I always find it odd how different it is to be a teacher or a tutor. Sometimes, it feels like the same role. I've had a couple of sessions recently in which plagiarism came up, and I realized that my approach is entirely different when tutoring than it is with teaching.
When I teach, I try to inform my students about plagiarism thoroughly, devoting up to two class hours on discussing different types of plagiarism and ways to avoid them. I am stern and absolute, returning any work with any plagiarism until it is corrected, and I meet with students who are confused, to help them understand what must be addressed.
When I tutor, I know that the rules of plagiarism are the same, but what I do not know is how the instructor reviewed them, what the student should already know from the course, or how the instructor penalizes plagiarism. I'm not referring to stolen papers, but to plagiaphrasing, missing citations, and those other "accidental" plagiarisms that arise.
I find that, as a tutor, I am gentler. Rather than be intimidating about plagiarism and its consequences, I find myself giving polite cautionary suggestions. I do not know how many students take my advise when they revise their papers at home further.
Yet again, this is a rambling blog entry with no particular point, except that I am a little surprised at my own compartmentalization of roles, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed a divide like this in their own experiences.
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I definitely find that my teacher and tutor selves don't stay separate. I wonder about you undergrad tutors- is it like Alice, (Alice Through the Looking-Glass) "I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it!"?
ReplyDeleteFor me, I find myself as often tutoring in the classroom as directing in the tutorial...especially if I feel like I can talk to them about being a writer in the first place. I find myself directly teaching writing tips or skills ("look, why don't you pull some quotes out and write about them first?" or, "seriously, never start with the introduction"), but then, in my real classroom, I just throw out facilitative questions!
Hmmm. Maybe, like writing, its all about flexible skills that allow us to respond to the changing situations of teaching and tutoring?