I had the pleasure of observing Alexander’s session with Malik who’s a Y10 Maths student.

In the beginning of the session, Alexander went through a condensed revision on surface area allowing Malik to attempt the questions before he walked Malik through it. While attempting the first question, Malik was unsure of a couple aspects of question ie if he was to include the area of the cylindrical face that met with the surface of the rectangular prism. Alexander did a great job with prompting Malik towards the right answer instead of simply telling him the answer, allowing Malik to really wrap his head around the question. Afterwards, Alexander walked through the solutions, ensuring that Malik had solutions to compare his working out to. Before going onto the next question, Alexander asked how the student felt on the level of difficulty of the question and ensured the student was comfortable with the level of difficulty before moving onto the next question.

Malik was able to consolidate his learning through the multiple questions Alexander provided – each which increasing difficulty as Malik was able to consistently solve for the correct solution.
I found that this teaching plan allows the student to be able to independently work through questions, introducing him to more complex questions wherein multiple formulae are to be used as well as well as building his confidence with attempting questions with abnormal shapes which are more likely to appear in exam papers.

Alexander and Malik did a great job with working through difficult questions today! Such a pleasure to observe!

Gabrielle Tran