Wednesday, September 17

Today's class was your first experience taking notes on a tutoring session. We talked a little about what kinds of observations would be most helpful in your notes - and I was quite definite that you needed to write descriptive rather than interpretive observations. That is - you need to state "the tutor is smiling and looking into the face of the student" rather than "the tutor looks friendly." This is not always easy. With respect to the content of your notes - our list included: behaviors; body language; conversation ( with some direct quotes); actions; and description of the appearance of the subjects, the setting (context) and circumstances (what is going on around the session). You then observed a session between me and Stephanie (thank you Stephanie).

After you took your notes, I suggested that you took a moment to add some "head notes" in the margin => your interpretation or "feelings" about what was going on. These notes can provide you information when you look back - though it is important to be able to know which notes were directly observed - and which were reconstructions - added after the session.

We then talked a little about your experience taking notes - and the consensus seemed to be that writing everything down (there was so much going on!) was a little overwhelming, and that is was a challenge to stay focused. With respect to content of your notes - we generated a list of the features of the session that included: validating the student's language; the tutor's acknowledgment that she may be wrong;
inviting the student to participate in summing up what happened in the session (your notes are probably better than this - I am just remembering this off the top of my head). From class discussion it seemed to me that you are getting a good feel for how to take note that will help you develop your projects. Good start on this.

The rest of the class was devoted to a too-fast, not-in-enough-depth discussion of the ideas in Lunsford's article. I focused on the three models for Writing Centers she develops: Storehouse, Garret and Burkean Parlor, and the three models for knowledge, learning and learners these models assume. The notes on the board went something like:

Storehouse:
knowledge = one right way, "out there" to be discovered; similar to an object in that it can be conveyed from one person to another, divided into parts, and evaluated through "objective" practices
learning: takes place through transferring of information from a text or teacher
learners: passive, "receive" knowledge that is intact and "correct"
teachers: need to have complete mastery of subjects to teach them, are responsible for the learning process

Garret:
knowledge: created within the individual; different for every learner, cannot
learning: takes place through internal discovery + reflection
learner: active, discovers unique voice/perspective on information
teachers: "help students get in touch with" their internal knowledge = facilitator

Burkean Parlor
knowledge: inseparable from the language that articulates it; socially created (just as language itself was created through peoples "use" of it => no one person invented it or understands it - we (re)create language every time we speak with one another)
learning: takes place through social interactions: conversation, collaborative thinking, sharing ideas where each person contributes, listens and re-thinks ideas through on-going interactions
learners: active - everyone brings certain kinds of knowledge
teachers: theoretically on the same level as learners - though different learners/teachers will have different areas of expertise and experience

So - with all that in mind, in your Blog for Monday you will do some writing about your writing center philosophy. In this philosophy you will state your theory of how knowledge is made, what learning is, and the roles for learners and tutors. As you develop these ideas - you will think about what helped you learn (from the discussion the first day), what made learning harder (from the discussion the second day), and what a tutoring session (at least one kind of session) looks like (from your experience today. Think about how a writing center ought to be run, what it should look like, and how the tutors will be trained in order to put your philosophy into action. I am *really* interested in reading these since Kean University is in the process of creating its writing center - and your perspectives as students and tutors - are important to its success.

Also for Monday,
- re-vise your summary in light of talk in class (hopefully you got some ideas about how to work on it from watching the tutoring session);
- and read McAndrew and Riegstad, 31-42.

I will be giving you feedback via email on your first two blogs probably on Sunday - so you have an idea about my expectations and how I will be evaluating them before we get too far into the term.

Have a good weekend.