I’m sure that you’ve probably gone to the tutoring center at your school. You’ve set up an appointment. You’ve come to the tutoring session, and it’s awkward.
It’s awkward because you don’t know what you need. The tutor is not a mind-reader, so they don’t know what it is that you need, and at the end of it, you both feel like you’ve just wasted an hour of your time.
The tutor feels awful because they didn’t really help you. You’re mad at the tutor because you feel like the tutor didn’t do their job.
There are a lot of great ways that you can use tutors, but tutors are going to be the most effective to you when you show up prepared, when you have a goal, and when you’re not using them at the last minute.
I’m going to walk you through three best practices so that you can utilize your college’s tutoring center like a pro so that you no longer have any learning gaps between what your professor’s teaching in lecture and what you’re studying on your own.
Download the Tutoring Center Cheat Sheet to get a list of amazing ideas you can use your tutors for
The first thing we need to clarify is the difference between a professor’s role and the role of a tutor.
The Role of Your Professor
Your professor’s role is to basically expose and teach you to the information for the first time, for whatever subject it is that you’re learning in that particular class. They’re taking you from point of zero content knowledge on the subject to point 100% knowledge of the content that class is supposed to teach you. Then, they’re going to assess if they’ve done their job by testing to see if you grasped the information they spent an entire semester teaching you.
The Role of a Tutor
That’s different from the role of a tutor. What a tutor is there for is to consolidate all of that information for you, or try to help you simplify it.
They’re there to really build upon the topic that your professor already exposed you and clarify anything that the professor said that maybe you didn’t understand the first time hearing it, or maybe you’re having a difficult time wrapping your mind around it.
They can also fill in any learning gaps but they’re not meant to replace the professor or your own studying.
We have to keep in mind that most of these tutoring centers have fellow students who are tutoring. Yes, they had to meet a requirement of having a certain grade point average in that particular class, but they’re not the professor. They didn’t go out and get a teaching degree. They didn’t go out to specifically teach this material. They’re there just to help out, to help facilitate the learning process for students outside of the classroom.
I want you to keep in mind is that your professor should always be your first line defense. They should always be the first person that you go to seek for clarification and advice.
Tutors are your second line of defense. They’re there to help you, to facilitate, to be your safety net, in case the professor does not have the ability, whether it be because of time constraints or whatever, to facilitate your learning process.
The next three best practice tips are meant to equip you with the skills to being a better student when it comes to these tutoring sessions because, at the end of the day, the only person you have control over is you.
Have a goal at the beginning of your tutoring session.
At the beginning of your session, you need to know what you want to accomplish. When you know what you want to accomplish, then you can express that to the tutor.
It helps your tutor plan the tutoring session to make sure that at the end of that session, you have reached that goal.
This is so important because when you go into it knowing what you want to expect, you know specifically what your tutor’s going to help you with.
They know what they need to bring to the table, and then you also know what you’re bringing to the table. There is a goal. There is a plan, and at the end of that, you can evaluate whether or not you got your questions answered, whether or not you achieved the goal at the end of the session, and whether or not maybe you need to schedule another session.
Download the Tutoring Center Cheat Sheet to get a list of amazing ideas you can use your tutors for
Show up ready to get crap done, not to have crap done for you.
This is probably one of the biggest mistakes that I see students making when it comes to utilizing the tutoring center.
They show up expecting that the tutor is going to be there to give them all the answers. They think the tutor is going to be there to write the paper for them or they expect the tutor to perform a miracle because they didn’t schedule the tutoring session with enough time in advance, and they want the tutor to basically reteach the entire lectures and classes tonight because their exam is tomorrow.
Again, the role of the tutor is to fill in any knowledge gaps, to facilitate your thinking process, to facilitate you in understanding the material, but they’re not going to do the work for you.
You also have to show up prepared. What does that mean?
It’s more than just showing up on time. It’s more than just bringing the books and the notes and whatever.
That means that if you’re going to go over any topics that were covered in class, you better be doing the reading. You better show up with notes done, with that chapter read, because, in order for tutoring to be effective, you have to know exactly what it is that you’re struggling with, exactly what it is that you don’t understand.
Your tutor can’t reteach a whole lecture to you. What they’re there to do is help consolidate the information, simply the information, and they do better when they know exactly what it is that you’re struggling with.
Do the reading. Take the notes, and let them know, I’ve done the reading. I’ve done the notes. Here they are. This is the point in the chapter where I get confused.
Try to do the problems on your own. Make a note wherever you get stuck. When you show up to the session, let the tutor know, this is what I understand so far. I’ve done this step, this step, and this step, but from here on, I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to approach so that I get the same answer as the book is giving me. Can you help me walk through this?
When you can explain to your tutor your thought process behind what it is that you understand and how you understand it, they are better able to pinpoint where it is that you’re missing the information and they can give you a more specific solution. They can give you a more specific way to think about solving the problem or think about the information because you yourself have shown up prepared.
Stay proactive and stay consistent when it comes to your tutoring sessions.
I see many students showing up to the tutor a couple of days before the exam because they haven’t studied up until that point and they want the tutor to basically teach them all this information, and the tutor can’t perform a miracle.
I’m sorry. If you haven’t done what you needed to do, if you haven’t been studying up until this point, one tutoring session a couple of nights before the exam is not going to help you pass.
That’s doing a disservice not only to yourself, but it’s also wasting the tutor’s time because there’s nothing that they can do for you in that hour. Some of them will be frank and tell you, “I’m sorry, but I can’t teach you five weeks’ worth of information in one night. It’s just not going to work. You’re going to feel frustrated. I’m going to feel frustrated, and it’s not going to be a good tutoring session.”
What you need to do is stay consistent. Stay consistent and proactive.
Schedule your study session with enough time to be able to catch up on the information, catch up on the reading.
Schedule your tutoring sessions in a regular manner where you’re keeping up with the content that’s being covered in class and that you’re fixing those learning gaps pretty quickly so that a lot of time doesn’t elapse, and so that you’re not cramming and trying to learn everything a few nights before the exam.
Because again, it does a disservice to you as a student, but it also wastes the tutor’s time.
The tutoring center in an amazing resource your college extends to you and you’re paying for it in your tutition. Get the most bang for your college bucks by taking advantage of it, especially if you’re coming across difficult content or difficult subjects.
But understand that you’re going to get the most out of it when you show up prepared and it’ll be a more pleasant experience for you.
You’ll walk out of there feeling like you actually now understand the material and that you can go forward and continue to learn on your own.
I also want to wrap this up by just giving you some ideas on how you can utilize a tutor with your study sessions.