Today, I got to observe the big room. In this room Deanne and Elise were each tutoring their students. Elise was tutoring her student in Maths specifically probability while Deanne was tutoring her student in Chemistry.
Deanne made great use of the whiteboard to help work through questions while highlighting each step to make the question easier to tackle. She also highlighted some key ideas to be aware of in case of similar questions in exams. She went through an exam paper with her student to expose him to a range of questions likely to come up in his exams and allowed him to lead in answering them as to see where he was in terms of his knowledge and his confidence. She made sure his working was thorough and he had what was needed to achieve all the allocated marks in an exam. She gave him some ideas for resources he could use to help visualise the concepts he was learning.
Elise worked together with her student to solve questions until her student was comfortable enough to do questions herself. This is important to help increase her confidence enabling her to do the work by herself especially when it comes to homework and exams/tests. If her student struggled, she gave her hints to push her in the right direction without giving her the answer straight away. She went through different types of probability questions including bar graphs and tables, which each have a varying approach that she made sure to outline and familiarise her student.
Both sessions provided me with a lot of insight into how to approach various questions avoiding giving answers away. By hinting and giving the student time to immerse themselves in the question, we can help them work through it consequently giving them confidence which prompts them to do well in homework and exams.
Olga-Liana Athanasatos
