AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OFMelissa Kinsella, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Rhetoric and Composition, presented on February 26, 2021, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: GRADUATE TUTORS/INSTRUCTORS: NAVIGATING SHIFTING IDENTITY ROLESMAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Lisa J. McClure Writing centers directors at many universities staff graduate student as tutors; these graduate students receive support for their graduate education while also fulfilling important role in the university. These graduate tutors can hold dual roles as both tutors and instructors - Graduate tutors/instructors (GTIs) as I have called them. GTIs have complex identities that include graduate, student, instructor, and tutor components. GTIs navigate between shifting roles as both classroom instructors and writing center peer collaborative tutors. There is a preexisting writing peer collaborative pedagogy and ethos that GTIs are expected to uphold when becoming writing center tutors. This phenomenological qualitative research study utilizes a survey and follow-up interview to specifically explore how GTIs view and experience their peer tutoring relationships, collaborative tutoring techniques, and their navigation and shift from instructor to tutor. GTIs are studied within the context of SIUC’s writing center. The results of this research offer initial insight into the GTI experience and provide a starting point for exploring the GTI experience on a larger and deeper scale. Writing center pedagogy emphasizes a peer tutoring dynamic; results find that GTIs feel differing degrees of peer frequencies dependent on both the GTIs’ and tutees’ demographic. Further, collaborative techniques are offered within writing center scholarship to enact peer tutoring exchanges; results identify a tendency to collaborate with all tutee demographics with frequency differences reflecting the stage of the writing process and tutee need. The peer and collaborative results present scenarios in which peer and collaborative tutoring doesn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, while also suggesting that collaborative techniques could be used in spite of a peer relationship; collaboration could also be utilized to enact a peer exchange, even when a peer relationship isn’t present. Moreover, there are ways that shifting from instructor to tutor impacts the tutoring exchange in terms of tutor authority, knowledge, evaluation, and technique. Writing center directors and researchers should acknowledge the complexity of the GTI experience in order to support and understand the GTI exchange and navigation. Keywords: peer tutor, graduate tutor, writing center collaboration, instructor to tutor navigation

General Chemistry II is a common chemistry course that is required for professional school such as, medical, dental, optometry schooling. Considering that it historically has a high drop, fail, withdrawal rate, it is surprising that less than 10% of students in chemistry II attend tutoring at the Student Academic Resource Center (SARC). In this tutoring center, sessions are led by students who have excelled previously in that specific course. The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between student motivation and attendance in SARC peer tutoring sessions for chemistry II. More precisely, to better understand the connection between those who have a motivation of getting a good grade and learning the material and those who attend tutoring. In order to gain insight on a student’s motivation to attend sessions in SARC, a survey was distributed to those taking the class currently. Two modes were used including paper survey and online. Findings from this investigation will lead to suggestions to increase SARC chemistry tutoring attendance which could positively impact the success of STEM students on UCF's campus.

The present study firstly aimed to identify children with delayed reading who were missing the component skills of decoding fluency and who also displayed antisocial behaviour in the classroom. It also aimed to replicate with them an intervention designed by Church, Nixon, Zintl and Williams (2005). The study finally aimed to explore the question of whether children who have both a reading delay and a disruptive behaviour disorder require a reinforcement scheme to maintain their engagement in learning activities. Six participants worked with same-age peer tutors on specially-designed practice activities for approximately 20 minutes a day, four times a week, for 8-18 sessions. Improvement in decoding fluency and prose reading fluency was tracked for each child throughout the intervention. Results showed that the six participants gained, on average, sixteen months on their age-equivalent score for reading rate. Decoding fluency scores increased from a pre-test average of 16 correct graphemes per minute to 32 correct graphemes per minute at the post-test measure. Reading accuracy improved by an average of five months and reading comprehension by an average of six months. The gains in reading rate are most likely due to the practice opportunities afforded by the testing procedures as decoding fluency scores did not improve enough to have had a direct impact on the learners’ prose reading ability. Implications for remedial reading interventions with children with behaviour problems are discussed.