Feb22

Maths Homework – Hassle Them or Not?

by EzyMath on February 22nd, 2012 at 11:59 am
Posted In: Mentoring Relationship, Motivation, Starting Tutoring, Tutoring Issues

One student (yr 11 maths) seems a little lazy with the homework I assign them. I’m not sure whether my approach and attitude when assigning homework is not correct or they are just generally reluctant to do homework. I don’t want to be strict in enforcing homework as I don’t want to seem like a nagging parent or teacher. Is there a subtle way in which I can get the students to feel they need to do their homework regularly?

This is an excellent question and a common challenge for tutors, especially when starting to work with a new student. Here are some important considerations:

  • Reasons: Firstly, you can’t guess why they are not doing their homework – you will need to ask them. It is important to understand why they aren’t doing their work so that you can know what to do about it.

Perhaps they only care about passing maths and not high achievement so the extra homework to them may seem unnecessary. What do they actually want to get out of tutoring? Maybe they are having family problems at home and don’t have time or are too emotionally troubled to focus on homework? Perhaps they do not realise the importance of the work you are setting them and have inaccurate expectations about what it will take to succeed?

 

  • Relationship: It is important not to come across as a nagging teacher or parent. That’s the whole benefit of tutoring – that they can have a great relationship with their mentor who “gets them”. However, you cannot be too wimpy or passive either. Ultimately you are there to do a job and both you and the student should be mindful of that. Although you are not their “teacher”, you are in a position of some authority. You are the expert and they are in need of your counsel, not the other way around. If they are not going to do your homework then don’t waste time thinking about it and writing it down. Yes, be their friend but be their tutor first. If you know that they will not achieve their goals without the work you are setting then most certainly – nag them! Perhaps even mention the issue to a parent if it comes to that.

 

  • Your responsibility: As a tutor the best we can really do is understand what they want to achieve, make sure they understand what it will take to get there and tutor them accordingly in the smoothest most effective way possible. Of course, we must also keep parents in the loop. Obviously a good tutor will motivate and inspire a student to succeed but we cannot force them to work.

 

  • Your attitude: It is possible that your attitude while setting homework is contributing to the problem. While the relationship will be different with each student, generally, setting homework should be a serious matter and you should demonstrate to the student that you expect this work to be done. If you come over and they haven’t done their work don’t wave it off like its no big deal. At the very least treat it seriously and have a chat with them about why they are not doing it.

 

  • A good way to enforce work is to get the student involved in assigning it. At the end of each lesson plan the students’ homework together. Ask if it’s enough or too little, if they can handle more etc… if they are unreasonable explain to them why this is required and ensure they understand. When the student is involved in setting their own work they will be much more committed to it.
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Feb15

Tutoring To Conquer Rote Learning

by EzyMath on February 15th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Posted In: Mentoring Relationship, Primary Tutoring, Tutoring Methods

I always enjoy my time with the year 3 student, we always do some good work while I’m there but I find it hard to be sharp in my questioning, to challenge him in what he is doing and really force him to actually think and develop understanding. Anywhere you could point me that would help would be useful.

With younger students it can be a challenge to challenge them. Often, they don’t have a very developed sense of logic and maths to them is simply remembering rules and how to answer different kind of questions. They are still used to rote learning and don’t know any different. Your student sounds a little like that? He just doesn’t think much for himself so whenever you question him he’ll just auto-respond from memory and doesn’t know any different?

You’ll need to find ways to trigger his thinking process. Development of logical thinking processes takes time. Some ideas that may help:

  • Get him to ask you questions. After you explain an idea or question, ask him: “what questions do you have about this?” If he says none, insist that he asks you something. Be patient and let him take his time in formulating a question. In the process of thinking up a question he will realise what it is that he doesn’t know/understand – this jolts the thinking process.

 

  • Ask him to explain things back to you. Challenge him by asking why/how he knew how to answer the questions. Why did he do what he did? How did he know not to do XYZ instead? How does he know his answer is correct? How can he check that it really is correct? If his answers doesn’t satisfy you, re-explain it to him and ask him to teach you again.

This approach obviously takes more time but if you don’t do this, he’ll not learn to think for himself. Also, be careful not to be too pushy here, younger students can be very sensitive or even scared of being wrong and making mistakes. If he starts getting defensive or upset, reassure him that he is doing fine, smile and be friendly – explain why this is an important exercise and praise him for his efforts and successes. Always end on a good note so that he continues to look forward to your visits.

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Feb13

Maths Isn’t Challenging Student

by EzyMath on February 13th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Posted In: Managing tutorials, Motivation, Tutoring Issues

My student isn’t challenging herself and lacking the motivation to do so. Right now I’m just trying to work at harder problems with her to show that she is able to tackle much more difficult questions. Are there any textbooks at a year 8 level that you could recommend for more challenging problems? This is because I find that the current textbook my student is using doesn’t have enough questions marked as difficult.

