<p>So I got a work study job offer from my college for a tutoring position. I'm going to be tutoring other college students in englsih and college algebra. I'm so nervous about it. What is it like being a tutor? I'm not even all that smart, quite honestly all my friends laughed when they heard the news. The only reason why I was offered the job was because of my "high" ACT score, which quite honestly was pretty low IMO. </p>
<p>Advice/Help?</p>
<p>I’m a tutor in my CC’s Math lab and I think it is great. Its basically a large computer classroom and I walk around and if anyone needs help I do my best to help them. You tend to see the same faces once in a while so that’s pretty cool, and after a while they start to ask for you. When it comes down to it, if for whatever reason you don’t remember what the student is working on, you can just ask for their textbook or notes and use it as a refresher, then go on to explain what is going on.</p>
<p>Its pretty fun seeing improvements throughout the semester, although there are some students that “hate” Math and it seems like nothing is getting through. Keep at it and eventually (hopefully) it’ll click and they will change their mindset.</p>
<p>I plan on continuing as a tutor in my last couple semesters in CC, and once I get settled in at my 4-year, I hope to continue there as well.</p>
<p>I’ve been a tutor at a school with a high remedial math/English rate for a year and a half. Especially if it’s college algebra, it’s not at all about how smart you are-- it’s going to be about how patient and flexible you are. How patient are you? How well do you understand basic concepts (five minus eight-- how would you explain that to a student who didn’t understand it at all? or how to solve for x? or what slope means and what it looks like? or how to complete the square? or what an inequality is? Why do you need to cite souces? Why did you put a comma there-- just because it ‘sounds’ right? What is a sentence fragment?) Depending on what kind of students your college has (mine had a lot of nontraditional students), you’ll be working with students who are a lot older than you-- for me, I worked with parents (some with kids as old as I was), people working full-time jobs, and you had to be sensitive of that.</p>
<p>I loved my w-s job tutoring. Working with people and seeing the concrete difference you make in helping them achieve their goals is… amazing. It was infinitely rewarding, and you learn a lot about effective communication and leadership. At my school, I also was able to set my own schedule really flexible, so instead of a rule that I had to work in a shift of three/four hours, it was really an hour here, an hour there. The center was also open a lot longer than normal office hours, so I had the chance to get more hours.</p>
<p>I definitely loved it-- and having a w-s job already in hand is really fantastic. If you like helping people and are patient, go for it! But the job is definitely difficult to do right, and you’ll be in constant contact with people.</p>
<p>I’ve been a tutor at my school for the last year. I work in my schools tutoring center, as well as doing one on one tutoring. </p>
<p>There are a lot of students in remedial math and english at my school, and I spend a lot of time tutoring people in elementary and intermediate algebra, as well as college algebra. The key is to bring yourself back to where they’re at. When I’m doing my own math, I do a LOT of steps in my had. When I’m FOILing two binomials, I do it all in one step. When I’m factoring, I do it mentally. Same goes for a lot of steps in long division, multiplication…all kinds of stuff.</p>
<p>You’ve gotta remember, a student in elementary algebra isn’t likely to be doing very much factoring in their head. You’ve gotta bring things back down to their level, and actually write things out. For instance, don’t assume that they just “know” that x^2-9 factors to (x+3)(x-3) and other such shortcuts. Write it out, and explain “why” it factors to that, and why it’s useful to know that shortcut. Number line analogies are very useful when negative numbers are involved. I intuitively understand why 2-4=-2, but others might not understand so clearly. </p>
<p>As others have mentioned, I end up seeing a lot of the same people quite consistently. In addition to working in the tutoring center at my school, I’m a member of the Trio: Student Support Services program at my school, and one of the services they offer is one on one tutoring with other students. I do a lot of one on one math tutoring through the program, and in several instances, I’ve ended up tutoring the same students for the entire semester. I see a lot of the same faces in the tutoring center all the time too.</p>
<p>Being a math tutor can be a bit trying at times. I’m a very mathematically inclined person. I’m a physics major, and after I transfer from my CC, I’ll likely be double majoring in physics and math…so, you could say I like math. Some students HATE math with a PASSION. Others though, do understand the importance of it, and really put a ton of effort into it. The most rewarding moment is when the student finally “gets it.” I’ve had several of my tutees tell me that there’s no way they would have passed their classes without me. That’s rewarding. </p>
<p>One last thing I’d add, is that I’ve gained a much more thorough understanding of many of the principles of elementary algebra through college algebra by tutoring people in it. When you have to explain things to someone else, it forces you to really figure out “why” we’re doing it. That’s a great added bonus.</p>
<p>^^ Right, one of the best ways to learn is to teach. Seeing other viewpoints definitely helps your personal understanding as well.</p>
<p>I loved tutoring in college. I was a tutor in local high schools, and I was a teaching assistant several times as an undergraduate. I love teaching, so it was a lot of fun for me. It can take a lot of patience because at times you’ll feel like you’re explaining the same thing over and over again, but it’s really fulfilling when something clicks for the student and they are able to do problems on their own.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about not being “smart enough” to be a tutor. Something that might seem really easy to you might be more difficult for a someone else, and often, you may find that students are struggling because they’re missing some prerequisite knowledge or they just need to see the problems walked through a couple of times. I’ve had students who understood it; they just didn’t feel comfortable with it yet, so I just had to sit next to them while they solve the problem. Other students need you to explain every step, and it can be really helpful if you walk them through your thought process as well–something professors don’t always do when they’re teaching. </p>
<p>You’ll start to remember the material really quickly once you start tutoring, and if you do it for a while, you’ll start to get good at recognizing what sorts of things students struggle on or different ways to explain things to students to help them understand.</p>
<p>I was really worried about tutoring English too because I didn’t consider myself a particularly strong writer, but usually, the students who come in for help are international students or students who didn’t get a really strong background in writing in high school. I wasn’t very confident in my ability to improve really strong writers’ essays, but it was simple enough to proofread and comment on essays where the writers weren’t as confident.</p>