There are countless ways that Elementary Education as a field of study and my job as a peer writing tutor at DePaul intersect in an incredibly beneficial manner.
Main Points of Intersection:
- Approach that is mindful to the overall goals
- In my tutoring, I distribute my time and priorities based on my goal of assisting the writer to accomplish their goals.
- In teaching, I produce lessons and homework assignments based on the grade level requirements and what the population of the class requires.
- Kind approach
- As a peer tutor, I am very upbeat and open regarding my personal experiences as a writer.
- Similarly, as a teacher, I am very nurturing and comical with my students.
- In both cases, I find a kind approach to be very effective in terms of building rapport and creating a positive relationship between my students and me.
Main Points of Difference:
- Age of students
- At the Writing Center, I work with adult students.
- In my teaching, I prefer to work with 2nd and 3rd graders.
- Knowledge of the students’/writers’ growth
- In peer tutoring, I can facilitate a conversation with the writer in order to determine their degree of understanding.
- On the other hand, young students in most cases cannot articulate their knowledge to the degree that a DePaul student is capable of.
- Therefore as a teacher, I reference state standards and the ability of the student to create tests, worksheets as class activities and homework, games etc. in order to ensure that the student understands the topic at hand.
Nath, Leslie R., and Steven M. Ross. “The Influence of a Peer-Tutoring Training Model for Implementing Cooperative Groupings with Elementary Students.” Educational Technology Research and Development, vol. 49, no. 2, 2001, pp. 41–56. www.jstor.org/stable/30220310.