Welcome back Lauren and Breanna!! You survived and prospered for another week, Nick and Megan!
This morning in 288, we were discussing how and why one might want to use peer tutors in FACS classes. This week, I'd like to discuss whether this is something you have considered or actually do already. If not, why not? If so,how do you do it and for whom?
WRite on!!
10 comments:
Im back!!!! But sick of course. In regards to the peer tutoring. I dont really have any students that are peer tutors. The reason this is, is because I have a lot of free time that I can help my students. Also, we have a tutoring period where the students can come in and get any help that they need. It seems to be easier if they just come straight to us if they have any questions. I have done peer tutoring before and it works but I just havent seen a need for it in my classes. Many of my assignments have been group projects as well so they are working together anyways.
One thing that I have started doing is students have to put their cell phones in a bucket when they walk into the class. Of course most of them started whining but it seemed to work yesterday. Cell phone use was just getting out of control so we will see how this works. They probably hate me now...oh well!
Hope everyone is having a great day!
Hey!!!
So I don't have students as peer tutors either, for similar reasons. We have an advisory period on wed and thurs here, and the sole purpose is for students to travel to classes that they are missing work or are having trouble with, and get the necessary help directly from the teachers. Additionally, i have made myself very available to students if they need to come in and get help. I feel that it is more effective this way, as i can tell them directly what it is that i am looking for.
So last week was our first week handing out the realcare simulation babies. mary wasn't here to help with that, so i administered that, which was a little crazy, but the students were so enthusiastic about taking home the babies, so that was great. it was so entertaining to hear their stories when they brought them back, not to mention the obvious lack of makeup and put together clothes on the girls' part. overall thought it was great, and we will be doing it for the next few weeekends as well.
our smile train fccla fundraiser also went incredibly well- we are still in the process of counting and collecting all the money, but we definitely have enough money for one surgery, and given this was the first year doing it, im really proud of my kids.
lauren and breanna hope you had a wonderful and relaxing spring break! nick-only a couple more weeks for us!
hope school is going well for everyone! missing you all, and hearing all about how everything is going!
ps how crazy is it that graduation is coming up- totally scared me when i got all those cap and gown/ grad fest emails!
I know isnt it crazy about grad stuff. I went and bought my cap and gown and tassel. EEEEEEK! which reminds me. when I was there they asked me my major for the tassel so I looked on the piece of paper and for college of agriculture and life sciences its yellow but they didnt have our major. There was another list below that that was titled like Family studies or something and that color tassel was maroon but it looks more like fuscia. Below that it had majors like retailing and family studies and then it had family and consumer resources. lol. Which is still not ours but its close enough and thats all the majors in our school so I went with the fuscia/maroon tassel. Please let me know what everyone else did. Thanks! :)
The maroon/fushia tassel is the correct one!! I'm going to call the bookstore and get them to write Family and Consumer Sciences Education under the School name (The OLD,OLD school name was Family and Consumer Resources). They need to update their records!
On the subject of peer tutors, it is suggested that one use these in and out of class. You already know that you can structure groups hetergeneously. Couldn't you structure peer partners in such a way as to shore up struggling learners and in essence, provide tutoring assistance?
Lauren and Megan-In a typical class you arae now teaching, how many of your struggling students actually seek help during tutoring or advisory time? How many don't?
Ok perfect!!! I got the right one!!!
For peer tutoring...most of the students that are struggling are not struggling cause they dont understand it, it is because they are absent or just choose not to do the work. When they are here they turn things and have no problem. Its when they get lazy and dont turn things when they start having problems. Some of my students use tutoring time to get caught up. It isnt until about when grades are coming out that students realize that they have assignments missing then start frantically(spelling?)trying to do something about it. I had a special ed student come in for tutoring the past couple days to get caught up and to ask for my help. Also when we had a project many of the students came in during tutoring to either finish their project or work ahead. Sometimes we see many kids during tutoring and sometimes we see none. But most of all the students that are struggling, are struggling because they dont turn things in and basically dont care therefore they dont care to come into tutoring as well.
I could see how peer tutors would be helpful in many situations but for me in culinary I guess that you could say that they use peer tutoring almost everyday as they are working in groups. Most of the written work that they do is not anything that is to complicated that they would need to have a tutor to do finish the work. Just like Lauren said most of the students that have failing grades are because they do not come to class or if they are in class they just do not care about there grades and choose not to do the work. I think that I could use peer tutors but in the situation with culinary they are with their groups 90% of the time as it stands now. I hope that you all have a great weekend!
Is it possible that you are confusing not caring with lack of grasp of the content or lack of discipline to do the work?
Please comment.
Hello All.
Last week I finally took over all classes. I’m now at a full load and will have it until May, it will be longer than required but I believe it will give me some great experience. Last Monday I introduced color schemes which went very well, Dr. Kelly observed a class this day as well. Last Tuesday and Wednesday I had a substitute all day long because Sharon was working with the principal selection committee. I really enjoyed teaching last week and learned a lot basically being on my own for most of the week. On Thursday there were sixth grade visits to many CTE classes from one elementary school. About 6 groups of 30 kids each would come thru the classroom every fifteen minutes. It was quite overwhelming as I had to give a 5-10 minute overview of Interior Design and the Careers related to the class as well as monitor and teach the beginning design class. It was a good experience and taught me that multi-tasking is a must for CTE teachers especially FACS teachers.
In regards to the peer tutors. I have never actually assigned peer tutors but my students just seem to do it on their own if someone is struggling or needs help. It’s quite nice to see when you are working with one student and then another student says I don’t get it and the person next to them says I’ll explain it to you. I give students who come in to lunch extra help anytime they need it. I usually have at least 5 students in at lunch each day usually more.
Lauren I really like the bucket idea for cell phones. It’s something I’ll keep in mind if I ever teach somewhere which allows cell phones in class.
Hope everything is going well for everyone, student teaching will soon be over before we know it.
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