I observed a lovely session of Katerina teaching her year three student, Demitri, in maths and was strongly impressed with how she kept him motivated throughout. I admired how she began off with effective communication on what she thought could be improved from the neatness of last week’s homework. She said it in a joking tone, which keeps it light hearted and is a great incentive for young kids to remember and put into action what is being said.

First, she got Demitri to colour a bar graph which was a fun warm up to the introduction of the topic of data. After marking some of his work, she told him there was one mistake for him to find, which is a great strategy as it builds students” confidence to reflect and recognise on their own learning patterns. She then asked the question, “Why do you think I wanted you to fix this up before moving on to the next question?.” I thought this was a really thought provoking that gets students to consider the links between the different types of questions, especially in maths when it is important to identify the basics in order to solve harder problem solving questions.

When Katerina’s student originally said no to working with more difficult maths terminology, she reassured him that they have worked hard before and smashed it, which resulted in him immediately resigned to being focused. Demitri silently worked on the worksheets for roughly 15 minutes! I strongly commend Katerina for being able to regulate her student’s mood so smoothly and keep him motivated. Throughout the lesson, whenever he mentioned again how he didn’t want to do something, she would repeat his own desire back as a question such as “You don’t want to do it? C’mon I think you can.” I believe this is a great way to simultaneously affirm a student’s emotions and still encourage their confidence without dismissing their own fears on being unable to solve certain questions.

Additionally, I found it great how whenever Katerina did point out her student’s mistakes, she would never say he was wrong or incorrect. She would be clear to say that “you were close”, “You were off by this much” or “I could see how you came to this answer.” This is a vital strategy in preventing students from feeling demotivated. Overall, these were all effective ways to embolden a student’s sense of self belief.

Anna Ho