfortable with a male tutor, or it could have meant a number of different things.
Works Cited

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide : Helping Writers One to One. By Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2000. 24-34.

2008-11-12T07:29:00.001-08:00

Presentation for my research plan

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover): I hope to show and discover how effective eye contact is in a tutoring lesson. I hope to discover and show if eye contact really makes a difference in listening skills and people skills.
Detailed statement of your research question: I would like to know and observe how effective eye contact is in a tutoring session. There are many misunderstandings when it comes to eye contact, and I would like to see through observations, how well people react to eye contact and learning.
List of the information you need to gather: Surveys of how well the student felt the session went and compare that to my notes on if her eye contact matched up with my assumptions on how well the student understood. I need to check how frequent the tutor and student look directly at each other.
A preliminary list of sources: There are several websites that I have found successful which are on the Google.doc website.
Plan for gathering your information: Observe others in a tutoring session. Observe others as one person helps another and check to see how much eye contact there is and if it is successful. Hand out evaluation papers to the student after the meeting has ended. This way we can see who is really “getting it” and who is really faking that they grasped the concept.

blog # 15

2008-11-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

I have just copied and pasted my part of the eye contact website. I saw that there were some classmates who were getting confused so if I post them here then maybe it will become clearer which are mine. I was even confused while I was posting them. Somewhere along the line it started to look all jumbled up.
Hopefully its a bit more clear now.
-Mooney, Rick.(5/14/2008). Bridge the cultural divide.

Eye contact with culture, (under eye contact): http://www.agweb.com/news_printer.aspx?articleID=142933

-Eleanor (2005/4/23) Direct eye contact Offensive?

Japanese culture find eye contact offensive, (under blog title): http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+16030

-Brockenbrough, Martha. How Can You Tell If Someone Is Lying?

Failing to make eye contact = lying (under list for how to tell someone is lying): http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/columns/?article=lyingtell

-Zippy. Eye contact vs. no eye contact - both imply attraction?

Eye contact misunderstanding with flirting (under first resolved question): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071230054134AAI1SWW

- Kotelnikov, Vadim An important nonverbal channel for communication and connecting with other people

The importance of Eye contact: http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/communication_f2f_eye_contact.html

blog #14

2008-11-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

I don't have many questions to ask about the assignments. The only thing that worries me is that I will not have any people to observe. I went to the tutoring lab and this guy said I could observe him, but after I waited around for an hour and a half for him, the student said that she didn't want me observing her. I can't keep waiting around for students who will just reject me at the last minute. I will try and try again, but hopefully all the tutors and students aren't this shy!

blog #13

2008-11-04T17:16:00.000-08:00

Newkirk is totally correct in my opinion of how the student needs to create a personal attachment to the tutor in order to get better help on their papers. I don't mean in any way that the student and tutor need to have a lunch date or anything to that extent. I do feel though that the student and tutor need to break the ice at the beginning of a meeting so they wont feel awkward talking for an hour. The first five minutes are the most crucial to me because it sets up the rest of the meeting. It also gives the tutor a chance to make a good impression to the student so that he/she feels good about any questions they have for the tutor and the response the tutor gives them. There has to be a good vibe from the tutor to the student because if there is a weird feeling of mistrust, then the student will not be getting the extra help he/she needs. This is where I feel Newkirk and I come into agreement.

Blog # 12

2008-10-24T15:02:00.001-07:00

Observing and taking notes in the tutoring lab was the hardest note taking I have ever had to do! I wanted to get everything down, but it felt impossible because every time I put the pen to the paper my two subjects went off in a different direction. I enjoyed observing since it was a chance to see a tutor and student in action, but it was a very difficult task.
Aside from the excruciating pain in my hand from trying to jot down every piece of observation I could, I tried to focus on my research project topic. This was interesting since my observation helped me discover a new aspect of eye contact.
Since the tutor was reviewing the students paper on the computer they were sitting side by and one another. This made it sort of difficult to make eye contact, and if the student wouldn't have peered over her shoulder then there wouldn't have been a way for the tutor to initiate the eye contact. This was very interesting because the direction of the session was sort of left up to the student in this case. The tutor could be there to help, but if it were a lazy student who did not want to be there, then the session would have been unsuccessful. Thankfully, the student did want impute on the paper she did, and the session went well.

