Kwantlen Polytechnic University KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship Summer 5-2016 Level Three Tutor Foundation Training Workbook Alice Macpherson Kwantlen Polytechnic University Follow this and additional works at: http://kora.kpu.ca/facultypub Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the Leadership Studies Commons KORA Citation Macpherson, Alice, "Level Three Tutor Foundation Training Workbook" (2016). KORA Faculty Scholarship: Paper 64. http://kora.kpu.ca/facultypub/64 This Teaching Resource is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access. For more information, please contact kora@kpu.ca. LEVEL THREE TUTOR FOUNDATION TRAINING WORKBOOK The Learning Centres at Kwantlen Polytechnic University KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three KPU PEER TUTOR FOUNDATION TRAINING – LEVEL THREE List matches Topic and time requirements for CRLA and is aligned with KPU TLC practices. Level Three Workbook for 1 Day Foundation Training (6 hours) Contents Foreword ............................................................................................................................................. ii Analyze Your Personal Strengths as a Tutor ....................................................................................... 1 Review Tutor Competencies ............................................................................................................... 2 Level I Objectives ............................................................................................................................ 2 Level II Objectives ........................................................................................................................... 2 Analyze Approaches to Tutoring.......................................................................................................... 3 Build Tutoring Relationships Based on Trust and Expertise ................................................................ 5 Analyze Difficult Tutoring Situations .................................................................................................... 8 Reflections on My Tutoring ................................................................................................................ 10 What I’ve Learned by Tutoring ....................................................................................................... 10 Consider Portfolio Thinking ............................................................................................................... 11 Develop a Personal Tutoring Philosophy ........................................................................................... 14 Draft Philosophic Statement of Tutoring and Learning ................................................................... 15 Create a Personal Tutoring Portfolio ................................................................................................. 16 Finishing your Training ...................................................................................................................... 18 Accessing Moodle .......................................................................................................................... 18 KPU Tutor Level Three Training Process Log ................................................................................... 19 i|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Foreword Kwantlen Tutor Training is intended to meet the standards of CRLA, ATP, and NTA. This Workbook and Training Session, coupled with online modules and coaching from your Trainer will bring you to the standard needed for Level Three Tutor certification Tutor Name Date of Tutor Training My Tutor Trainer(s) Contact Info Tutoring Subject Area Tutoring Since Date Tutor Foundation Training Workbook Level III by http://www.kpu.ca/learningcentres is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Written and compiled by Alice Macpherson, PhD, 2016. Reviewed by faculty and staff members of The Learning Centres at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, BC, Canada ii | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Analyze Your Personal Strengths as a Tutor Welcome to Level Three Tutor Training. You bring a wealth of experience to this session and we encourage sharing of it. Strengths as a Tutor Activity: Think of your strengths as a tutor and share this with another person. 1. 2. 3. 4. What do you do particularly well? What did you do that uses this strength? How did others help you? What are you most proud of in this strength? Think of a time when you were particularly successful as a tutor. What was the best part of that experience? What did you do that made that happen? How did others help you? What are you most proud of from that experience? Listen to your partner’s experience and be prepared to say a bit about it. 1|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Review Tutor Competencies Using your tutor workbooks from Levels I and II, skim through the material while thinking about significant ways that you have applied the ideas and principles from that training. What questions come up as you review? What concepts have you been able to apply consistently in your tutoring? Level I Objectives Level II Objectives Identify the Scope of Peer Tutoring in the Learning Centres Practise Intercultural Communication Manage Personal Stress Define Peer Tutoring Roles and Responsibilities Evaluate Tutees’ Needs Behave Ethically when Tutoring Use Socratic Questioning to Promote Critical Thinking Analyze Tutoring Situations Where Ethical Choices are Made Plan Tutor Sessions Tutor in Group Environments Utilize the Tutoring Cycle Discuss Key Strategies for Academic Success (Learning Aids) Communicate Effectively as a Tutor Manage Difficult Tutoring Situations Use Critical Questioning Define Bloom’s Taxonomy Follow Learning Centres Procedures Use Referrals (When You Need Assistance) Identify When to Stop the Tutoring Process Complete TESAT instrument and Debrief with a Learning Strategist Follow Learning Centres Procedures (includes beginning Tutor Certification process) Discuss Tutor’s Legal Responsibilities for FIPPA, Human Rights and Harassment Issues Complete LASSI (study skills for success) and Debrief with a Learning Strategist Revise Session Plans and Document the Tutor Processes Create Reflective Journal Entries on Tutoring Practices Integrate Adult Learning Basics into Tutoring Discuss Issues of Copyright Practise Academic Integrity Set a Professional and Welcoming Environment Shadow Tutoring Sessions Plan Sessions and Document the Tutor Processes Self Evaluate, Receive Tutee and Other Feedback 2|Page Continue Tutor Certification Process Discuss Issues of Academic Honesty (Cheating & Plagiarism) Analyze Tutor Ethics in Action Utilize Presentation Skills (use scripts for class visits) Create Reflective Journal Entries on Tutoring Practices Self Evaluate, Receive Tutee and Other Feedback, Create Semester Goals KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Analyze Approaches to Tutoring Now that you have been tutoring for a while, how do you see yourself as a tutor? What methods and approaches have you used that seem to work particularly well for you and your tutees? As you know, tutor roles include:      Promoting independence in learning; Personalizing Learning; Facilitating tutee insights into learning, and learning processes; Providing a student perspective on learning and university success; Respecting individual differences; We are not all the same in our approaches and there is not one single approach that is the “best”. Research has shown that there are particular categories and types of approaches that work often and good tutors use a combination that suits their tutee’s needs, and both tutor and tutee styles. The following approaches should be considered and combined as you develop your tutoring style. Facilitating Facilitation is about making it easy to have a discussion. Being curious about what the tutee knows/believes about the material can lead them to deepen their explanations and to identify connections and cross applications. Help them make linkages and pathways that will improve their retention and recall of information. Challenging Tutors can challenge tutees in their thinking by using Socratic questioning to help the tutee look for answers at a deeper level than their current understanding. This promotes critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation as it is focused on the subject at hand. Coaching Watching the tutee work through a problem or situation and giving small signs along the way as to direction to pursue or processes that may be fruitful for the tutee. Leading Sometimes the best approach is to provide information and resources for the tutee to study. It is hard to draw out information that is not there in the tutee’s mind. What I’ve Learned by Tutoring Activity: Describe some of the approach(es) you take to setting goals – for yourself and for your tutoring sessions. 3|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three In what ways do you model effective study skills and student behaviours for your tutees? Explain a few of the most significant things you have learned from your tutoring experiences? Why are these significant for you? What are some of your strengths as a Tutor in regards to your approach? What weaknesses or gaps are you aware of? What concerns do you have? Identify several areas for future growth as a tutor. 4|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Build Tutoring Relationships Based on Trust and Expertise Communication and learning are interconnected. Without good communication in the tutoring process, there is little learning. The two key components of communication are: 1. The content of the message. 2. The emotional impact of the message on the receiver. Active listening opens the door to good communication that has a positive emotional response. We need to first understand what the tutee is saying and then for the tutee to understand what we are saying. Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of another. When you are empathetic to you tutee you understand their feelings without letting them take over the situation. Expert Communication Activity: What strategies do you use to ensure that you understand what your Tutee is telling you? What do you do with this information in your tutoring sessions? Give examples of how you connect with your Tutees when you are working with them. 5|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Building Trust “To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.” David O. McKay Building tutoring relationships with others can be complex and relies on the element of trust. The key to building and maintaining trust is being trustworthy. When you want to increase trust, increase your trustworthiness.   Trusting Behaviour – The willingness to risk beneficial or harmful consequences by making oneself vulnerable to other group members. Trustworthy Behaviour – The willingness to respond to another’s risk taking in a way that ensures that the other person will experience beneficial consequences. Part of being trustworthy is having expertise in the subject that you are tutoring. You became a tutor based on this type of expertise. You continue to develop as a tutor by maintaining and expanding your expertise and by being trustworthy. Expressing acceptance, support, and cooperativeness as well as reciprocating information and disclosures appropriately are key aspects of being trustworthy in relationships with others. The Emotional Bank Account If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve in the account. Your trust towards me becomes higher. If I have a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting you off, failing to keep commitments, betraying your trust, eventually my emotional bank account becomes overdrawn. Trust in Action When trust is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective. I can even make mistakes and that trust level will compensate for it. When trust is low, communication is difficult, and slow. I measure every word. I insist on memos. I won’t cooperate. You can think of this as a “bank account” in which you make deposits that show that you are trustworthy. Major Deposits in Emotional Bank Accounts        Effective Communication Understand the individual Attend to the little things (courtesies) Keep commitments Clarify expectations Apologize sincerely when you make a withdrawal Show Personal Integrity Integrity Integrity supports trust. It includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth. Integrity is keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. This is a key element of tutoring. 