Observation

Today I had the pleasure of observing Angelique tutor a Year 10 student on rational and irrational numbers. Through my observations, I learned quite a bit about how I can improve my own sessions with my own students.

Angelique's relationship with her student is fascinating. They maintain a continuous light-hearted banter throughout the session, while also managing to stay focused on the chosen topic. Whenever the conversation drifted, Angelique steered it back naturally, so the student never felt like she was being told off, and the relaxed tone never derailed the actual learning.

When watching Angelique teach a new concept, simplifying surds, rather than simply showing the steps of the process, she asked questions and tested her student's existing knowledge on the topic. She also made use of the student's existing knowledge in other areas, such as factors, asking questions and letting her make her own assumptions to get to the answer.

This active learning method is familiar to me, though I had never thought to implement it at the very introduction of a topic, since in my mind it would waste time and potentially convolute the topic. However, seeing the way Angelique did it, I found it was actually highly beneficial, helping the student build interest and form her own conclusions, which were later used to answer questions.

I also noticed how Angelique checked for understanding. Instead of asking "does that make sense?", which often just gets a quick "yes" regardless of whether the student understood, she asked the student to explain the process back in her own words or apply it to a slightly different example. This gave a much clearer picture of whether the concept had landed.

Going forward, I want to incorporate more guided questioning into my own introductions, particularly for topics that build on skills students already have, and be more deliberate about checking understanding through explanation rather than yes/no questions.