Blog # 12

2008-10-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Blog # 11

2008-10-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

EYE CONTACT:
Helps determine honesty
Helps keep focus
Makes a connection without being physical
The lack of eye contact can conclude a misunderstanding
Can just be a religious respect/disrespect

I am pretty sure of wanting to do my research question on eye contact. This has always been interesting to me because it shows the honesty a person has when they look at you. Students lack eye contact with a teacher usually when they are unsure of an answer or they don't understand a situation at all. The teacher can determine if the student is understanding a problem because the student will look at them directly and want to learn more, or answer a question. If in a tutoring session, the tutor is aware that the student isn't looking at him/her at all, then the tutor may be aware that the student is not getting anything out of the session. Then the tutor can make a different approach in the session to see if the student appears more interested. Of course this theory wouldn't work if the student was dishonest, shy, or had a belief in a religion where eye contact was a form of disrespect.

A student/ tutor session can be either comforting or uncomfortable to the student. If the tutor has good eye contact with the student this might help the student to feel more comforted and this might lead to the student to want to be there. There is a strong connection between two people when they have good eye contact, and this is without becoming physical at all, and the tutor doesn't even need to be in the students personal space. The way this wouldn't work is if there is a misunderstanding of a sexual interest between the two people.

In a student/teacher environment, eye contact is crucial because it can help the tutor to determine if the student is understanding the material. Also it can keep the student focused on the material. It is too easy for the student to daydream when someone who has no authority over them is trying to help them with school work. Yet, somehow eye contact minimizes the day dreaming and keeps the student locked on the topic. There are students that look at you but don't listen to what the tutor is saying, but the odds are in the tutors favor if they are making eye contact with the student. This connection pressures the student to have to pay attention.

Blog # 10

2008-10-14T08:28:00.001-07:00

I do know that I want to focus on eye contact for a research question. It would involve my observations of coarse...Hopefully as I see how people react with each other and how they look at each other, I will see a pattern in the use of eye contact they have. In class I discovered that I can watch and write down how the students and tutors do with eye contact, and afterward I can have them fill out page 135 in the purple and pink book to see how effective the eye contact was. I have always been a firm believer in eye contact because I believe that it shows how interested people are in a topic and how truthful they are in a situation. To see how a students eye contact reaction is to a tutor that is helping them with school issues should be fascinating.

Blog # 9

2008-10-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Minimalist tutoring is perfect for letting the student discover all of the work themselves. This is the best technique for students who need a guide. There are some students who want to just have someone to listen to them. They don't need any feedback and they want someone to keep them on track. Once the tutor sees the student doesn't know what they are doing, or if the student has reached a dead end in their papers, then they should toss the idea of minimalist tutoring and find the next best way to get the student back on track. For example, in the tutoring session I had with Molly, she couldn't do the minimalist tutoring with me. This is because I needed information, and it would be torture for her to keep asking me questions if I have no clue what the answers are. If a real tutor would treat me like that I would walk out on them, but thankfully Molly didn't ask me twenty questions on a topic I didn't understand. On the flip side of this, when I tutored Molly, she had her paper completed and I could do minimalist tutoring on her without any issues. She read it aloud to me and I asked her what was her opinion of what was wrong with it, and how she can fix it. Surprisingly she did discover all of the answers on her own and I didn't have to do anything except guide her to keep focus. The point of minimalist tutoring is to give the transition for the students to think and do on their own. I will feel more comfortable always begining with this in a session, and then seeing how it is working for the student. This way I can make a well thought out session for the student and what they need for their tutoring approach.

Happy Birthday to me!! lol

2008-10-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me so long to post #9 and #10. Birthdays, you know... But here they are...Now let me go party! =)

Blog # 8

2008-10-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

For Blog 8: develop a checklist/guidelines to help you remain aware of and be responsive to the conflict at the center of these two realizations. Your list should provide a series of suggestions for what(and how) you need to notice about your students' learning & writing, as well as some general practices for conducting sessions that will help your find out what you need to know and respond to it.
This blog is my Checklist/Guidelines that will help me be aware and responsive to the way my students learning and how the writing sessions go & it includes the things I will/will not do with the students in their sessions:

