I had the chance to observa Ceara tutor her year 9 student in Maths. Initially, they appeared to be going through a past paper and were working through questions together and reviewing any errors. Cearais a really intelligent tutor and is great at explaining concepts in ways that students understand. This is a fundamental skill that all tutors must strive to constantly develop as verbal communication is an inherent part of our job. Therefore, it is our responsibility to constantly adjust the way that we communicate and skew this towards different students who have different needs and/or personalities.

Another thing that I noticed Ceara was doing effectively was discussing why her student was making mistakes. This can be difficult to hear as a student but it is fundamentally important to progress learning and solidification of concepts. Rather than just marking her student’s work, Ceara was discussing any errors and showing her the correct and appropriate method / working out. Coupled with this, Ceara asks an array of questions rather than just giving answers away. This was prevalent when they were working through area and circumference of circles, whereby Ceara would selectively aim to ignite her student’s active recall via the asking of questions, as opposed to solely giving the answer away to her student.

It is quite an uncommon sight to have a student consistently engage with their studies and their tutor for an entire 60 minutes (especially on a 36 degree day). The fact that Ceara’s student was solely focused on her studies and did not get side-tracked by other topics of discussion is a prominent indicator of Ceara’s effectiveness to actively engage her students. It was not out of fear or shyness that her student was diligent, but it was evident that it was out of respect for her highly capable and understanding tutor.

Great Lesson

James Petrakis