This week I had my first Zoom meeting with a student from HIS4150: History and Historians. The student initiated this Zoom call, but initially it was not clear to me what exactly she wanted to discuss or address as she did not mention any drafts or ask any specific questions. I was a little nervous because I did not know how to prepare for the meeting, i.e., what materials to review or which instructions to reexamine.
Turns out this student was a little confused about the facilitation assignment that I discussed in my previous blog posts. Furthermore, though students had organized a GroupMe chat to help and advise each other, she felt that most of her classmates were equally confused, so she could not rely on their insight. This information concerned me because this week is the last in a semester-long series of facilitations, which means that most students had already completed theirs but still could not properly advise their classmate (though many did, in my opinion, a good job). What’s more, until now, none of them reached out to me with any questions, which made me reflect on the ways I demonstrated my availability to them. At the same time, this conversation illustrated to me the advantages of having peer tutors and the need for the program that Dr. Amanda Snyder is trying to implement through the History Lab. I hope that I helped this student to have a clearer picture about this assignment’s expectations and that this experience will encourage this student to reach out to other peer tutors in other classes.
On a different note, Stephen and I agreed on a date to meet over Zoom and work on our final presentation. Since we will be delivering a joint presentation, we will have 15 minutes to do so unlike 5-7 minutes allocated for individual presentations. Additional 5 minutes will be dedicated to Q&A. The presentation needs to cover the skills we have gained during this internship, the challenges we faced, and the particularly memorable and rewarding experiences we had. Before meeting with Stephen, I will try to reflect on these prompts.
I am also half-way through Jenny L. Presnell’s The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students. Dr. Snyder recommended this book to the class, and, given that the deadline for their final research paper is quickly approaching, I decided to read it too so that I could refer to specific chapters and sections in it when reviewing their drafts. However, this book has already given me so much practical information that, even if it will not help me with my tutoring responsibilities, reading it is more than worth the time. For example, I began using the reference management software called Zotero to organize my notes.
I look forward to receiving research paper drafts!