Clinical Teaching Experience Ava De Jonge

For the Clinical Teaching Experience, I tutored two students who speak both English and
Spanish. For this reflection I created pseudo names for the students to protect their identities.

Lorita is a 10th grader who identifies that Spanish is her stronger language in comparison
to English. Lorita’s primary goal for the tutoring session was to support cohesion and accuracy
when writing in English. During the first session, we reviewed an English assignment. Lorita’s
primary concern with this assignment was that there was too much information with little
punctuation. I had Lorita explain what she wanted to convey within her writing assignment; as
she described her ideas, I made bullet points with the ideas she identified. I then had her read
aloud her writing excerpt to see if the bullet points matched what she wrote; she confirmed all of
the bullet points matched the main ideas in her text. I had Lorita complete this task to let her
identify whether or not there was unnecessary information. Then I had Lorita read aloud the text
she wrote. By doing so, she was able to identify that some punctuation was missing because she
would often pause naturally even though there was no punctuation. We identified how to correct
the punctuation at hand. During the subsequent two sessions, we worked specifically on her
writing assignments, following a similar procedure. As time went on, Lorita effectively-
identified whether the information in the text was necessary or not. Then, she would read her text
aloud, seeing where natural pauses would occur. We would then go through whether the natural
pause needed punctuation and what type of punctuation would be the most effective. Lorita
believed this process was helpful to calm the chaos of writing. Lorita, along with other students,
decided to stop tutoring. The following week Lorita changed her mind, as continuing tutoring has
been helpful towards her success.
In the tutoring following the decision to stop tutoring, I wanted to address what was
happening because her emotional state is more important than completing an English
assignment. We discussed many things, such as processing emotion and life beyond high school.
I suggested to Lorita that journaling could be beneficial, to which she agreed to try. During the
next session, Lorita and I journaled together using images to spark ideas to write down. Lorita
found this process to be very helpful and liberating. Lorita is an example to all that education is
challenging, especially when having emotional conflicts at home and with friends. Lorita taught
me that it is crucial to have open conversations about mental health as it is difficult to approach,
however necessary to succeed.

Juan is a 9th grader who identifies English to be his stronger language in comparison to
Spanish. Juan’s goals for tutoring were to get ahead of homework and make sure the assignments
are being turned in. We completed several missing assignments during the first session and then
made a list of missing assignments to be completed independently. The following week, I
checked in with Juan to make sure the assignments from the week prior got turned in. By doing
so, I held Juan accountable for the goals he had set for himself. We then compiled another list of
missing assignments to be completed independently and within the tutoring session. The
following week, I decided that Juan may need some help with the organization of assignments
and coursework as that was often the issue for what an assignment was not turned in. We focused
Clinical Teaching Experience Ava De Jonge

on organizing the documents within his google drive. I suggested that Juan create a folder for
each of his classes to place any documents or presentations. I believe that this could help with
finding records more accessible. I also suggested that Juan get a planner to keep track of
homework and see what he can do to get ahead of homework. Juan did not show up to any
tutoring session afterward due to the want to stop. Juan taught me that while it may appear a
student is “failing” in all reality, the student could have great success with just some
organizational support. I think that school becomes so chaotic that organization becomes
something easy to push off. However, an organization can allow for more remarkable
achievement when turning in assignments and getting ahead on homework.

Both tutoring sessions allowed me to gain insight into aspects of a student not taught
within a class. Understanding mental health and providing support for the students can motivate
the students to achieve in school while thinking about life beyond high school. However, little
things like organizing can make or break the potential success of a student. Juan and Lorita both
allowed me to gain more significant insights as to aspects that can easily be ignored but equally
as easily be addressed.