As someone who enjoyed biology in high school and went on to complete a degree in biology, I love tutoring the subject and helping students to learn more effectively. One of the main concerns of students is how much do I need to know? What do I need to memorise? What is going to be on the exam? This is often a tricky question to answer. In class, teachers like to go into lots of detail and provide examples for everything in order to put the students learning into context of the real world and where their knowledge is relevant. However, if students did not understand the basic concept, they often grasp at random details which will not help them effectively in the HSC. To tackle this issue, I focus my sessions on conversation. The way I find easiest to learn is not trying to memorise specific detail but learning the logic of processes or ideas. I will start off the first half of the session by talking about the topic, explaining my logic, and allowing the student to ask questions until they come to their own logical understanding. Once students understand the basic concept, they can then BUILD on this understanding with details and examples. I find that this structure to the lesson, followed by answering HSC-style questions, provides the students with the most detailed understanding of each topic, directly in line with the syllabus.
