What Does It Mean to Tutor? Conceptualizing Tutoring with a Commitment to Social Justice in Preservice Teacher Education

National Association for Professional Development Schools. 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW #190-611, Washington, DC 20004. Tel: 855-936-2737; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://napds.org/publications-resources-from-napds/

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Tutoring; Social Justice; Preservice Teacher Education; Preservice Teachers; College School Cooperation; High School Students; Student Characteristics; Teacher Characteristics; Student Experience; Caring; Student Attitudes

2833-2040
2833-2059

The article focuses on a tutoring program between high school students and preservice teacher students from a local college. The 10-week tutoring program, which involved two 1-hour tutoring sessions each week. On the first visit to the high school, the teachers and principal provided the preservice teachers with a 30-minute orientation and tour of the school. The preservice teachers had to submit a lesson plan for their tutoring that was reviewed by staff in the college's Education Lab. At the end of each week, the preservice teachers wrote a one-page reflection on their tutoring experience to include the lesson's objectives; the activities they used; an evaluation of whether they met the objectives; and what they learned about their tutees, themselves as tutors, and the process of tutoring. They were also encouraged to include any connections to the instructional design course in which they were currently enrolled as well as prior education courses. The tutoring program (renamed a mentoring program) helped preservice teachers realize the importance of looking at the whole person when evaluating their success. Conversations with the two high schools teachers and principal also established a clearer sense of purpose to the program around "seeing the child," including why some students, because of their race, class, and gender, are not seen.

ERIC

2022

EJ1358207