Volunteer Tutors and Adolescent at risk English Language Learners: The nature of interactions among volunteer tutors and at risk ELLs in one-on-one tutoring sessions
Genre
Thesis/DissertationDate
2015Author
Moore, Sarah Renee EdwardsAdvisor
Wasik, Barbara A.Committee member
Brooks, Wanda M., 1969-Hindman, Annemarie H.
Schifter, Catherine
Wagner, Elvis
Department
Literacy & LearnersSubject
EducationTeacher Education
English as A Second Language
Adolescents
Ells
One-on-one Tutoring
Tutoring
Vocabulary
Volunteer Tutoring
Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/3295
Metadata
Show full item recordDOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3277Abstract
This qualitative case study examined how volunteer tutors are interacting with at-risk adolescent ELL students in one-on-one tutoring sessions. This study also investigated how volunteer tutors are supporting vocabulary acquisition within tutoring sessions with adolescent ELLs. As a non-participant observer, I used ethnographic methods, including observations, interviews, and document analysis to understand how three tutors were interacting in sessions and how they were supporting vocabulary acquisition over seven weeks. The following questions guided the research: How do volunteer tutors interact in one-on-one tutoring sessions with at-risk adolescent ELLs? How are volunteer tutors supporting vocabulary acquisition for adolescent ELLs in one-on-one tutoring sessions? Data were analyzed to determine how volunteer tutors were interacting in sessions and supporting vocabulary. Six themes emerged to explain how tutors were interacting in sessions and three ‘a-priori’ themes explained how tutors were supporting vocabulary acquisition. The results of this study are used to inform schools who institute volunteer tutoring programs for at-risk populations, researchers interested in vocabulary acquisition and adolescent ELLs, and faculty or staff members who work with at-risk populations. Furthermore, recommendations for future research are discussed for the field of education.ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.eduCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
CIRCUIT TUTOR: PROTOTYPE OF A WEB-BASED MOBILE INTELLIGENT TUTOR IN CIRCUIT THEORYButz, Brian P.; Biswas, Saroj K.; Bai, Li (Temple University. Libraries, 2012)This thesis describes the design, implementation, and assessment of a web-based mobile tutoring application. The goal of this application, called Circuit Tutor, is to address the educational needs of students with the aid of intelligent tutoring systems that are available on mobile devices and are used outside of the traditional classroom environment. The growth of sophisticated intelligent tutoring applications and systems has helped gradually change the preconceived notion that intelligent tutoring systems cannot be relied upon in secondary education. More so, with the advent of mobile learning applications, learning can no longer be restricted to a specific location or time to acquire knowledge or a place and time to apply knowledge. While many intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) have been mostly developed as desktop applications, the equivalent of these applications have only lately begun to be implemented for mobile devices. The proposed design aims to employ the various spheres of mobile human-computer interaction and mobile learning in the structure and implementation of an ITS for contemporary mobile tablets (for example, the iPad®). Circuit Tutor will not substitute traditional instruction; however, it will provide undergraduate electrical engineering students with intelligent support when instructors are not available. This tutoring system will perform some actions traditionally done by a teacher or instructor - such as detecting errors, identifying concepts that the student is finding difficult to comprehend, as well as referring the student back to the appropriate learning material if the student does not show progress after a set of exercises. Most importantly, this thesis aims to serve as a foundation for future research that investigates the design of mobile intelligent tutoring systems as well as research in the techniques of effectively converting existing desktop tutoring applications to mobile applications.
-
PROTOTYPE OF AN INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEM USING THE JAVA EXPERT SYSTEM SHELLButz, Brian P.; Won, Chang-Hee, 1967-; Bai, Li (Temple University. Libraries, 2011)In a technology driven world, efforts are being made to make education/learning available to individuals at any time with no compromise in the quality of teaching/training. To make learning flexible, different techniques such as distributing learning material, uploading audio lectures on the web, and creating intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are being used. The technique considered here is an adaptive ITS, a system that replicates the learning that occurs in a student teacher relationship. This thesis develops an adaptive intelligent tutoring system architecture prototype where the addition, modification and removal of educational material are relatively easy. The resulting software will take into account: the goals of the specific educational experience, the concepts to be covered, the preferred learning style of the student, measures to detect misuse of the system functionality, behavior based on the student's performance and the generation of hint sequences and feedback messages to improve learning gain. The system will accomplish these objectives by assessing the student's prior knowledge level, observing the actions performed by the student and by adapting to his/her learning abilities. The ITS will attempt to be more intelligent by performing some actions traditionally done by a human teacher - such as diagnosing misconceptions, identifying the most suitable learning style, stressing concepts that the student is finding difficult to understand, switching back to the learning material if the student shows no improvement after a set of trials. The system makes sure that the student is getting feedback where appropriate. Using this prototype system, the student will be tutored to acquire declarative knowledge. A problem based learning (PBL) approach will be used to strengthen the acquired knowledge by providing a high degree of personal attention to the student. To show how the prototype system works, an example of analysis of a control system problem using bode plot technique will be used to assist the student in using the technique to perform the stability analysis of an analog, linear, time-invariant control system problems and to recommend a controller to attain stability (if the system is not stable). Ideas of porting the system from standalone to web-based architecture and features required for collaborative learning will be discussed and an architecture for a web-based tutoring system for supporting multiple students enabling communication between students and sharing data among them will be proposed.
-
THE RELATIONSHIP OF MOTIVATION TO PEER TUTORING AND GRADES IN COLLEGE MATHEMATICSFarley, Frank; Fiorello, Catherine A.; DuCette, Joseph P.; Degnan, James W.; Stahler, Gerald (Temple University. Libraries, 2015)The two studies reported here investigated the efficacy of peer tutoring offered in the setting of a university tutoring center as an intervention to improve academic performance among students enrolled in a college algebra course. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was used to investigate the motivational profiles of those who used the tutoring center and those who did not. Motivational profiles were examined in order to determine if a particular profile would predict help-seeking behavior (i.e., utilizing the university tutoring center). This research utilized two samples and was divided into two parts. The sample for study one included 1124 college students who attended a large urban university in the northeastern United States and were enrolled in a college algebra course during the fall semester of 2008. One Hundred Ninety Six of the students in this sample used the university tutoring center at least one time during that semester. The sample population involved in study two included 254 students from the study one sample who volunteered to complete the motivation subscales from the MSLQ. One Hundred Ten of the students in the second sample used the tutoring center at least one time during that semester. Results of an ANOVA demonstrated that the difference in the final algebra grade between students who used the Center and those who did not was not statistically significant. A Pearson correlation computed between the number of times a student visited the tutoring center and final course grade in college algebra was not significant. An ordinary least squared (OLS) regression revealed that high school GPA, SAT Quantitative score, gender, and ethnicity were significant predictors of final course grade. A MANOVA revealed that tutoring center users possessed significantly lower self-efficacy for learning and performance and control of learning beliefs than non- users. A binary logistic regression demonstrated that self- efficacy for learning and performance significantly predicted tutoring center usage above and beyond all demographic variables. An ordinary least squares regression revealed that low self-efficacy for learning, higher task value, higher year in school, and low test anxiety were significant predictors of more frequent tutoring center usage. A MANOVA revealed that those who used the tutoring center most frequently had significantly lower self- efficacy and control of learning beliefs and were significantly higher in age and year in school.