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:46:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2864.pdf: 587880 bytes, checksum: b95a0b211de88f57eee1176958a7cba1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-19 / The proposal for an education that offers opportunities and value individual differences, is clearly the diverse learning for students in all areas of knowledge, is also the Physical Education, by its characteristics are to present favorable conditions for the inclusion : its contents have a degree of determination with flexibility, the physical education teacher has the freedom to organize the content they believe is appropriate to the experience of students, the novelty is a feature highly favorable to increase activities, among others. Currently, the results of studies have pointed to a relationship of professional work in the area related to the presence of students with special needs and disabilities, in classes of common education. Can be observed that the physical education teacher, considering their training, often can not perform adequately with these students. In this confrontation, we need new teaching strategies, among which, the employment of a teaching colleague of the Tutor (Peer Tutor). The strategy of using peer tutors is a model in which non-disabled peers the same age or older, support for a colleague with disabilities in the classroom, including in physical education. Based on these understandings and outcomes, this study aimed to evaluate and implement the Strategy Teaching Colleague Tutor (eecTe) for students with visual impairments in physical education classes. The study 05 students participated in the 7th. Grade of elementary school, in public without disabilities, acting as tutors. He picked up this series because it studies the two students with visual impairments, also participants, participants were also one (01) physical education teacher in state schools that had students with disabilities included in their classes and researcher in question. To collect the data were used team-ments in the electronic media, computer, full, training program Buddy Tutor, and a System for Observation Time Fitness Instruction - System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time, SOFIT. The Colleague Tutor trained participated along with the the student with disabilities to 4 classes for observations of the behavior of teaching fellow tutor. The data analyzed show that there was an application by fellow guardians of the instructions given in training for tutors and colleagues that led to an improvement in the participation of students with visual impairments in physical education classes. It is understood also that tutors can contribute in the dedicated help of other students in the common room or physical education classes while they were students with and without disabilities, if given the correct instructions on how to help. / A proposta de uma Educação que ofereça oportunidades e valorize as diferenças individuais, passa claramente pela aprendizagem diversificada para os alunos, em todas as áreas do conhecimento; passa também pela Educação Física que, por suas características acabam por apresentar condições favoráveis ao processo de inclusão: seus conteúdos têm um grau de determinação com maior flexibilidade; o professor de Educação Física possui liberdade para organizar os conteúdos que julga ser adequados para a vivência dos alunos; o lúdico é um recurso altamente favorável para incrementar atividades, entre outros. Atualmente, os resultados de estudos vêm apontando para uma relação de trabalho profissional na área, ligados à presença de alunos com necessidades especiais e deficiências, nas classes do ensino comum. Pode-se observar que o professor de Educação Física, considerando a sua formação, muitas vezes, não consegue atuar, adequadamente, com estes alunos. Para esse enfrentamento, são necessárias novas estratégias de ensino, dentre as quais, o recurso didático do emprego do Colega Tutor (Peer Tutor). A estratégia de utilizar colegas tutores é um modelo no qual, colegas sem deficiência da mesma idade ou mais velhos, dão suporte para um colega com deficiência nas aulas, inclusive nas de Educação Física. Com base nestes entendimentos e resultados, o presente estudo teve por objetivo verificar, junto a um grupo de alunos do ensino comum, como se desempenhariam na função de colega tutor de alunos com deficiência, incluídos no ensino comum. De uma turma de quarenta alunos, participaram do estudo, 05 alunos da 7ª. Série do ensino fundamental, da rede pública, sem deficiência, na qualidade de tutores. Escolheu-se esta série porque nela estudam as duas alunas com deficiência visual, também participantes; foram participantes, ainda, um professor de Educação Física da rede estadual de ensino que tinha alunos com deficiência incluídos em suas aulas e a pesquisadora em questão.Para a coleta de dados foram utilizados equipamentos de mídia eletrônica, computador completo; programa de treinamento de Colegas Tutor; e um Sistema para Observação do Tempo de Instrução da Aptidão - System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time, SOFIT. O Colega Tutor treinado participou juntamente com a aluna com deficiência de 4 aulas, as quais foram utilizadas para observações do comportamento de ensino do colega tutor. Os dados analisados apontam que houve uma aplicação por parte dos colegas tutores das instruções oferecidas no Treinamento para Colegas Tutores e isso propiciou uma melhora na participação das alunas com deficiência visual nas aulas da Educação Física. Entende-se, ainda, que os tutores podem contribuir de forma dedicada no auxilio de outros alunos da sala comum ou das aulas de educação física, sendo eles alunos com ou sem deficiência, desde que recebam as instruções corretas sobre a forma de ajudar.