Tutoring Guidelines

Keeping in mind that our mission is to educate, empower, and inspire students to become independent and successful lifelong learners, our tutors will help a student understand concepts, develop problem-solving skills, find and correct grammatical errors, and learn how to edit his/her paper. Tutors will not complete assigned problems or edit papers for a student.
 

Math Tutoring Guidelines

What AAC tutors do:

  • We help you improve your understanding by discussing mathematical concepts and methods.
  • We provide explanations for material appearing in the text, your class notes, and previously graded tests or assignments.
  • We help you identify key concepts and methods by comparing and contrasting sample problems.
  • We help you develop independent problem solving skills by offering assistance with exercises you attempt to solve.
  • We identify errors in organization and mathematical notation to help you identify and correct errors in your own written solutions.
  • We offer guidance and resources to help you review concepts, methods, and identities prerequisite to your present math course.

What AAC tutors do not do:

  • We do not do your homework or assignments for you.
  • We do not error-check, nor do we correct any assignments to be submitted for a grade.
  • We do not provide comprehensive presentations of material you missed due to class absences, nor do we discuss with you topics for which you have not yet read the applicable sections of the text.
  • If you are unprepared to identify specific concepts or problems with which you are having difficulty, or are unable to provide evidence that you have attempted to work on that material previously, we cannot help you.

  

Natural Sciences Tutoring Guidelines

What AAC tutors do:

  • We help you improve your understanding by discussing scientific concepts and methods.
  • We provide explanations for material appearing in the text, your class notes, and previously graded tests or assignments.
  • We help you understand your errors on your earlier (graded) assignments.
  • We help you identify key concepts and methods by comparing and contrasting sample problems.
  • We try to identify analogous sample exercises that exercise the skills needed to complete graded assignments. The analogous problems will not, in general, involve a mere replacement of numbers.
  • We help you develop independent problem solving skills by offering assistance with exercises you attempt to solve.
  • We offer guidance and resources to help you review concepts and methods prerequisite to your present science course.
  • We identify skills needed to complete lab assignments. We will answer a limited number of specific and narrow technical questions about the laboratory calculations. The majority of our efforts, here, will be to eliminate one or two stumbling blocks that prevent you from completing the assignment on your own.

 

What AAC tutors do not do:

  • We do not complete graded homework or other assignments for you. We do not “watch” you do the assignments in our presence, except to establish the nature of your misunderstandings.
  • We do not error-check, nor do we correct any assignments to be submitted for a grade.
  • We do not provide comprehensive presentations of material you missed due to class absences, nor will we discuss with you topics for which you have not yet read the applicable sections of the text.
  • If you are unprepared to identify specific concepts or problems with which you are having difficulty, or are unable to provide evidence that you have attempted to work on that material previously, we cannot help you.
  • We do not provide detailed directions on the analysis of your own laboratory data. 

 

Writing Tutoring Guidelines

What AAC tutors do:

  • We listen to your ideas about assigned writing topics, and we help you limit and/or focus these ideas.
  • We ask questions about ideas or reasoning to help you clarify and/or develop them more fully.
  • We help you organize and reorganize ideas in a logical order.
  • We explain structural and mechanical errors, allowing you to then proofread for these errors and correct them. We will indicate the kind and perhaps even the number of such errors, but it is your responsibility to find and correct them, not the tutor’s. We also indicate techniques for locating specific kinds of errors since our goal is to teach you to become a proficient and confident editor of your own work.
  • We give honest feedback about papers – how the tone or voice of the paper affects us, whether the introduction arouses our interest, whether your sentence level errors interfere with your message, whether we are convinced by the evidence presented or still have questions and reservations, or whether the conclusion is satisfying.
  • We work with you, if necessary, on a regular basis to help you overcome specific writing weaknesses and develop your writing strengths.

 

What AAC tutors do NOT do:

  • We do not edit your papers (point out specific errors on the page and then correct them). If we proofread and edited your papers, we would lead instructors to believe that you are competent in skills in which you need more work.
  • We do not rewrite sentences for you, but we may ask you to explain a thought and then write what you have said.
  • We do not discuss a grade assigned to a paper by your instructor.
  • We do not predict the grade an instructor will assign for your paper.
  • We do not simply provide essay topics or specific ideas for topics, nor do we provide an organizational format for your essay. Instead, we ask questions to help you discover a topic and do brainstorming exercises to generate ideas and begin an organizational process.