UltiTutor​

General Questions and Building Rapport

Communication is important in a tutoring session, but not all communication is focused on the course content. In the last badge module, you learned about four of the seven common characteristics of great tutors.  Can you recall what they are?  (If you said "intelligent, progressive, indirect, and encouraging," then you're correct!) Now we'll cover the remaining characteristics- nurturing, Socratic, and reflective.

Let's start with nuturing.  A nurturing tutor recognizes that building rapport helps the session and tutoring relationship have a stronger foundation. They genuinely care about their tutee’s personal interest, life, and successes outside of the session or academics. This not only creates a more comfortable and welcoming space for the tutee, but it also helps you as the tutor create examples, case studies, and word problems that relate the material to the tutee’s interests.

Since it is a major aspect of being a Nurturant tutor, let’s talk a bit more about what building rapport means.

Building rapport IS:

• Taking the time to get to know your tutees during the session

• Building trust so that a tutee feels comfortable asking questions and taking risks

• Showing the tutee that their progress and wellbeing is important to you

Building rapport IS NOT:

• Becoming close friends with those that you tutor

• Asking prying personal questions

• Demanding that a tutee disclose information that they are hesitant to share

Guidelines for Rapport Building

Rapport building is a balance. You don’t want to be too invasive, but you don’t want to seem cold either. Here are some tips for how to build rapport with a brand new student.

• Show you’re welcoming through your nonverbal communication

Good:  Smiling, Offering a handshake, Speaking in a friendly tone, Making eye contact

Bad: Letting your attention wander, Staring the student down, Excessive touching such as hugs, Sitting too close or very far away

• Ask non-threatening questions to begin getting to know the student

Good: How are you today? What year are you? What is your major? How did you choose that major? How do you like the school?

Bad: Do you have a significant other? How much do you make at your job? What church do you go to?

• If the student is returning, show you remember details from last time

Good: You had an exam this past week, right? How did it go? You mentioned that you were going to California for Spring break.  How was it?

Bad: We’ve had a session before, right? Are you the student I tutor who’s a Biology major or are you the Chemistry major?

The actions you take will depend on the student and will evolve over time if you meet with a student on a regular basis. Just remember to be friendly and respectful  in every session. 

What do Socratic and Reflective mean?

The last remaining common characteristics among excelling tutors are Socratic and reflective.

Socratic questioning basically means that you’re asking a lot of follow-up questions to help students come to conclusions on their own, practice using knowledge, and form deeper connections with the material. Socratic questions help tutors check for understanding of the material, to make sure that their tutee truly comprehends what they are working on.

Being a Socratic tutor relates to being a reflective one. Socratic questions can be used to guide students into deeper learning. When a student answers those types of questions, they are engaging in reflection. What steps did you take to get to that answer? How did you get to that outcome? Can you explain that solution and what it means?  How does this apply to other areas? These questions and others that will be discussed in the next section make students explain their knowledge and process. Research has shown that explaining, especially explaining out loud, helps you learn and remember better.

Together, Socratic questioning on the part of the tutor and reflection on the part of the tutee create an environment of deep learning.  In this segment, you’ll learn more about how to use Socratic questioning skills and how those questions can lead to reflective conversations.  

Using Socratic Questioning

Why do I need to have Socratic questioning skills?

Your first instinct when a student asks a question may be to immediately answer them. After all, they’re coming to you to help them learn. But learning this way is only surface level; research has shown that students who have to think about their answers, talk through problems, and come to conclusions themselves learn more and remember more. In other words, telling a student how to solve a problem is not as beneficial as helping solve the problem for themselves.

So, what does that mean for you as a tutor? Think of it this way: the person doing the most talking is the person doing the most learning. Your goal in tutoring appointments should be to ask questions that get the tutee thinking and explaining.

So how do you use Socratic questioning?

Answers through Questions

Rather than telling a student what the answer should be, ask them questions that will help them figure it out. Here’s an example. Say you’re working with a student on a math problem, and they find themselves stuck at a particular step. Should you:

A) Ask them what would happen if they tried to solve it a particular way?

B) Ask them if they remember anything about solving this step of the equation from lecture?

C) Ask them if they have their notes with them?

D) Immediately provide the answer so that the student can move on.

