ASTC Tutor Training

History

Since March 1989, community college, college and university tutorial programs in the United States and Canada have received tutor training program certification through CRLA's International Tutor Training Program Certification (ITTPC). There are over 1100 programs which are currently certified through ITTPC.

The College Reading & Learning Association is a group of student-oriented professionals active in the fields of reading, learning assistance, developmental education, tutoring, and mentoring at the college/adult level. 

Purpose

The purpose of the ITTPC program is twofold. First, it provides recognition and positive reinforcement for tutors' successful work from an international organization. Second, CRLA's tutor certification process sets an internationally accepted standard of skills and training for tutors.

The Academic Success and Tutoring Center (ASTC) requires peer tutors to participate in a semester long training program, in accordance with the qualifications set forth by the College Reading and Learning Association’s International Tutor Training Program Certification. The ASTC training program focuses on the skills and knowledge that are vital to becoming a successful tutor. By participating in the ASTC’s tutor training program, a tutor can successfully communicate ideas and concepts, further the learning process, and encourage critical thinking to a diverse group of learners with different skills and abilities. 

What do tutors learn during training?

Click on the headings to learn more about the training topic.

Level 1 Training Topics:

• Ethics & Academic Integrity
  Goal: The ASTC strives to ensure that peer tutors have the knowledge necessary to protect themselves against committing any type of violation of Stony Brook’s academic integrity policy. Peer tutors are asked to review Stony Brook’s policy on academic integrity prior to attending the training session. We review and discuss various situations in which academic dishonesty could occur, including but not limited to, plagiarism, working in groups, providing students with previous course materials, having inside knowledge of course materials or exams, and completing any assignments for students. To avoid these types of situations, tutors share different strategies and ideas such as using practice problems, examples, or other materials to assist in reviewing concepts with their tutees. Peer tutor outcome: Practice ethical and professional behavior with tutees during a tutoring session
• Communication
   Goal:

  This training provides peer tutors with the skills and knowledge they need to learn how to effectively communicate information to a wide variety of students with different abilities and needs. 
  
  Peer tutor outcomes:

  • Practice effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills when tutoring

  • Demonstrate active listening and paraphrasing skills in the tutoring process in order to increase understanding and enhance the tutoring experience

  • Discuss the implications of multiculturalism in regards to communication, and how tutors can be more effective when tutoring students whose native language is not English

  • Understand the difference between closed-ended and open-ended questions and the different types of responses that each of these questions will elicit

  • Utilize probing questions during the tutoring sessions in an effort to gauge understanding, promote critical thinking, identify relationships between concepts, and promote the tutee’s ability to think independently

• Goal Setting

  Goal:
  Tutors understand that the first step in the tutoring relationship is for the tutee to establish goals, for not only the tutoring relationship, but for the class as well. Setting goals assists the tutees in remaining motivated throughout the semester. During this training, peer tutors learn to differentiate between weak and strong goals. Tutors work through exercises, which allow them to practice making goals more realistic using the SMART goal approach. 

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Assist tutees in planning and/or setting personal academic goals during a tutoring session.

• Group Tutoring
   Goal:

  In addition to individual tutoring, the Academic Success and Tutoring Center offers small group tutoring. The groups are usually limited to between two and four students to ensure that all students receive the appropriate amount of attention. During this training, the ASTC tutors learn and practice different strategies and techniques for working with several students at the same time. Group dynamics, communication techniques, and discussion are all emphasized.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Practice effective group management skills to recognize and honor each member of the group, control dominant group members, and ensure that each member of the group is engaged in the learning process.

• Self-Regulated Learning
   Goal:

  The goal of this training workshop is to allow the tutors to understand the process of taking control of and evaluating one’s own learning and behavior and its role in tutoring. The ultimate goal of the tutoring session is to provide the tutee with the strategies and techniques so that they can learn and assimilate information independently.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Use and integrate self-regulated learning techniques during tutoring sessions in order to enhance the learning of tutees. 

• Learning Disabilities

  Goal:
  During this training, we emphasize the importance of utilizing a strengths based approach to tutoring. We discuss some of the barriers to student success, one of which may be an undisclosed/disclosed learning disability. We talk about how students can avoid placing the tutees in a potentially uncomfortable situation and stress a “think outside the box” approach to working with all tutees, which can allow for optimal learning during a tutoring session.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Appreciate the differences and needs of different populations of students and demonstrate respect and sensitivity during tutoring sessions. 

• Positive Affirmations

  Goal:
  The ASTC shares with our tutors a vast repertoire of ways in which to support students in their academic goals. We discuss ways in which mindset, level of motivation, and thinking traps can affect a student's ability to achieve these goals.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Emphasize and integrate appropriate positive affirmations into tutoring sessions.

