Today I had the opportunity to observe Daniel and his pair of year six students. They began the lesson by working on reading comprehension skills, using a set of information to answer difficult questions. The students felt confident in this topic, so Daniel decided to focus most of the lesson on some maths questions that needed more work.

The focus on the maths work was simplifying fractions, with Daniel working through a few questions with the students collaboratively before giving them some similar questions to work through on their own. The students found these questions slightly challenging, so Daniel worked through a few more to improve their understanding. Once they were fully confident with this topic, Daniel spent the last 15 minutes of the lesson going through some harder reading comprehension work.

I thought that the session ran very smoothly, with the students remaining highly engaged and responsive for the entire hour. I thought that a number of key aspects contributed to this.

A key aspect of the tutoring session was the connection formed between the tutor and the children. Having a strong connection contributes to a safe environment in which children do not feel embarrassed to speak up when they don’t understand.

Furthermore, having this strong connection allowed Daniel to tailor the questions to the level of the students he was tutoring, as he had a clear awareness of their level of understanding, asking them to complete questions that challenged the students, but that they were ultimately able to understand and solve.

Another key aspect of Daniel’s teaching approach was his use of interactive teaching methods. He used the whiteboard and different coloured markers to explain key concepts, which provided a visual learning aid that greatly increased the students’ understanding. He also allowed the students to explain concepts that they understood well to one another, a teaching method highly effective in improving long-term retention of concepts.

He was also highly responsive to any moments of waning concentration or motivation in his students, allowing them to take a short mental break at these times so that they could keep going for the whole hour.

Ceara Kearnes