Today, my Year 7 English student, Hudson Petta, was away which gave me the opportunity to sit in on a Maths Extension 2 session and observe another tutor. Although the subject and level were very different from what I usually tutor, I found the session to be a really useful learning experience and was able to take away some strategies that I can apply to my own tutoring. One of the biggest things I noticed was how the tutor encouraged the student to work through difficult questions independently. Rather than immediately explaining how to solve a problem, the tutor asked questions that guided the student towards the answer. This gave the student the opportunity to thing about the problem themselves and explain their reasoning. I realised that even when a student is struggling, it van be more beneficial to give them time to work through their thinking rather that simply giving them the answer.
I also noticed how the tutor challenged the student when they were confident with a concept. Instead of moving on straight away after the student got an answer correct, the tutor asked them to explain why their method worked and wether there was another way they could approach the question. This showed me that challenging a student does not always mean giving them harder work. It can also mean encouraging them to thing more deeply about something they already understand. Another thing I noticed was the importance of adapting the session to the student. The tutor paid attention to when the student was becoming confused and changed the explanation accordingly. They broke the problem down into smaller steps and checked the student's understanding before continuing. This made the session feel much more personalised and helped me prevent the student from becoming overwhelmed. Overall, observing the session gave me a different perspective on tutoring. Even though I mainly tutor English, many of the strategies I observed, particularly encouraging independence , asking guiding questions and adapting explanations, can be applied across different subjects.
