I had the opportunity to observe Tom tutor his student in Year 10 Maths. It is clear that Tom is a highly capable tutor who is effective at ensuring understanding within his students. Firstly, this is due to his effective communication skills, particularly situated around the fact that he is a very confident tutor who speaks with perspicuity. Coupled with this, Tom is also an effective non-verbal communicator, maintaining professionalism by employing a positive body language and hand gestures to aid with his student’s understanding. Although this may not relate directly to the content or the skills that the student learnt, it is important to remember that as tutors it is our responsibility to promote constant engagement and that effective communication is an essential element of being a tutor.

Further, Tom appears to be a highly structured tutor in the way that he teaches. I found it unique how Tom set out a set of “Steps” when explaining specific concepts. They appeared to be working on financial mathematics, focusing mainly on compound interest. By outlining a system to follow, Tom allowed his student to adopt a linear pattern of learning, ensuring understanding through following each step. This ability to be structured and organised as a tutor is a great ability that I encourage everyone to work on, especially as students often require extensive explanations and time to interpret / understand certain things. In this way, by being structured and outlining steps for students to follow we can promote better understanding within our own students and potentially reduce the time that it takes to learn and understand certain topics and ideas.

Overall, this was a great lesson to observe and I have taken away the importance of maintain a sound communication style, coupled with the effectiveness of teaching in a way that is structured and followable.

James Petrakis