6|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Trust Activity: List a few ways that you build trust as a tutor. How I am Trustworthy 7|Page How I am Trusting KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Analyze Difficult Tutoring Situations You have been tutoring for at least 50 hours at this point and your experiences will help you to gain a greater understanding of ways that tutor can adapt the learning experience for the tutee. As part of a small group of tutors, you will develop a case study about one aspect of tutoring that has proven to be a challenge to you. This case study will be a descriptive, explanatory analysis of a particular type of tutoring event that you and your group members have experienced. An explanatory case study is used to explore why and how this may have happened and to look for underlying principles that may be used to analyze future events and lead to better outcomes. Case Study Activity: 1. Your Trainer will lead a whole group brainstorm to come up with a variety of ongoing difficult tutoring situations that have happened in the past. The group will cluster these situations into related types by similarity. 2. The Trainer will assist the tutors in picking a theme that resonates for them and then forming groups of three to four around a given theme. Working in these groups and using your best facilitating skills, create a case study of an ongoing tutoring situation in your theme area.  List the events that make up the situation that you are working with.  Organize the flow of these events in a series of two or more tutoring sessions.  Brainstorm the background elements that would contribute to this series of events.  Create a realistic narrative of the dialogue around this tutoring session ensuring that the narrative is reliably supported by the background and the events.  Include elements that may change between sessions.  Include any other related elements that might impact on how the sessions are conducted. Your group will give a short presentation on your case study to the larger group and will listen to the presentations by others. 3. The Trainer will use Socratic questioning to lead the whole group in picking out themes and principles from the collection of case studies. 8|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Best Tutoring Advice to Self and Others: With these in mind, write a paragraph of your best advice to yourself (and others) as a tutor. What are the strategies that you do and can use to manage difficult situations and to fulfill your tutoring mandate and responsibilities? 9|Page KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Reflections on My Tutoring What I’ve Learned by Tutoring Describe the approach(es) you take to setting goals – for yourself and for your tutoring sessions. In what ways do you model effective study skills and student behaviours for your tutees? What are some of your strengths as a Tutor? Explain a few of the most significant things you have learned from your tutoring experiences? Why are these significant for you? Write a reflection paper on your observations about your tutoring. You will start this process with an Outline. What are your strengths, concerns, weaknesses, and areas for future growth? Discuss these reflections with your Tutor Supervisor. 10 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Consider Portfolio Thinking “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” - Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist What is Folio Thinking? Folio thinking is characterized by a personal awareness of one's own contribution, value, and responsibility. It requires individualized thinking, context-creating communication infrastructure and may use technology-based knowledge management. In other words, you may be posting your thoughts online. You will be undertaking a reflective practice of creating a personal portfolio for the purpose of creating coherence and making meaning. This will draw on:     Experiential processes Reflective thinking Analytical thinking Thinking about your thinking Why is it Important to Create a Portfolio? In today's education system there is a strong move to assess student learning by having them develop portfolios that showcase their understanding and development. In BC, this is now a part of the high school curriculum and many other programs and content areas have and are implementing them to enhance and expand the depth of education and understanding. What is somewhat surprising is that there has been little done to support and encourage those who tutor or teach to do the same thing for themselves. Among those whose primary role is to instruct in a particular discipline most faculty professional development is done in their specific subject areas with significantly less time spent thinking about or acting on considerations of teaching and learning (Silverthorn, Thorn, & Svinicki, 2006). Peter Seldin (1991) notes that: "An historic change is taking place in higher education: teaching is being taken more seriously. At long last, after years of criticism and cries for reform, more and more colleges and universities are reexamining their commitment to teaching and exploring ways to improve and reward it." Everyone who assists in the learning process is being held accountable, as never before, to provide clear and concise evidence of the quality of their assistance. This is an opportunity to synthesize and publicize your work on self-assessment, reflection, and analysis on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of your teaching practice and focus on student learning. Others may not intuitively understand how a particular activity, publication, or process demonstrates your tutoring philosophy and provides support for student learning (Smith 1993, 1995). It is important to develop a clear, detailed vision of what a portfolio needs to be for you and to identify samples of successful portfolios that resonate (Arter et al. 1995; Chappell and Schermerhorn 1999). What is a Tutoring Portfolio? Tutoring Portfolio: A comprehensive record of your activities and accomplishments, created by you, and will include:  Qualitative assembling of evidence of good tutoring, facilitation, and other activities.  