Today I observed Lishai’s session with a new Maths student. This was especially interesting to watch since the first session with a student can often be a challenging one. This is because you need to start to build a relationship with the student, understand their level, goals, and work ethic, and learn the best way to accommodate to their learning style. Lishai did this very effectively and I was very impressed, especially considering that they had an exam coming up.
Lishai started off the session by striking up a short conversation with the student in order to start to build a relationship with them and to learn more about each other. This is highly valuable as it allows the student to feel more comfortable with the tutor. Lishai then shifted the conversation by starting to ask questions specifically about school, what they had done in class, and what topics would be involved in the test. He identified what should be prioritised in the session by asking the student which topics he believed he struggled with most, and this is what they started with. In particular, this student appeared to know a lot of the processes but didn’t necessarily know when to apply them or how to start off a question. This is what Lishai focussed on improving throughout the lesson by providing him with a variety of problems that used similar calculations in different ways that required deeper thinking, similar to what would be involved under test conditions.
I could tell that the student then started to become more comfortable and asked questions about topics that he was struggling with. Lishai responded to this by asking for clarification about the types of questions that the student was being asked. This allowed him to grasp the level that the student was at and thus allowed him to explain the knowledge required for further understanding.
Riva Burkett
