Keywords
asynchronous, email, Daedalus technology platform, discussion boards, program description, tutor reflection, reflective practitioners, training
First Paragraph
Donald Schön (1983) describes “reflective practitioners” as those who are able to do all of the following: read and write and think and theorize about their own practice. They take what they’ve learned, assimilate it, and then they are able to apply it in different situations, altering content and application as context demands. This is the goal that most of us have for our peer tutors: to become reflective practitioners as they learn, observe, and practice their skill. Yet how do we teach tutors to become reflective practitioners? Somehow, the acquisition of this skill goes beyond merely completing reading logs and reflective essays. At the University of Michigan, the peer tutoring program is a shared responsibility: when I joined its ranks, the three co-directors divided primary responsibilities for recruiting, training, and administering the peer tutoring program, and every semester we traded jobs so that each co-director participated in all aspects of the program. With the growth of our program, we now have the possibility of including two more co-directors, and we’ve experimented with training students to tutor not only university students, but also those outside the university, accepting clients from other schools (and other countries) in our Online Writing and Learning program, and from high schools in two successful pilot programs.
Citation Information
Type of Source: Book Article
Author: Rebecca Rickly
Year of Publication: 1998
Title: “Reflection and Responsibility in (Cyber) Tutor Training: Seeing Ourselves Clearly on and off the Screen” (available online)
Publication: Wiring the Writing Center (available online)
Page Range: 44-61