Life As A Student Tutor.

Yesterday marks the last day of my own tutorship at Peer Assisted Learning. It has been approximately 5 months, tutoring students who are at the same level as I am. I joined PAL as a tutor because I thought it would be a great opportunity to have a hands-on teaching experience and it will be a plus point in my C.V. in the future. :) Being a tutor for two semesters have given me a new perspective on teaching and facilitating small study groups. One of the lessons I learn is that teaching does not always have to be in a one-way, passive, spoon-feeding manner like what we usually have in high school. As Piaget says, we're all constructive learners, curious to experiment new things and solve problems on our own. This is the reason why I get students to pair-up, search for information on their own and present what they've learned to others. This is also known as the jigsaw approach.

Learning can be made fun

The old school way is reading from the textbook alone, which explains why students fall asleep in class. I tried something new in tutorial this semester. I gave quizzes, crossword puzzles and games to get them on their toes. Showed relevant videos clips from YouTube to get the students to broaden their knowledge on current debates from the States and beautiful animation that explains certain biological processes.

Because I am learning Educational Psychology this semester, I became more aware of which educational theories and principles I can apply to my method of teaching. You can say that my students were my 'guinea pigs'. *grins*. Over this semester, I find that jigsaw approach fits well for big groups of students- keeps them attentive and interested in the lesson.

About the job:

I can't deny this. The job is challenging because it requires constant revision and preparation from my part to teach others. I spent approximately two hours or more every week, preparing teaching materials and coming out with examples/analogies to elaborate on certain main points for a topic etc. Another two hours for each tutorial itself. In total, I have to sacrifice four-five hours each week, which means tighter studying schedule and less time for assignments and even sleep. And it can be quite discouraging because not all students are motivated to come for tutorials. There was poor attendance for the first half of tutorials. I was suppose to have 13 students, only four students would turn up each week. But, things got better. For the second half of tutorials, the attendance dramatically improved. We had seven regular attendees, which was great!

The fruit of the work:

The intrinsic motivation comes from knowing that students have improved throughout the semester. :) On the last day, all the students thanked me. A few came up and shook hands with me, showing their gratitude. What makes me happy is seeing them satisfied with what they have gained from these tutorials. Recently, I saw drastic improvement on their class test 2 on Biopsychology. From a single digit on class test 1, they've attain double digits on class test 2. (etc. Class test 1: 7.5/15, Class test 2: 15/20). I was surprised myself, so were they. :) And I wish them all the very best for the finals. To me, all of them have the potential to achieve whatever they want as long as they put in effort into it.

As for now, I plan to resign from this job. I won't have the capacity to tutor and finish my thesis simultaneously. I'm glad I've given tutoring a chance because this experience have taught me about real responsibility and persistence. So far, I've already achieved 4 goals in university, 1. maintaining my grades, 2. won best speaker award for research colloquium 3. be a PAL tutor. 4. and PSG mentor. And I'm about to reach my 5th goal next semester that is holding a secretary post in Clinical Psychology Interest Club :). Looking forward for the next challenge and new experience altogether. :)