So I guess this will be my last blog post. Looking back through our entire class together, I just feel that it has been an extremely rewarding experiment. We did a lot: helping high school kids with their college application essay, working with the Boys and Girls Club, working on one-on-one consultation and, of course, having tons of fun. That last one is the most important thing for me. I reckon we will see each other again pretty frequently as we will be co-workers in the Writing Center. That's why I wanted to have this cooking thing together so we could have some fun and get to know each other better. Provided that I don't cook terrible food, that is.
See you all this afternoon! It has been an honor to work with and get to know you all!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Rough draft for the feedback form, part 2
After couples of hours working, this is my feedback form for the writing center. It's based heavily on the form used by the Academic Skill Center, but it incorporates some specific aspects of the writing center.
Rough draft for the feedback form
As I'm working toward the proposal for the feedback system for Dr. Essid, I'm looking for various feedback forms or questions that could be used to effectively evaluate a writing consulting session. Below is something the Academic Skill Center is using, and so far it looks like they have been successful. Of course this will need a lot of re-tailoring to fit the Writing Center. If you have any comment or suggestion, please let me know.
I think that Question 3 to 7 are particularly helpful in evaluating the skills and work ethics of the tutor.
Question 8 to 14 are a great way to determine the writer's improvement as a result of the consulting session.
Please take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to complete the Academic Skills Center Tutoring Session Evaluation Survey. We appreciate your assistance.
1. In what area were you tutored?
2. If you selected "Other" in question 1, please explain.
3. The tutor helped me understand a subject area (i.e. calculus, biology etc.).
4. The tutor helped me to strengthen my academic skills (i.e. test preparation, critical reading, critical thinking, note-taking, etc.)
5. The tutor was willing to provide a variety of explanations and approaches to help you understand the material.
6. What strategy did you find most beneficial in improving your academic skills:
7. If you selected “Other” in question #6, please explain.
8. As a result of my work in the Academic Skills Center, I was able to (please check all that apply):
Improve my grades
Maintain my academic performance
Resolve a particular need or concern
Establish a goal
Meet a goal
Learn an effective strategy
Improve my ability to manage my time
Identify a resource I needed on or off—campus
Take greater responsibility for my own success
Other (please specify)
9. How helpful do you feel these sessions have been to you?
10. How did you find out about the Academic Skills Center?
11. If you selected "Other" in question 10, please explain.
12. My knowledge and understanding of the subject matter has improved because of my efforts invested in tutoring.
13. My personal studying is more effective because of the time invested in tutoring.
14. I feel more confident about my ability to succeed in this course as a result of my tutoring experience.
15. Name of Tutor:
16. Your name:
17. Please use the space below for additional comments.
I think that Question 3 to 7 are particularly helpful in evaluating the skills and work ethics of the tutor.
Question 8 to 14 are a great way to determine the writer's improvement as a result of the consulting session.
Tutoring Session Evaluation
Now that you have been tutored in the Academic Skills Center, we are interested in your thoughts on the services that you have received.Please take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to complete the Academic Skills Center Tutoring Session Evaluation Survey. We appreciate your assistance.
1. In what area were you tutored?
2. If you selected "Other" in question 1, please explain.
3. The tutor helped me understand a subject area (i.e. calculus, biology etc.).
4. The tutor helped me to strengthen my academic skills (i.e. test preparation, critical reading, critical thinking, note-taking, etc.)
5. The tutor was willing to provide a variety of explanations and approaches to help you understand the material.
6. What strategy did you find most beneficial in improving your academic skills:
7. If you selected “Other” in question #6, please explain.
8. As a result of my work in the Academic Skills Center, I was able to (please check all that apply):
Improve my grades
Maintain my academic performance
Resolve a particular need or concern
Establish a goal
Meet a goal
Learn an effective strategy
Improve my ability to manage my time
Identify a resource I needed on or off—campus
Take greater responsibility for my own success
Other (please specify)
9. How helpful do you feel these sessions have been to you?
10. How did you find out about the Academic Skills Center?
11. If you selected "Other" in question 10, please explain.
12. My knowledge and understanding of the subject matter has improved because of my efforts invested in tutoring.
13. My personal studying is more effective because of the time invested in tutoring.
14. I feel more confident about my ability to succeed in this course as a result of my tutoring experience.
15. Name of Tutor:
16. Your name:
17. Please use the space below for additional comments.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Is consultant the right word?
I had my meeting today with Ms. Dolson to talk about my consulting project and my overall experience of the course. It opened my mind up to many things. It seemed my idea of consulting is too...literal. I always think that when the writer comes to the writing center, they either seek an answer to a problem or a way to improve their writing. As consultant, we are the one who would have to provide the solution. Being vague and just "talking" about their writing seemed to me like a way to slack off our duties and avoid responsibilities. It turned out to be different.
