Today I had the opportunity to observe Olga’s Year 12 Maths Standard student. Olga’s student had a test coming up and so she reviewed the notification and began by asking her student which of these topics she had previously worked on and how she was finding them. This would allow her to gauge which topics would need the most work, attentively catering to the student’s learning needs. What Olga did really well was to always check with what her student found confusing or what made sense. Olga explained to her student what the usual nuances of different topics’ questions involved in order to prepare her well for her upcoming exam. The textbook was used as an effective way to review and demonstrate the correct way of approaching questions.
Olga would find a question and then take the time to first explain the concepts behind how to solve it, delving into the actual theory behind how the questions works rather than only using formulas to find the right answer. For questions involving rates, probabilities and distances such as those Olga and her student were working on, this is an essential practice in ensuring the student has a well rounded understanding, especially in topics whose problems translate as practical skills in the real world. Olga made great use of the whiteboard in order to allow her student to better visualise the concepts. They focused on rate conversions particularly looking at the unitary method as a way to simplify ratios involving money and distances. To solidify the concepts and methods learnt, Olga asked her student to explain her reasoning and working out as they went through the questions together on the board.
Olga’s student gained the confidence to ask questions and demonstrated her knowledge and progress as the session went on. It was clear that Olga has a positive impact on her student, who feels confident to ask questions. She takes the time to grasp her student’s ability and improve understanding with every lesson, completing lots of questions to develop a strong foundation of knowledge.
Thomais Papas