Documents the content & quality of these activities.  Descriptions, thru documentation over an extended period of time, of the full range of your abilities as a tutor. This is intended to present your tutoring achievements & major strengths in the areas of:  self-assessment  interpretation by others 11 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three It is also an opportunity for self-reflection and demonstration of growth along with your understanding yourself as a tutor. As a Kwantlen tutor you have been doing exercises that you will now be using as the basis for your Tutoring Portfolio. A Tutoring Portfolio is a story about you and who you are as a tutor and a learner. They may include some or all of the following:  Examples of what you have learned about tutoring others,  What you do as a learning leader in your preparation and tutoring,  Your private and public scholarship of tutoring,  A description of your journey as a tutor,  Connected with a reflective narrative of your growth, values, future vision, and plans. Portfolios may go well beyond this list and are a way to show your capacity and to showcase your focus on learning for yourself and others. Identify Information for Inclusion in a Tutoring Portfolio Whether you are a new tutor or have years of experience, now is a good time to begin to develop a portfolio. The product and effect will grow over time and provide long lasting rewards. The good news is that, as a Kwantlen tutor you have been working on the content of your tutoring Portfolio since you started tutoring. Any artifact that can be captured may lend itself to being part of a portfolio. Text, graphics, video, audio, photos, and animations are all candidates for inclusion and each of these categories have many sub genres. You can start by identifying what you have in your "Experience Trunk" - all of those items that you have created or worked with during your time as a teacher - all evidence that may be used as part of your portfolio. However, you probably will not want to use everything that you collect. While an encyclopedic approach is possible, it is often counter-productive as it diffuses information and often overwhelms the viewer. First, ask yourself. "For what purpose am I creating this object?" Secondly, identify the audience that you intend to reach. Contemplation and analysis of these two elements will allow you to filter your information and plan an approach that will focus your evidence to heighten impact. Thirdly, think about the things that you have created in your time tutoring. This will include session plans, learning tasks, reflective journal entries, handouts to help your tutees, feedback that you have received, your response to feedback, and anything else that you have done as a tutor. Your next task is to look for the artifacts that you already have or might be in the process of creating. 12 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Tutor Evidence Activity: Item Tutoring Products Current and recent tutoring responsibilities and practices Professional Development to improve tutoring Steps taken to evaluate your own tutoring Student feedback Comments from other tutors Scholarship of tutoring and learning (publication) Outside Activities that support tutoring and learning Other artifact or sources of information about your tutoring 13 | P a g e Evidence KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Develop a Personal Tutoring Philosophy What is your tutoring perspective and philosophy? How does this described point of view extend your story and evidence? Dr. Dan Pratt and Dr. John Collins have done extensive work in this area and make available an online inventory to help you identify your perspective at http://www.teachingperspectives.com/. Their Teaching Perspectives Inventory measures teachers' orientations to their roles as managers of the learning process. The Inventory yields five alternative points of view (perspectives) on teaching by asking structured questions about teachers' actions in the teaching (tutoring) setting, their intentions how they organize the learning situation, and their beliefs about fundamental principles of learning and teaching. You can utilize this tool to identify how close your actions, intentions, and beliefs are aligned in each perspective. Philosophy of Tutoring and Learning Draft Activity: Actions What do I do that encourages, enables, and/or empowers learning for myself and/or others? Intentions What do I intend my tutoring to do for myself and/or others? Beliefs What do I believe is important about tutoring and learning? 14 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Draft Philosophic Statement of Tutoring and Learning 15 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Create a Personal Tutoring Portfolio You now have the basis for your portfolio. Add Rich Meaning and Connections How do you connect your artifacts and evidence with your tutoring practise, perspective, and philosophy? What themes emerge when you reflect on your path? This is your story and a narrative that will take you beyond the descriptive basics of the evidence. This is the place to write reflective commentary about the evidence that you have chosen. Reflections on this commentary are the grounding for your future vision and summary statements for your portfolio. Share with Others You will start to create a portfolio that only you see. This will give you the benefits of reflective practice and the positive effects on your learners of any mindful acts that arise from contemplation of personal tutoring practices. Over time, the sharing of your tutoring perspectives and philosophy invites feedback and makes for rich and thoughtful conversations with peers. There is a growing body of research on the benefits of Learning Communities where such conversations spark deeper connections and your tutoring portfolio can both inspire and records these interactions. Electronic Portfolios There is a wide