While it would be more beneficial for some students if we help them on some technicality issues, most of the time it's not our job to make decisions or changes on students' papers. That's their job and their job alone. Our task, seems to be on a much more humanistic and individualistic level. It is to create a conversation, through which the writer can better understand their writing and ultimately, themselves better. To that end we should keep asking open-ended questions that prompt the writer to go through the heap of ideas inside their minds. More often than not the best thought is hidden deep inside layers of ideas that we need to help the writer peel off, layer by layer. Such idea, however, is still his and his alone. We just need to guide him to it by helping him in rediscovering his writing. This is a very humanistic viewpoint, because it assumes that everyone has deep-down a brilliant idea for a great paper. However, I think it changes our roles slightly. We are becoming more "writing therapist" than "writing consultant". It's a funny thought, but if it's should be our goal, then I will strive to achieve it.
While it would be more beneficial for some students if we help them on some technicality issues, most of the time it's not our job to make decisions or changes on students' papers. That's their job and their job alone. Our task, seems to be on a much more humanistic and individualistic level. It is to create a conversation, through which the writer can better understand their writing and ultimately, themselves better. To that end we should keep asking open-ended questions that prompt the writer to go through the heap of ideas inside their minds. More often than not the best thought is hidden deep inside layers of ideas that we need to help the writer peel off, layer by layer. Such idea, however, is still his and his alone. We just need to guide him to it by helping him in rediscovering his writing. This is a very humanistic viewpoint, because it assumes that everyone has deep-down a brilliant idea for a great paper. However, I think it changes our roles slightly. We are becoming more "writing therapist" than "writing consultant". It's a funny thought, but if it's should be our goal, then I will strive to achieve it.
It's not procrastinating! It's called waiting for artisitc inspiration. Which is triggered by the abject terror or last minute deadline, of course....
It's final exam week and everyone is stretched to the limits, torn between studying for exams and completing final assignments. Lots of it has to do with writing a lot of papers. Writing papers is also one of the things I hear people complaining about most. I myself has a 12-pages final paper and of course, the final project for our class. Since such tasks are often very time-consuming, most people start early. I have always been the exception. My first semester of freshman year I had a 20-pages final paper. I put it off until the last weekend and submitted it Monday morning. The semester after that I spent the night before the due date to write up a 10-pages book review. Again, this semester, I pulled an all-nighter writing the 12-pages research paper and submitted it the next morning. People invented a word for that: procrastinating. In terms of works ethics, it's bad. Yet nothing is more popular in college experience than procrastination, at least for me. It's like McDonald food which everyone knows is bad but they keep eating it.
Personally it has always been my way when it comes to writing. I simply can't write something way ahead of time. Nor can I sit down, write 5 pages today and finish 5 more pages the next day. I just don't feel the desire, or more importantly, the inspiration to. I have to sit down for a whole day and whole night if need be, just a day or two before the deadlines depending on the assignment. I feel that the sheer terror of facing the deadline makes my thoughts much clearer and my writing much better. So far it has yielded me great results, and thus I have decided not to change it. When my friends learn about that, they just don't have anything to say. Another friend at whose house I spent the night writing the 10 pages book review last semester was even angry about it-about the fact that I put off work until the last minute. Most of the time I don't have anything to say back either. Procrastination is still a bad thing and there's simply no excuse for it. Deep inside I am always afraid that if I keep up this work habit it will brew complacency and ruin my success in the future. For the moment though, I simply can't resist it. That terrorized feeling and the work drive I feel at the last minutes, it's... addictive. I love that feeling and I seek it whenever I could.
I simply hope that by the time I learn the lesson it will not be too late.
Personally it has always been my way when it comes to writing. I simply can't write something way ahead of time. Nor can I sit down, write 5 pages today and finish 5 more pages the next day. I just don't feel the desire, or more importantly, the inspiration to. I have to sit down for a whole day and whole night if need be, just a day or two before the deadlines depending on the assignment. I feel that the sheer terror of facing the deadline makes my thoughts much clearer and my writing much better. So far it has yielded me great results, and thus I have decided not to change it. When my friends learn about that, they just don't have anything to say. Another friend at whose house I spent the night writing the 10 pages book review last semester was even angry about it-about the fact that I put off work until the last minute. Most of the time I don't have anything to say back either. Procrastination is still a bad thing and there's simply no excuse for it. Deep inside I am always afraid that if I keep up this work habit it will brew complacency and ruin my success in the future. For the moment though, I simply can't resist it. That terrorized feeling and the work drive I feel at the last minutes, it's... addictive. I love that feeling and I seek it whenever I could.
