During this session, Emanuel and his student worked on the maths standard topic of networks. This topic is normally the most challenging for students as it is more critical thinking than the standard maths equations that they are used to, which makes it important to go through the topic carefully and ensure the student understands the definitions of key elements, such as the difference between the critical path and shortest past.

In the session, Emanuel worked with his student through a couple of questions before he attempted more questions by himself. He used real-life examples to help the student understand the purpose of networks and why they study it. For example, he explained a network example as the steps you can take to get ready for school, which could be really short if you skip making lunch, or if you complete all of your daily tasks it would be the critical path.

When completing questions using forward scanning and backwards scanning to find the critical path, Emanuel and his student worked on the whiteboard to clearly find the earliest starting time and latest starting time for different examples. Working together and going through questions worked really well for his student. At the beginning of the session, his student was unconfident with answering questions and how to approach finding the critical path by using the forward and backward scanning method. After completing a couple questions together, the student became more confident and even progressed to answering past hsc questions. For this student, this helped his confidence as he knew he was able to complete hsc questions.

Overall, obversing this session was insightfull to gain additional methods and examples on how to explain the concept of networks to students. Emanuel and his student worked really well together and he was able to increases the students confidence in the topic.

Thanks for letting me obvserve!

Emma Birrell