Working with Tompkins Learning Partners
David Rothstein is an employee at Cornell University in the Astronomy department. He also volunteers his time to the Tompkins Learning Partners Inc. A volunteer with TLP since December, David has worked with a student studying to pass the GED.
David became involved through Cornell University:
"My job involves a lot of teaching and outreach. I was at Cornell as a graduate student and was involved with a similar program. Over the years I found that I really liked teaching. Sometimes it can be frustrating to do it in a school setting where you have a large group of students you have to work with, and other constraints you have to deal with. I decided to try being a volunteer tutor to see how that went and see if I could help with a different population of learners. My girlfriend is involved with TLP in the English as a Second Language program, so that's how I heard about it.
Working with Tompkins Learning Partners has been very rewarding so far. I love one-on-one tutoring in a situation where I know my student wants to be there and wants to work hard to succeed. When you're working one-on-one with someone, you can really take the time to figure out what is confusing them and adjust what you're doing until they understand. I've definitely had times where I've gone in with an idea of how to teach something and then during the course of the session, the student and I have come up with another way that worked better. It's been a real opportunity for me to learn and grow as a teacher. We do a lot of hands-on work. We've studied geometry by making triangles out of rubber bands (so you can easily change their size and shape), we've studied fractions using different colored poker chips, etc. I also try to stick in information about how the different types of math we are learning can be used in everyday life too.
My student has made a HUGE amount of progress in the past nine months. We meet once a week for two hours. As a tutor, you just have to be patient and get used to the fact that people learn by repetition and by making mistakes and going back over them again until they get it right. I really think the one-on-one aspect of the tutoring is the way to address this. I can take the time to let my student talk through solving a problem and pinpoint where the confusion is.That's what's great about Tompkins Learning Partners, the one-on-one tutoring is exactly what adult learners need in order to have a different way to learn than the traditional classroom setting that they may have struggled in when they were younger."
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