Helpful Tips and Techniques from Successful Tutors

Follow the comments below from Successful Tutors who have managed their way through difficult course work. Read them all, take a few suggestions, and learn from peers who know about where you are and what you may be going through. If you like what you read and would like more information, follow the blog and see what other helpful tips they have to get you through university life! Good luck!

What to Expect from Tutoring

Visiting with a tutor may be a regular practice or it may be your first appointment. In either case it is important to understand what to expect from a tutoring session. A peer tutor is a student, just like you. A peer tutor at the Success Center has been though these tough assignments, quizzes, tests and other materials before and knows what it takes to be successful.

You can expect a peer tutor to hold the topics the two of you discuss in confidence. Peer tutors may ask other tutors for help but will not discuss your business outside of the tutoring environment. We know that it can be difficult to ask someone you do not know for help; therefore we aspire to treat each student with dignity, patience and respect.

Peer tutors at the Success Center will help you polish the study skills you need to be successful including tips on time management, staying focused, avoiding procrastination, textbook reading strategies, memorization and test anxiety. They will help you identify learning obstacles, how to avoid them and enhance your communication skills to better comprehend subjects you may be struggling with.

Take Ownership of your Learning

Peer tutors at the Success Center are here to help you with you academic goals. We are interested in seeing you learn to help you help yourself. Helping yourself helps you build confidence in your abilities. You can take more control of your learning by attending class, paying attention to your attention while in class, taking good notes, doing your homework, and asking for help when you first encounter problems. Waiting only makes it worse.

If you find yourself struggling in a class, observe what it is you are struggling with. Is it a theory, a particular step in a problem, a combination of issues? Focus in on what is troubling you so that you can ask the right questions when you get help. The solution to your problem may be easier to understand if you are asking the right questions of your helpers. It could be organizing your notes in a notebook so that they correspond with topics covered in you class syllabus. It could be changing your schedule so you can work on homework after class rather than after the day is over or the next day. Arranging your time and resources can make a huge impact on how much success you have with difficult course work.