Be attentive to the students body language
Don't judge the students by how they look
Agree with the students strong points
Focus on the good of their papers
See how the students respond to me when I address them (are they comfortable with me, or do I need to break them out of their shell by talking a bit more with them, and help them get to a comfort level so they can work better).
Help better the paper with focal views and important points, not mechanics
Break down the assignment for the students so they can feel more relaxed about the assignment
Help students set realistic goals
Make sure the students have a pen/pencil and notebook, encourage them to "Write that down".
Be aware of how the students respond to me and my suggestions: are they "Getting it" or are they completely lost
Have the students repeat what they learned back to me
If the students don't understand their teacher, have them schedule a meeting with their professor
Focus on the best way the students learn and adapt myself to their needs (if they learn better with the Garret , Storehouse or Burkean parlor)
Don't be an editor, but be an encouraging tutor

I'm sure there are many different things I will learn as I go into the experience of tutoring. These were a few things that I can try to remember and look for as I tutor. Hopefully I wont be too nervous when I tutor so I can at least remember one of these things! =)

Blog #7

2008-10-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

ASSIGNMENT: What do you think are the most important features of effective tutoring? Describe anything you would like to discuss/practice in class to improve your tutoring
The most important features of effective tutoring for me are as follows:
Good Listening Skills from the tutor
Encouraging words to from the tutor on any clever ideas the student has on their topics
Finding solutions by working together
Letting the student work out certain issues on their own (tutor shouldn't give out all the answers)
Helping the student stay on track
Guiding the student through mental blocks
Helping the student be confident with their hard work
Confidence and Comfort between the tutor and student

I would like to discuss what is the best way to tell a student I don't know how to fix their problem. This meaning, I have a fear of not knowing how to help a student with what they need guidance in. I don't want the student to feel like coming to tutoring was a mistake because not even his/her tutor can help with the issue. I want to be confident in telling them "I don't know", I don't want to feel like I just let this person down.
I would also like to discuss how I will keep the student interested in their assignments and how they need to create realistic goals for their assignments. I don't want the students to start going off in a tangent of how they want to collect all of this data, do fifteen experiments, and all of this is due in two days. I want to learn how to help them make goals that they can keep to, without depriving them of their bigger picture.
The most important thing I want to learn for tutoring, is how to help the student not procrastinate. This would be the most difficult thing for me, since I am the queen of procrastination. If they have a project that is due in a month, I know myself that I wouldn't touch the thing until the last two days, so how am I going to inspire them to pick it up and plan out a months worth of work for their project.

Blog #6

2008-09-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

I still believe in the Store House Model and the Garret Model as my writing center philosophies. There are many ways to look at these models, but the way I understand them is that they work as a team. In the Store House Model, there needs to be a teacher that understands what the formula means in order to help the student figure out how to solve the problem. Therefore there is a right way to go about solving problems, and the way students understand this depends on their life experiences. This is where the Garret Model comes in. By the student trying to understand a certain formula, they will use their brains, which has been composed of all of the information they have learned up to this point. When the student goes through the process of learning a specific solution, they will dig into their "inner understanding" of the issue, and use thier past knowledge to try and figure out how to solve the problem. They will be learning the problem by useing the formula the teacher gives them, as well as finding their own methods to solving that problem with the formula they have just learned.

Blog #5

2008-09-25T17:48:00.001-07:00

Hello people of the blog class!!

I want to share my experience when I worked with Angela on Wednesdays class. We both took turns on being the student and the tutor. Throughout both of our sessions, we focused on the Development Tutorial and the Organization Tutorial.
First I tutored Angela. This was where I tried to incorporate Oral Composing(p46) for her developmental stage and then I used Transitions(p51) for her organization stage. The first mistake I made was reading Angela's paper out loud,she should have read it aloud to me. Then I noticed Angela's paper needed to be tightened, so I made my second mistake as a tutor and told her exactly the ways to fix this problem, which I see that I should have let her find her own mistakes! I spoke way to much in this session telling her how to merge her paragraphs and collaborate ideas within her paragraphs. I know she could have figured out the ways to do these things on her own, but I pounced on the problem instead of guiding her to find her own problems. Now I know that even if I can see the issue right away, I should not be blurting out the answer. I did however use the oral composing by verbally telling her the difference between what she had and how it should be. And I also told her that her transitions were good, but that they can be combined into stronger ideas. Afterward I noticed that Angela's paper was already in the Organization stage and all she needed to do was tighten it up.
Next, it was my turn. Again I was the one talking mostly, but that is because Dr Chandler brought it to everyone's attention that the student should be the main one talking, so all the tutors seemed to want the student to say everything. j/k...but in this situation Angela planned on using Mapping for my Developmental Stage and for my Organization stage she planned on trying the coloring. We both agreed that the Mapping did not work at all, since Angela didn't know how it was supposed to work. After she began focusing on the context of my paper, time ran out. I would have really liked to work on the coloring because I feel I learn best when things are fun, but as I said time ran out.
Overall I believe the experience was a very helpful one with learning that tutors talking too much in a session is not good for the student, and if a tutor sees that a specific method is not working for the student, then the tutor should move onto a different method before the time runs out.

