I had the opportunity to observe Justin's session with his HSC Maths Standard student. Justin explained some details about the upcoming trial exam to better prepare her for it, which is helpful as they are hefty exams and students need to be mindful of time allocation and what to expect. The two worked through complex word problems together with many steps, which Justin would thoroughly discuss and correct along each stage of working out where errors or misunderstanding was present. In correcting her, he often called back to her previous knowledge in order to get her to connect newer concepts to older strategies and encourage her to utilise such methods once again, which will likely guide her working out in the future and cement it in her memory. When the student struggled to solve a problem, Justin did not outright correct her but would encourage her in other ways - "I'll give you a hint", something which allows students the opportunity to critically think about the question still and not be immediately fed the answer. Working it out themselves also has a greater impact on their ability to recall the process later on, which is a critical skill.
When the tutor noticed errors in her answers, he commented, "when I was watching your working, I saw you did...", Justin's detailed attention to his student's working out process allows for several things - he develops a better understanidng of her thinking and what went wrong in it to get that error; informing him, but by knowing this he also gains a better ability to explain to her what went wrong and what to avoid in the future. This is time efficient, thorough and a great way of going about helping a student. He also encouraged the student to look for the error herself in her working, which is great as it develops a keen eye in students by getting them to engage with their work and makes them adept at checking things over. Overall, it was a great session to observe, thank you Justin.
