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Monday, August 18, 2008
Student Tutors
At my school, student tutors typically are assigned to each 1L course. These tutors are chosen and compensated by the SBA. The SBA seems to try to assign tutors who took that professor for the particular course, but this alignment isn’t always possible. The SBA also typically seems to solicit professor opinion on tutor candidates, but the degree of input sought seems to vary somewhat from year to year. Otherwise, to my knowledge, no formal system exists for professors to choose and supervise the SBA tutors, although I imagine that individual professors could assert themselves in the process.
I have no idea how common this practice is at other schools, and I have wondered about whether and how to incorporate our SBA tutors into my courses. Invariably, 1Ls ask for my input: Should we go to the tutorials? What do I think of the tutor? Will you look at some materials the tutor gave to us? The tutors themselves sometimes will reach out to me, usually to review or confirm an answer to a student’s question.
Over the last three years I have seen absolutely wonderful and diligent student tutors, but also some who were not as diligent as I would have expected if I had hired him or her.
Is this student tutor system used at other schools? If so, do students find the tutors helpful, especially at reviewing substantive material, rather than simply helping students to develop good study habits and stress-management techniques? Do professors at these schools work with the student tutors? If so, how involved do you get in the tutor hiring process? What limits and requirements, if any, do you place on your work with tutors?
Posted by Brooks Holland on August 18, 2008 at 02:02 AM in Teaching Law | Permalink
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Comments
Matt--Sorry, yes, the Student Bar Association. So, the 1L tutoring program really is handled internally to the student body and is a separate program from our school-run academic support program, which has tutors hired by the school through the office of the Dean for Student Affairs. The 1L tutors operate without, as far as I know, formal oversight by the school itself, of the sort described in the comments so far.
Posted by: Brooks | Aug 18, 2008 12:00:17 PM
Matt, thanks for pointing that link failure out. I've fixed it.
Posted by: Dan Markel | Aug 18, 2008 8:48:22 AM
At Northeastern Law we have two sets of tutors.
The 1L profs get to hire 2 tutors to give review sessions and hold extra office hours. Then the academic success program hires its own tutors to give more generalized support. Things like how to manage time, how to write exams, different stategies on how to study, how to read cases, and the like.
The tutors for the classes are approached and hired by the prof for whom they'll work, and the academic success program tutors are hired by the head of that program after an application process.
Posted by: Ben | Aug 18, 2008 8:24:46 AM
Just a point of clarification, is the "SBA" "Student Body Association" or something else? Also, it seems the like on your name in the side-bar goes to some link-selling spam page. I assume that's not intentional!
Posted by: Matt | Aug 18, 2008 6:55:12 AM
At Ohio Northern the student tutors are coordinated by our director of academic support. She tries to hire a tutor who did well in the particular course, and asks the faculty member for input. After that, the faculty member doesn't have much, if any, input. I suspect the quality varies from tutor to tutor, as it does in any endeavor in which human beings are involved. In my experience, the attendance at the tutoring sessions hasn't been good, which is disappointing. That said, we had the highest bar pass rate in the state for the last two sittings, so I suspect those who attend are benefiting.
Best wishes.
Posted by: Scott Gerber | Aug 18, 2008 6:36:59 AM
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