• Metacognition

  Goal:
  ASTC tutors are exposed to the different approaches and modalities to learning theory, including Bloom’s Taxonomy. This training connects to the ASTC’s foundation for evaluation, which incorporates Bloom’s Taxonomy into a learning spectrum, whereby our tutors are able to evaluate a tutee’s level of understanding in regards to a specific concept or idea.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  Utilize differentiated tutoring strategies to meet various needs of learners based on learner strengths, background, and/or prior knowledge.

• Faculty Perspective

  Goal:
  Once during each semester, the ASTC invites a Stony Brook faculty member to speak with our tutors about what it takes to be a successful student and tutor.

  Peer tutor outcome:
  The goal of this workshop is twofold: first, to educate tutors on faculty expecations in and out of the classroom and second, to highlight strategies for tutors to assist students in the learning process.

• Review of Level 1 Topics

  The tutor acts as a role model, demonstrating appropriate tutoring behaviors and strategies such as timeliness, preparedness, asking probing questions, and successfully structuring the tutoring sessions.

• Peer Mentoring
  Goal:
  By first acknowledging the limitations of tutor capacity, the tutor’s role as a mentor inherently becomes more restricted and exists with apparent limitations. This training explains how tutors help tutees beyond that of course specific content, namely in strategies and skills related to academic success. This examination of the tutor role is done through the lens of the peer-to-peer relationship in an attempt to outline the advantages and limitations. Such an examination leads into a discussion of boundaries, for which there exists an activity for practice.
• Assessing & Changing Study Behaviors
  Goal:
  Offering guidance with study behaviors becomes an easier feat when tutors see themselves as acting beyond sources of information. This training outlines the difference between study skills and behaviors, then offers functional approaches through which tutors can incorporate study behaviors into the tutoring conversation. The presentation of material hinges on the idea of accountability; tutors should consider themselves in a position to express to the tutee clear expectations of effortful study behaviors. In order to do so in a tactful and professional manner, an activity is utilized where tutors will be able to practice initiating and holding such a conversation. 
• Role of Tutoring in Higher Education
  Goal:
  This training is meant to put into perspective the ASTC tutoring philosophies related to self-regulated learning and tutee empowerment. Its content establishes the need for peer tutoring, its place in the learning process, and found evidence of its success. This training illuminates the limited capacity of the tutor as a facilitator, as academic success is contingent upon sufficient tutee agency. Moreover, it aims to help direct tutors toward appropriate session goals and focuses.
• Campus Resources
  Goal:
  This training serves to ensure that tutors are capable of promoting academic success in a larger context than that of the subject material, namely through reference to other academic and support services available on campus. Exercises within this activity demand that tutors be able to identify the needs of a student in a particular scenario and then appropriately refer that student to the proper resources.
• Cultural Awareness
  Goal:
  This training teaches cultural awareness to illuminate individual responsibility and accountability; tutors need exhibit self-awareness to overcome involuntary ethnocentric interpretative responses. Cultural influence is examined within academic and social contexts.
• Assertion
  Goal:
  This topic of this training is inherently geared more toward practice than theory. Tutors are asked to confront difficult situations, some of which have actually occurred in the past. In doing so, tutors will assess and improve their ability to respond to and navigate through potentially uncomfortable scenarios that may challenge ASTC policies. For this training, there exist no clear, correct answers. Instead, each scenario tests tutors’ abilities to operate with professional judgment and demeanor.
• Memory

  Goal:

  This training focuses on barriers to remembering and strategies for enhancing memory. It hinges upon the concept that sufficient understanding is one’s best tool in regard to remembrance/recall. Several popular, effective mnemonic techniques are displayed, and tutors will be asks to not only engage with these techniques, but also apply them to their respective fields. Tutors are then asked to reflect on how the content within this training can be incorporated into the tutoring session, both in regard to addressing course specific content and initiating conversations about study skills/behaviors.

 Level 3 Training Topics (Lead Tutor Program):

• Review of Level 1 & 2 Topics

  Lead tutors understand the applicability of positive affirmations, cultural awareness, and tutoring strategies and appropriately incorporates best practices into their sessions. Lead tutors are well versed in ASTC policies and procedures and can model appropriate tutoring behaviors and professionalism.

• Non Traditional College Students

  The lead tutor can interact with non-traditional students effectively, using sensitivity and with awareness of the specific needs of the target population. The lead tutor uses these strategies to tailor tutoring sessions to any population with whom they work.

• Student Development Theory
   

  Lead tutors can use student development theory to support tutees’ academic growth. The lead tutor can identify the needs of the tutee and modify their tutoring strategies to meet the needs of the tutee.

• Group Management

  Lead tutors effectively assist the ASTC staff with team creation and development. Lead tutors participate in interviewing, leading, and mentoring peer tutors. The lead tutor understands the difference between various leadership styles and how they affect the work environment.

• Supervisory Skills

  Lead tutors understands the policies and procedures of the ASTC and adheres to them. The lead tutor is able to assist the ASTC staff with training and supervision of junior tutors.