training video description

tutors watching video A Look at Productive Tutoring Techniques
A Video Program Produced by
the Undergraduate Tutorial Center at North Carolina State University

(For more information on the videotapes, click here. Product now available on DVD as well as VHS videotape.)

Productive tutoring consists of a complex set of behaviors that can best be taught by demonstrating effective techniques, allowing practice in real tutoring situations, and giving opportunities for reflection and discussion. Over time, this guided training approach steadily closes the gap between actual and optimal tutoring performances.

A Look at Productive Tutoring Techniques is designed to be used in this cycle of modeling, practice, reflection, and discussion. This training videotape series consists of eight modules and over 90 minutes of actual tutoring footage. Prompts are included to remind viewers to pause and discuss what they have seen

Module / (Length)	Title	Description
Modul e 1 (10:55)	The Tutor's Role	An overview of the the tutor's main roles as a helper, a peer learner, a teacher, and a Tutorial Center employee.
Module 2 (8:28)	Positive Reinforcement	Examples of verbal and nonverbal positive reinforcement. How to use positive reinforcement effectively. Use of qualified positive reinforcement.
Module 3 (11:07)	Listening Skills	Examples of patience and active listening skills shown by good tutors. Tutors shown waiting for students to ask questions and waiting for responses after asking questions.
Module 4 (13:24)	The Student's Ideas	Emphasizes the importance of building on the student's own ideas. Strategies include: encouraging and acknowledging student ideas, yielding to student ideas, active listening by paraphrasing ideas, redirecting student questions, and delayed positive reinforcement.
Module 5 (15:11)	Importance of Student Verbalization	Demonstrates the importance of student verbalization for both student and tutor. Advantages cited include giving the tutoring session a conversational quality, clarifying thinking, increasing the number of student questions, helping the tutor diagnose the learning difficulty, improving student confidence, and helping students answer their own questions.
Module 6 (13:22)	Questioning Skills	Use of questions for both diagnosis and teaching. Questions classified as closed- or open-ended and by the first three levels of Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain (memory, comprehension, and application). Use of Socratic questioning to lead students to correct concepts and procedures.
Module 7 (17:44)	Helping the Student Become an Independent Learner	An emphasis on the long-term goal of tutoring--improving study skills so that the student becomes self-sufficient. Strategies highlighted include: letting the student do the work; offering study tips, problem solving strategies, and test-taking strategies; referring to the text and notes; and encouraging the use of other campus study resources. In addition, high structure and low structure tutoring sessions are contrasted.
Module 8 (15:06)	Direct Techniques	Traditional techniques used when students need more structure. Topics include: giving feedback, correcting errors, pacing explanations so that students can participate, including questions with explanations, using visuals and real life examples, and summarizing key points.