Reflection 10/9

Co-tutoring with Colleen wasn't too different than any of our other sessions that we had together. She has allowed me to chip in all of the other sessions, so transitioning into co-tutoring wasn't as difficult as I had anticipated. Our first student was just reading rather than actually writing this session. When I waked in, they were already halfway through the session so they finished up what they were doing. When they had a break between topics, we actually switched seats and she made me take over the session. This student is fairly easy to work with so it wasn't difficult at all getting him to communicate his ideas with us. He was open and that allowed me to talk to him easily and figure out the direction that we wanted to go. Because we were just reading rather than actually writing something, we had time to get more familiar with one another and to expand on the topic that he was interested in. Our next student was the one that we had difficulty with the past couple of sessions, but we found that he was gradually getting easier to talk to as he became more familiar with us. However, he still was not as cooperative as we would have liked. We found ourselves still leading him on, rather than him guiding the conversations. Colleen stepped in a bit more because she saw how I was struggling to get him to open up about what he was thinking. By taking the lead on this session it was clear for me how difficult it will be working with students who either don't know what they want or don't know how to talk to me about what they want to accomplish.  Our third student didn't show up, but that allowed Colleen and I time to talk about my next couple of weeks tutoring by myself. I was surprised by the faith that she had in me, especially since I was apprehensive about going into the sessions to begin with. Yet, I was glad that I found it to be as rewarding as I did. Last week when I stayed an extra hour to work with that student, I found it to be worth it because I helped a student who was so intelligent and ready to accomplish all that she stated in her essay. I am confident going into my sessions by myself because I understand how rewarding it can be.