range of options for telling your particular story. Making your evidence public has become increasingly easy and encouraged through current web based technologies. Web pages, blogs, wikis, and other shared and/or public places are available to anyone with internet connectivity for a wide range of digital story telling options. That said, the old technologies of paper based publishing are certainly still viable and there are many possibilities in between. A portfolio that is the equivalents of a paper version that has been transposed to an electronic medium may be very different from some of the current database systems. There is an ongoing editing of the definition of “portfolio” (Batson, 2002) Helen Barrett describes some of the variations as follows: "I view portfolios as a process rather than a product - a concrete representation of critical thinking, reflection used to set goals for ongoing professional development. An electronic portfolio developed for this purpose includes technologies that allow the portfolio developer to collect and organize artifacts in many formats (audio, video, graphics, and text). … Often, the terms "electronic portfolio" and "digital portfolio" are used interchangeably. However, I make a distinction: an electronic portfolio contains artifacts that may be in analog (e.g., videotape) or computer-readable form. In a digital portfolio, all artifacts have been transformed into computerreadable form." (Barrett, 2000) Mahara as a Platform to Showcase your Portfolio Mahara is a fully featured web application to build your digital portfolio. You can create journals, upload files, embed social media resources from the web and collaborate with other users in groups. It is customizable and flexible, allowing you to collect, reflect on and share your achievements and development online in a space you control. KPU uses the Mahara software as a platform for digital portfolios. You will have the opportunity for a hands-on session to learn how to use Mahara to organize your Tutoring Portfolio. https://eportfolios.kpu.ca 16 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Summary "Folio thinking" promotes self-awareness, motivation, and direction and provides invaluable support to individuals in academic, professional, and social settings (UBC 2006). Technology allows us the flexibility to develop our materials to suit our needs. You have control of the focus, direction, and content of your portfolio. Portfolio Resources and Examples Teaching Perspectives Inventory: http://www.teachingperspectives.com/ UBC's ePortfolio initiative: http://www.elearning.ubc.ca/toolkit/eportfolios/ University of Windsor resources: http://www.uwindsor.ca/ctl/links-pd Ohio State overview: http://ucat.osu.edu/read/teaching-portfolio Washington State information: http://www.wsu.edu/provost/teaching.htm Helen Barrett's website: http://www.electronicportfolios.org/ Digital Storytelling site: http://www.electronicportfolios.org/digistory/index.html Putting Your Portfolio Online: http://viget.com/inspire/put-your-portfolio-online Samples of electronic Portfolios: http://electronicportfolios.com/ALI/samples.html http://sarahfraserpeertutoring.wordpress.com/; http://tesolblog.org/tutoring-project.html 17 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three Finishing your Training This concludes the first part of the Kwantlen Level Three Tutor Training program. You will continue your training under the guidance of your Instructional Associate, Learning Strategists, and faculty mentors. Good Luck in all your future Tutoring activities. Level Three integration exercises using online resources (6 hours) Congratulations on finishing your Level Three Tutor Training! You now have more information to build on your Level One and Two tutoring concepts, experience, and situations that you encounter as a Tutor. You began with your application and interview to become a Tutor at KPU’s Learning Centres, completed your six hour training session, including your workbook exercises, explanations, and discussions. The process that you will now follow in your tutoring will help you continue to help others. You will continue using Moodle for exercises and documents as well as working with your Instructional Associate, other members of the Learning Centre Team, and your Faculty mentor. Accessing Moodle Moodle is an online web based application that allows for interaction among students and instructors. We use it for tutor training as well as for communicating with each other. Because we consider this an important part of your job in the Learning Centre, you will need to log in each week to keep up on Moodle postings and discussion groups. https://courses.kpu.ca/ You will see the following screen: log in, and click on Tutor Training. Choose the Tutor Integration (I, II, III) tab and click into Level Three. 18 | P a g e KPU Peer Tutor Foundation Training Workbook – Level Three KPU Tutor Level Three Training Process Log This is a checklist that you can refer to for the major steps along the way as you complete the steps to obtain your Level Three certification. Activity Date Signed by Offer of Peer Tutoring position Level Three Six Hour Training Session and exercise completion. Introduction to your Instructional Associate, Learning Strategists, Director, and other Learning Centre personnel on your campus. Introduction to Faculty mentor. Review of Learning Centres services, resources, and procedures Use TutorTrac for Scheduling and Documentation. Moodle Resources for your further four hours of Training. Complete TESAT and Debrief with a Learning Strategist Continue Reflective Tutor Journalling. Complete Training Materials and Activities for Level Three. Create Supplemental Materials for Tutees. Collate Tutoring Session Plans and Document the Tutor Processes Active Tutoring (25 hours during Level Three) Consolidate your Personal Tutoring Portfolio and post to Mahara. Monthly meetings with your Instructional Associate or more frequently as desired. Feedback from Tutees and your Supervisor. Self-Evaluation of your Tutoring. Summative Evaluation Meeting with your Instructional Associate. Satisfactory completion of all items will lead to your Level Three Tutoring Certificate. 19 | P a g e