I simply hope that by the time I learn the lesson it will not be too late.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Last day of class
Our last day of class was quite memorable. Every time Dr. Essid visited us I had this strange feeling. It's a mix of inspiration, admiration and intimidation. I feel that Dr. Essid generates all of those feelings like an aura. He seems to me a model figure: successful, knowledgeable, friendly, serious and demanding. What was most memorable among all the things he told us was the assurance that once we started working for the writing center, they would be looking out for us. For many people protection from employer is a vague issue. The pressure and problem generated by clients are taken for granted and employees would rather keep quiet than bring it up to their boss for fear of disapproval. It seems like it's not the case with Dr. Essid. According to him, a professor was being really harsh to a writing consultant that he knew. The consultant came to him crying, and he went to see the faculty member. He stated that the writing consultant in question was in fact brilliant and the professor was being rude as well as unrealistic. His ultimatum was that that professor would never again receive a writing consultant from the writing center. I was really amazed to learn that Dr. Essid took such action. It was a very bold move, and normally faculty members would not risk the relationship between them just to protect student's feelings. It didn't seem like Dr. Essid cared at all. He just did what he thought was right. His confidence as well as the value he placed in us made me feel very secure working under him.
That is not to say we would be able to "slack off" on him. Far from it. I guess it has been made clear that he is a serious "badass" and that he expects no joke in the job. The stories of how he fired some unethical writing consultants, as well as the fiery determination that he told them with made me feel quite intimidated. In the long run it's exactly the kind of experience you want to get from a campus job: dedication to your responsibilities, time-management skills and proper work ethics. I had no doubts when he told us that this job would give us an edge in the corporate world.
That is not to say we would be able to "slack off" on him. Far from it. I guess it has been made clear that he is a serious "badass" and that he expects no joke in the job. The stories of how he fired some unethical writing consultants, as well as the fiery determination that he told them with made me feel quite intimidated. In the long run it's exactly the kind of experience you want to get from a campus job: dedication to your responsibilities, time-management skills and proper work ethics. I had no doubts when he told us that this job would give us an edge in the corporate world.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Last shadowing session
It took me so long to get this blog post up, but I actually think it's for the better. Due to the work I have reviewed recently I feel better to reflect on past experiences. And that time, the writer who came to the writing center was a "non-traditional" student, no less. The important thing was that, I didn't know that she was a "non-traditional" student until the very last minutes.
I was chatting with my writing consultant as we waited for the writer. The writer was a bit late, and that's unusual according to the experience I have had with the writing center. After 10 minutes, she finally came in. It was an African American woman of an age I could not tell exactly. She also dressed in a fairly...unusual way, and that's despite the extremely diverse fashion in our school. For some reasons I felt uneasy. My consultant however, was as comfortable as usual. The session proceeded. The writer went straight to the point and did not linger much with all the greetings. She claimed that she was frustrated by her paper, having rewritten it many times and still she received an F. That was somewhat frightening to me, for I reckoned the tension would be much higher. To my admiration, my consultant remained unflinching and calm throughout the whole session. She patiently guided the writer through the issues with an easy-going manner and the usual professionalism.
It wasn't until the end that the writer revealed that she was a continuing student. She had been working for sometime, had had children and then returned to school to finished her MA. Although I suspected as much, I was still taken aback. It was true that we had a whole class dedicated on dealing with "non-traditional" students, but nothing we had read or talked about prepared me for this. It was due simply to one fact: all such readings had been based on the assumption that we know the writer is a "non-traditional" student by the time he/she came in. Obviously this was not the case.
I was chatting with my writing consultant as we waited for the writer. The writer was a bit late, and that's unusual according to the experience I have had with the writing center. After 10 minutes, she finally came in. It was an African American woman of an age I could not tell exactly. She also dressed in a fairly...unusual way, and that's despite the extremely diverse fashion in our school. For some reasons I felt uneasy. My consultant however, was as comfortable as usual. The session proceeded. The writer went straight to the point and did not linger much with all the greetings. She claimed that she was frustrated by her paper, having rewritten it many times and still she received an F. That was somewhat frightening to me, for I reckoned the tension would be much higher. To my admiration, my consultant remained unflinching and calm throughout the whole session. She patiently guided the writer through the issues with an easy-going manner and the usual professionalism.
It wasn't until the end that the writer revealed that she was a continuing student. She had been working for sometime, had had children and then returned to school to finished her MA. Although I suspected as much, I was still taken aback. It was true that we had a whole class dedicated on dealing with "non-traditional" students, but nothing we had read or talked about prepared me for this. It was due simply to one fact: all such readings had been based on the assumption that we know the writer is a "non-traditional" student by the time he/she came in. Obviously this was not the case.
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