← CSC 313 Teaching Computing

CSC 313 Active tutoring

Due to a low number of visitors at the tutoring center, we are switching to visiting intro class lab sessions (with participating instructors).

Active tutoring

If you haven’t already, please sign up for a slot to visit an introductory class’s lab session. Here’s the sign-up sheet. You’ll need to sign in with your Cal Poly email to access it.

You will visit one section of the lab you signed up for, and assist the instructor by answering students’ questions and helping them debug issues, all while keeping in mind what we learned about effective tutoring.

After your visit, complete the reflection below by entering text into Canvas. From question 3 onward, I’m looking for reflections that go beyond only summarising what happened. Each answer need not be very long—you can say a lot in 2–3 sentences.

If you helped multiple students during your session, feel free to write an answer for each student, or to submit two sets of answers, or to focus on particular students for particular questions where appropriate.

Reflection questions

  1. Which class did you visit?
  2. What did student(s) need help with? Were they debugging, seeking conceptual help with some topic, trying to get started with a program, etc.?
  3. What went well? Were there moments during the tutoring session that you were particularly happy with?
  4. What did not go as well as you’d have liked? What do you wish you had done differently?
  5. How do you feel about your approachability (for example, confirming that bugs are normal)?
  6. Reflect: did you recognise occurrences of topics we’ve talked about this quarter? (Either retroactively, or in the moment while tutoring) For example, including but not limited to:
    • What kind of cognitive control did the student (and you) demonstrate? What steps did you take to scaffold this, like working through explicit problem-solving strategies like the design recipe?
    • How do you think the student’s long-term memory was engaged during the session? For example, did you notice instances of failed knowledge transfer, or negative transfer?
    • Did you observe their working memory get overloaded? What steps did you take to mitigate this?
    • Did you find yourself moving between the abstract and concrete while explaining concepts? (Alternatively, if you did not, did you notice missed opportunities to do so?)