On Tuesday, December 8, Stephanie Passino, Stacey Hahn, and Sarah Oburu hosted a Digital Roundtable to reflect on this very different year of 2020 and to set resolutions for 2021.
We invite you to join us at future digital roundtables. Members attend for free and non-members can participate for a modest fee. Check out our upcoming topics and register here.
The following notes were generated from our conversation.
What were your original writing center goals in the beginning of the school year, and how do they compare to your center growth currently?
- A new writing center’s goal was to open and sustain energy for the writing center in the midst of changing schedules.
- Another writing center wanted to have a set number of appointments; they have been able to reach close to this number through the use of social media, especially instagram.
- A similar goal was to increase outreach through various social media platforms. This has proved effective.
- An established center wanted to find a sustainable system of leadership by building a student executive board. They have helped with community among tutors as well as building strong relationships with teachers.
What does your tutoring center model look like now after a semester?
- The centers stayed in their same model as when starting the year. Some were hybrid with face-to-face synchronous sessions; others were virtual and had both synchronous and asynchronous sessions. One center uses https://vocaroo.com/ to provide verbal feedback during an asynchronous session.
What forms of adversity have you had to overcome in running your center?
- Centers struggled with engaging with teachers from previous years. A successful previous strategy is to bring in specific teachers to train tutors.
- Another area was getting new students to come into the center. Possible strategies included connecting via social media, asking tutors to share out the center’s media on their personal channels, having tutors and students invite their friends, and group sessions.
- This year centers have noticed less motivation to get help as assignments are shorted and as there is less writing in general. Some teachers have not modified assignments to accommodate virtual learning, which tutors struggle to help students with in a new platform. Due to switching schedules, there is also less opportunity for students to use the center.
- For students participating in synchronous sessions, there was an issue of them not fully communicating or connecting online: not turning on mic or camera, tech issues, lack of private space, lack of visual/social cues. Participants brainstormed some ways to address this issue: use comments on docs to ‘communicate,’consider how many students are in communal spaces and adjust expectations accordingly, learn about a tutee’s emotions based on their typing speed or wait time, have students repeat back information to check for lags, use compliments to invite students in, have students use computer backgrounds to be more private.
What resolutions or goals do you have for your writing center entering in 2021? (long term/short term)
- Asynchronous sessions (Idea: highlight that there are different purposes for writing and sessions. These sessions would be as a follow-up to a synchronous session.)
- Total number of sessions is at least half of last year’s total.
- Work to get 1st year tutors enough sessions and practice to help retain tutors for next year. (Retention idea is family fun parties that tutors organize: jeopardy, scattergories, videos chatting, dress up time (Halloween), powerpoint parties, pet show and tell.)
- Help students that are failing. (Ideas: putting tutors in classes, providing evening hours if possible, giving students only two things to work on at a time.)
SSWCA would like to thank everyone who attended this discussion and shared their ideas. A special thanks to the digital roundtable hosts, Stephanie Passino and Stacey Hahn along with Sarah Oburu for their leadership. If you have questions, you may contact sswca.board@gmail.com