Blog #4

2008-09-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Last class (Sept 17) I tutored Camille. She asked me to help her start her draft. I told her to write down any ideas she had about her reading. This lead her to write many points on the reading. She made a list of a couple of strong points so I told her to find the one she agreed with the most. She said that the main point she liked was how "Collaboration and why it works". Then I advised her to make a WEB where she can put her Main Idea in the center and make attachments to why it is important.
As she was brainstorming, I thought it would be a good twist to have her write the negatives of collaboration. As she wrote some negative points for collaboration, I noticed it was harder for her, and she also became more passionate on her positive points.
I saw how much she wrote for the positive points and I asked her to group some points because she had some cluttered ideas. As I read her points out loud to her, she realized that some ideas better she combined them. This way she had stronger points and fewer ideas.
As she took some points from the reading she came upon a word that she didn't know. I advised her to make a separate list where she can write words that she does know the meaning of and to look them up.
I let Camille do most of the talking and when she had an idea I asked her to write it down and then elaborate on it for her paper. Since she is a student who has loads of ideas, I asked her to tell me how long her paper has to be, and when she saw that it was going to be 1 1/2 to 2 pages, we discussed how she could focus on specific points that can help get her main idea across to her reader.
This was a very good practice for me and I was happy to have such a great student!

Blog #3

2008-09-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

This blog is about which writing center philosophy I am in accordance with. I agree with two of the models; the Store House Model and the Garret Model. These seem the most logical to understand and it is easy for me to see the positive results they bring in a student-teacher environment. The Store House Model is a good way to see that it is possible to teach by using a specific formula. Everyone’s mind is like a computer, and once a formula is understood by the student then they can store the information and apply it when it’s valid. Then the Garret Model is very logical because in using the store house model, you need to remember that everyone’s way to remember things are different. Although everyone can be taught the same information people have different methods of learning. I feel that the most important point the garret model tells us is that the way people learn things are based on their life experiences. An elaboration of this is the different ways people grow up trigger different memories that have a different effect on every human. To conclude the store house model is for us to teach a formula but the garret model is how the formula is observed.

Blog # 2

2008-09-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

This reading was very difficult for me to follow. Now I understand why these blogs are so good for us to write! After reading about how Molly and Erin also felt that Andrea Lunsford was all over the place, I felt better about how difficult this summery was for me to write!! The process that I used to create my summery was not a very good one, since all I did was try and take any point that I understood and wrote it down. I hope that after tomorrows class I will be able to see what this lady is truly talking about!

Wednesdays wonderful class

2008-09-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the trip down memory lane on Wednesdays class. Thinking about who helped me learn something in life was very interesting since everything I have learned in life was taught to me (Duh). It was very interesting to me how I chose to write about my father teaching me how to do subtraction with double numbers, since I can't stand the subject. The whole reason why I felt like it was such a strong memory for me was because of how hard math is for me. As the reading says that we must help the students figure out what the answer is, not tell them the answer, my father made me realize for myself what the answer was. After I would figure out the answers and finish my homework, I was so happy, and my father would tell me to practice. He drilled it in my head that if I want to succeed at any problem, I will have to find out a way to crack it down and practice its solutions. This is will be an excellent point to make to the students I get to tutor. Then I can give them feedback on how they should practice and encourage them to master their weaknesses in the problems. The only thing that is in question is if everyone loves to practice things as much as I do? I mean is it weird to want to master your weakness? And if the students I tutor do not want to practice their mistakes and make them better, then how do I encourage them?