Jump to content

Menu

College instructor wants tutoring center to stop helping his students


Pegasus
 Share

Recommended Posts

DD tutors for computer science courses at the local community college.  This week, an instructor came into the tutoring center and asked to speak to all the tutors who work with his students. Essentially, he was unhappy that his students leave class without asking him questions or visiting his office hours. Instead, they rely on the tutoring center to get the assistance that they need. He told the tutors that he wants his students to struggle.

 

The kicker is that DD actually had a course under this instructor and understands exactly why students run directly from his class to the tutoring center. The instructor is a poor lecturer, to the point where I was convinced that he didn't have a firm grasp on the subject himself when DD was taking the course.  He either can't or chooses not to answer student questions, often replying that they should already know it or that they should figure it out.

 

Fortunately, the lead tutor of the center inserted himself into this interaction and politely but firmly refused the request. The center has well communicated guidelines on the kind of help the tutors can provide. They can explain concepts, help the student think through the problem, provide other examples where the same thinking/process can be applied, etc.  They can not provide actual code (in the case of CS students) or answers to any homework/assignments. In other words, they help the students LEARN, not provide answers/solutions.

 

I know some folks on here actually instruct at the college level. Any thoughts on where the instructor may be coming from?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is bizarre.

 

I could see an instructor doing this if he were unhappy with the quality of the tutoring, for example, if the tutors teach faulty methods or explain concepts wrong. This should be solved by training the tutors better and providing them with the tools to be better prepared to help students. Our school requires tutors and peer assistants to have taken the course for which they are tutoring  with a grade of A. I provide detailed worked out solutions for the tutors involved in my course, so that they can follow exactly the problem solving procedures that I teach in class.

 

I can see that an instructor would want feedback about his students' understanding. The way to do this would be to cooperate with the tutoring center and to develop a way he can be involved in the tutoring/help sessions.

If students don't attend an instructor's office hours, there can be many different reasons. It can be that the instructor is just bad and incompetent, or not welcoming, but it is also often the case that students feel a barrier to going to a professor's office hours and prefer to get their learning assistance on "neutral ground".

We solve this problem by offering help sessions in classrooms that are staffed with peer tutors and faculty, or just faculty for smaller classes. We invite students to come and work in groups. This alters the dynamic compared to office hours because the power differential is less noticeable in this setting.

 

It  is OK for an instructor to want students to struggle. You accomplish that by setting high expectations and giving a sufficient level of assignment. The fact that the students seek out help is an indication that the course is not easy. He should commend students for being proactive and seeking out assistance.

 

 

Edited by regentrude
  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My degrees are in computer science. I've taught computer science and information technology for almost twenty years at community colleges. I currently teach web design.

 

Computer science professors can be VERY hard to deal with. It's not a field that necessarily attracts people with good people skills. I bagged my PhD and left with my MS because my thesis advisor wanted only to email. He actually said in an email that face-to-face was too difficult for him. We couldn't come to an understanding about my research that was reasonable, and I gave up. The chairman of the graduate program later told me that particular professor had driven away dozens of good graduate students with his poor communication skills. And he wasn't the only one. I had scores of computer science professors that were personally very hard to deal with. I did a double degree in math, and those professors were an entirely different matter. They were also demanding, but in a reasonable way. I felt like they wanted me to succeed. Not so in computer science. Some of them were clearly didn't care about the students and wanted to prove something.

 

That sounds like a very good tutoring center. I've talked with the tutors at the college I work for now, and they do the same thing. They will help the student look for guidance in the book/internet/etc., help them find a feature in the application, or give them suggestions for how to approach an assignment. Many of my students don't have English as their first language, and they will also help them understand the assignment in other terms. But they will never, ever give them HTML or walk the student through a step-by-step in one of the applications. They've told me that they will actually send a student home who hasn't made some effort themselves.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

He sounds nutso.  If the CC is anything like the one I go to, instructors either have no office hours or very limited office hours.  How on earth would any of them see students for extra help beyond a couple of occasional questions that could be answered in class (especially if several of them needed help)?  The instructors I've had specifically rely on the tutoring centers to help students. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Any thoughts on where the instructor may be coming from?

 

My guess is that it's the instructor's ego feeling bruised. 

 

Some instructors get a kick out of keeping students mystified. They love to be the mysterious thinker at the top of a mountain; the confused supplicants come with questions and scurry away after receiving a baffling response. The thinker smiles and thinks how great they are. 

 

I'm a student now in a college where I used to teach. Our learning centers, tutors and 'open labs'  (which are essentially study spaces where a qualified subject tutor is avail all day) are widely advertised and promoted by the instructors. I've never heard of an instructor saying anything negative about any of these services, other than some expressing frustration that not enough students use them. 

 

And reality is that wealthy students will always be able to get private tutors. Subsidized or free tutors provided by colleges are there to even the field. He can rant all he wants but he can't dictate how students choose to study and with whom. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...