If you answered A, B, or C, you’re correct. These questions allow you to guide the student to the right answer, and will get them thinking about what information they already know. Then, when they see a problem like this on homework or an exam, they’re more likely to be able to solve it themselves.

There are a lot of questions you can use in your tutoring appointments to help students through the process of figuring out things for themselves. However, it’s important not to overwhelm the tutee when using these questions. Tutees have varying levels of knowledge, and asking them a very difficult follow-up question may serve only to discourage them, rather than guide them to the right answer.

Types and Purposes of Questions 

When asking questions, you should consider the type of question you are asking and its purpose. There are two major types of questions: open-ended and closed. Open-ended questions are generally broad and information-seeking. They require the responder to provide more than a word or two in their answer. Not only is the solicited answer longer than a few words, it is also independently generated rather than being a presented option or regulated response. In contrast, closed questions are typically more specific and can be answered in one or two words. They can be dichotomous, having only two ways of responding (such as yes or no, true or false, left or right, etc.), or they may have limited answers from a scripted selection of options. Generally, in your tutoring sessions you will want to avoid asking closed questions because your tutee will do most of the listening rather than most of the explaining (and learning).

The other element in asking questions is to know the purpose it serves. If you know why you are asking a question or what you want the tutee to take away from thinking through an answer, then you can easily and quickly formulate the question. While there may be many potential purposes or motives for asking questions, we’ll focus on introducing, clarifying, challenging, connecting, guiding, and fact checking. The table below shows potential purposes as well as examples you can use in sessions. Click on Fig 1.3 on the left to expand.

Asking Stronger Questions

Notice that most of the questions are open-ended. Recognizing your question’s purpose can help you reword a closed question and results in something more productive than a one word answer. For example, if you want to know if your tutee understands the concept you just went over, you may ask “Do you get it?” or “Does that make more sense now?”  Your purpose is to know if they understand, so you could address that same purpose by asking “How would you explain the concept back to me know?” or “How would you describe it?” This keeps the tutee talking and engaged in the session.

You could also strengthen a question by asking a third type of question, a scaling question. A scaling question is actually a combination of closed and open-ended types. You begin with a more closed question asking the tutee to rank or rate something like their understanding or confidence on a scale of one to ten. Once the tutee responds, you follow up with open-ended questions asking them to explain why they ranked or rated themselves at that level. You can also ask what it would take for them to rank or rate themselves at the next level.  The tutee’s response to the follow up questions allows you to see where they are at with the material, watch self-reported progress, and adjust your session plan to help the tutee “level up” their understanding or confidence. 

Overall, leading sessions through asking questions will keep the tutee thinking, explaining, and involved in their learning. It will help tutees see how much they aleady know and guide them in learning more. Questions also turn sessions into tutee-dominant conversations rather than a tutor-dominant mini-lectures repeating the material from class. Approaching tutoring and subject material you already understand through asking questions may require more effort and feel slightly awkward at first, but it will become more natural as you use it in sessions. 

More than What You Say: Wait Time

The next few challenges will focus on the importance of non-verbal communication during your tutoring session. We will go into detail about how to interpret how your tutee is feeling based on their body language, as well as the message you, the tutor, are sending to your tutee. We’ll cover topics such as wait-time, body language, creating a welcoming space, and recognizing non-verbal behavior.

First up is wait time.  Wait time is a pause or period of silence used to let the tutee have some time to think and respond to a question. You’ll ask a lot of questions in your sessions, and it’s important to give the tutee time to process – otherwise they’ll feel rushed and stressed, and you’ll end up doing all of the talking!

Watch the video HERE for more information.

More than What You Say: Body Language

Silence and wait time are important aspects of non-verbal communication, but they aren't the only ones. We can get a lot of information from a person’s subtle signals, but we’re primarily going to focus on eye contact and gestures in this challenge. 

First, watch the video HERE on your body language as a tutor.

Part of a tutor’s role is observing and responding to the nonverbal cues from their tutees. Observing your tutees body language and expressions can help you decide whether to move on to another problem, offer encouragement, or try a different learning strategy. This second video will help you practice recognizing some of the emotions and behaviors that can clue you in to how your tutee is feeling, and how you can respond to those cues to have a successful session.