Now

I wish had I known how to help someone on a subject that I know very little about. I learned in class how to better handle that kind of situation, and after, I was able to apply it in the many bio-med tutoring sessions that we had the following week. I wish I would have had those techniques at my disposal a week earlier when the computer kid came with a paper on the different types of music downloading formats.

I wish I would have known about the convience of the purdue website. I learned about it here at work, not in class, but it has a lot of helpful information on it that applies to writing and teaching about writing. There are a lot of really useful techniques that I have learned over the course of the semester that have improved my tutoring. For example, asking questions to clarify ideas. I wish I would have known earlier on to ask "What is the main idea you want to get across?" at the beggining of tutoring sessions. That particular question has done a lot more good for moving the session in the right way than what I used to ask, "What are you most concerned about with your paper?" It's not that the latter question isn't good, but an overwhelming majority of students are unprepared to answer that question at the beggining of a session. Knowing the student's purpose, before reading the paper, allows me to find ways they can better achieve that purpose as I read through it with them. This allows me to formulate thought provoking questions that lead students into better fullfing their purpose for their paper.

I still don't feel very comfortable with my own ability to use correct grammar. Therefore, I wish I could know more about grammar, for my own knowledge and so I can better help others with their grammar.