Collaborative tutor training can help tutors tackle challenges in providing peer assistance. This study follows educational design research approach. The purpose of this study are twofold. This study investigates how collaborative tutor training can be facilitated through Community of Inquiry guided instructional design and explores how tutors…

This longitudinal study serves as a model for examining and understanding the role of editing and its contributing factors in writing center tutorials. The study quantifies the frequency of and time devoted to editing in over 4,000 writing center tutorials and finds these quantities differ in statistically significant ways when broken down by user…

Learning centers and tutoring programs serve a unique function as they are situated between academic and student affairs. Despite their importance, little research has focused on the key knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies required for success as learning center directors. This qualitative study addressed this gap by exploring critical…

The shift in literacy education has reshaped the perspective of writing instruction in its theory and philosophy of the writing center in the US. This study examines how the writing center tutors instruct themselves for the work of writing instruction through mock tutorials. The tutors demonstrate how they make sense of the collaborative process…

High-quality public speaking skills convey strong and effective communication, a critical professional and workplace competency that positively impacts personal lives as well. Skill acquisition and mastery improve public speaking confidence, which in turn reinforces the speaker's abilities. Improving oral communication skills requires instruction,…

Jim Valkenburg's article "Scaffolding and Tutoring Mathematics" that appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of The Learning Assistance Review (TLAR) addressed the characteristics of appropriate communication between a tutor and tutee as they approach their work together in study sessions. One strategy he examines is the use of scaffolding, a concept…

Students with disabilities face a vast array of physical, cognitive, social, and external barriers. The combination of barriers and negative attitudes faced by students with disabilities makes it difficult to develop skills to be more independent in future academic and career-related settings. This article examines the importance of faculty…

In order to better understand the complex dynamic that often occurs during writing center sessions between native English speaking (L1) tutors and English language learners (ELL), this study investigates linguistic dominance through time-at-talk, turn-taking, agenda-setting, and content analysis. We conclude that, in keeping with theory and…