{"id":5424,"date":"2020-11-25T01:40:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T09:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningcommons.twu.ca\/?p=5424"},"modified":"2024-04-28T12:08:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T20:08:24","slug":"beneficial-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/2020\/11\/25\/beneficial-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Beneficial chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Beneficial Chaos<\/span><\/b><\/h1>\n

Andrew Johnson<\/span><\/h3>\n

November 25, 2020\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nWhile the start of a new semester is always jarring for incoming students, these past few months have been a time of unparalleled change even for those of us who are experienced with academia. The shift to online learning upset experienced and na\u00efve students alike<\/span>\u00a0and introduced chaos and uncertainty in ways no one anticipated. New students faced an unfamiliar environment with foreign expectations; experienced students faced new technological requirements with unexpected limitations. However, in all this chaos, every student and tutor, whether consciously or unconsciously, encountered the opportunity to grow.\u00a0<\/span>Chaos, though uncomfortable, prompt<\/span>ed<\/span>\u00a0adaptation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n\nAside from the pandemic, the greatest upset to my own tutoring experience involved the shift to embedded tutoring, which\u00a0<\/span>required me to expand my tutoring repertoire from consisting of a few\u00a0higher-order\u00a0talking points to covering every step of the writing process. Instead of spending half an hour with a student I might not\u00a0<\/span>see<\/span>\u00a0again<\/span>, I had to learn to pay attention to their specific needs because I shared a larger amount of\u00a0the responsibility\u00a0for their development as a writer. This required a bit more dedication, which made my job a bit more difficult, but it also meant that I formed relationships with recurring students and watched them grow and develop as writers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n\nThe increased demands of embedded tutoring returned increase<\/span>d<\/span>\u00a0rewards as a tutor even beyond watching the students grow. I also received implicit (and sometimes explicit) feedback from students<\/span>, so I learned more quickly which techniques, ideas, tools, and strategies worked for students with different backgrounds. Furthermore, developing some tools that worked for multiple students, like a thesis guide or a paragraph structure template, helped me to think through process<\/span>es<\/span>\u00a0in a step-by-step fashion<\/span>. Since I typically construct theses and paragraphs intuitively, stepping through the process improved my ability to communicate the steps to a non-<\/span>intuitive student. This also enabled me to identify shortcomings in\u00a0<\/span>students\u2019\u00a0<\/span>paragraph structure I had not been able to identify previously, especially with non-native English speakers who had difficulty structuring English paragraphs concisely. In previous semesters, I had not felt a push to construct these tools because<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0if I encountered a student with whom I could not communicate easily, I could send them to another tutor and think little of it. This does not work as well with embedded students, and\u00a0<\/span>this fact revealed<\/span>\u00a0that my inability to communicate with non-intuitive students was a weakness in need of correcting.\u00a0In order for\u00a0me to resist the chaotic force of consistency, I had to become more flexible<\/span>\u00a0and develop as a tutor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n\nEven for someone like myself who thrives on change, the chaos of new expectations, in my<\/span>\u00a0case structure and consistency, poses a threat to\u00a0<\/span>status\u00a0quo<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>This chaos\u00a0<\/span>presents an ultimatum: adapt and overcome or stagnate and fail.\u00a0<\/span>In past semesters, a lack of failure did not motivate me to improve as a tutor; this semester, stagnation was not an option.\u00a0<\/span>In order to adapt and overcome, I learned the importance of tackling my own tutoring weaknesses<\/span>, and this was due in large part to the beneficial threat of disruption mandated by a year of unrelenting chaos.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2157,"featured_media":5383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[77,188],"class_list":["post-5424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflection","tag-fall-2020","tag-reflection-andrew_johnson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pad6JM-1pu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5424"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7971,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424\/revisions\/7971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/learningcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}