1 An Invitation To The Table
Irene Stewart
There is an ebb and flow of murmurs and chatter just outside the door of my office, but I usually keep it open. Sometimes this low rumble is punctuated by the excitement of an aha moment and other times, I can hear a growl of frustration. Others may find it distracting, but it is the music that has accompanied the last 10 years of my professional life, these sounds of conversation between tutors and students. These conversations are at the very heart of what it means to tutor.
Tutoring happens in the space between the classroom and independent study. It happens in the dialog between a student and a peer, not an expert but one who is just ahead and remembers what it is like to be where the student is now. The opportunity to debate, to work through a problem or a concept, to hear a different spin, to have a bit of guidance, to receive confirmation, this is the power of peer tutoring for the student.
What about the tutor? There are many benefits of being a tutor including the opportunity to re-enforce course concepts, improve communication skills and to earn wages during the school year. But there is another benefit, the opportunity to be part of a community of tutors, to have conversations with other caring, smart people from a wide variety of disciplines, to learn from each other and to learn about each other.
The idea to have a team of tutors participate in Ontario Extend’s 9x9x25 Challenge came from the recognition that tutors have valuable perspectives on teaching and learning because of their tutoring practice in the space between formal education activities and personal study. Tutors have a voice that needs to be heard. The call was simple, write 25 lines about whatever you want in the areas of teaching, learning and tutoring and we will post it. And write, they did! Words about why they love learning, the joys of helping other students, who inspired them, what they thought was important about education, advice they wanted to share with other students, how to believe in your students, how to overcome fears and more.
And now, let’s begin the conversation. Gathering the blog posts here, adding the discussion questions, scenarios and reflection prompts is an invitation, an invitation to respond, to explore, to discuss, and to debate. The conversation can be private with a new tutor reading the posts and responding in writing to the reflection prompt or the conversation can be part of a tutor meeting or training session through a group discussion reading the post aloud and using the questions. The conversations can lead to learning and sharing of ideas and techniques to common challenges using the scenarios where the answers come from the collective wisdom of the community and can spark new conversations about questions and problems as well as opportunities and benefits unique to another tutoring department or a different cohort of students. Come to the table and let’s ask, listen and respond through conversations that are at the heart of what it means to learn and to teach and yes, to tutor.