Not sure about textbooks at a year 8 maths level, so many different ones to chose from and the word “challenging” is a relative term. Certainly Cambridge textbooks are excellent for year 11 and 12 – there are “extension” questions in each exercise and these questions are seriously challenging! Perhaps there is also a range for junior grades.

Some more ways to tackle a lack of challenge:

  • If the student is in year 9 and learning trigonometry, for harder practice, grab a year 10 textbook. The year 10 book will have a revision on year 9 trig which will be useful and possibly harder questions. Also, teach year 10 trig itself if you have time. Although not directly relevant, understanding year 10 trig will help to develop their ability to “think in terms of trigonometry” and will be a massive help if learned properly. Also, this serves as a massive ego boost for the student which also helps results and motivation.
  • Teach the student topics from year 8 which they have not learned in class yet. Ideally it would be either the very next topic or a topic which is relevant to the current one such that comprehension of the current topic is improved as a consequence of learning the future topic. This approach is similar to the previous point only the student does not have to wait until next year to directly apply the “extra” knowledge. In the coming months her class will cover the topic you have pre-taught and she will know the work before any of her peers. Hopefully, such an ego boost will engage her further and encourage more study.
  • Teach her ahead those topics which are central to mathematics and will help with all topics. The best example of this is algebra/arithmetic. Regardless of what topic she is currently studying (or in what grade of high school) it will necessarily presume knowledge of arithmetic and algebra. Typically the errors students make in tests have a high proportion of silly or algebraic mistakes. Algebra is the grammar of mathematics and if she is to master it at a young age then learning maths will be easier in general for the rest of her academic career. Slowly you can work your way up to year 9, then year 10 algebra – she may be reluctant at first but inevitably she will experience the benefit of such knowledge herself and develop an appreciation for what you have done.
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Feb03

Student Wont Focus – Guessing Answers

by EzyMath on February 3rd, 2012 at 3:25 am
Posted In: Mentoring Relationship, Motivation, Primary Tutoring, Tutoring Methods

I have one student who is having trouble concentrating. I try my best to keep him focused but he is just so disinterested that I am finding it difficult to get him to focus. Silly questions like what is 7+6 he will say 10, and asking him to count up from 6 he will do incorrectly. He will say okay 6, 7, 9, 10, 12 – like the numbers just jumped out of his head. I tried going back to the basics of just addition and subtraction – on some days he is so good, and some days so poor.

Here are a few considerations and suggestions:

  • Try getting him to put pen to paper – this tends to structure their thinking process and streamline their ideas so they can’t jump around as much in their head. Even if the question is really simple – get him to write and work out his answer on paper, perhaps to write down the question also. This will also go a long way to establishing correct formatting skills which ultimately boost grades too.

 

  • Younger students can have trouble concentrating or sitting still for long. Making the lesson more engaging can help – perhaps even a 1-2 min break in the middle where he should get up and change his physical orientation before sitting back down and focussing on the maths.

 

  • Also, helping a student settle down and get into a “thinking” frame of mind BEFORE starting to learn can help – especially if the student was very physically active just before the lesson. Ideally, physical activity such as sport should be avoided immediately before the tutoring. How can a student be expected to focus when his heart is still pacing and he is out of breath?

 

  • The environment may also be playing a role here. When you are tutoring math what is the environment like? Where are you located? Are there noises and distractions from family members, television in the background, mobile phone vibrating with new messages etc?

 

  • It may be just a bad habit or laziness to guess instead of thinking the way you have described. Try to get him doing the question again, on his own, until he gets it right by himself (if you are certain that it is only a silly mistake). Only don’t be too aggressive with this approach or you risk breaking rapport and making him feel stupid. Sometimes this can help to break the habit since the student learns that “jumping” in too fast simply means they will have to do it again (usually takes a while for them to get conditioned to this realisation). Basically, force the habit of thinking about the question rather than trying to guess or otherwise arrive at an answer just for the sake of it and explain this concept repeatedly, he must know that math is about thinking!

 

  • One more possibility is that he has a bad attitude and is acting out. Was he forced into tutoring? Does he appreciate why it is important? This definitely seems like a possibility, especially because sometimes he is good as you say, sometime poor. Is he actually trying when he isn’t succeeding? Try to answer some of these questions and if it is an attitude problem then it can be dealt with accordingly.

 

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Jan27

Maths Topic, Trouble Topic, Getting Bored Topic

by EzyMath on January 27th, 2012 at 6:06 am
Posted In: Motivation, tutoring, Tutoring Methods

How do I keep targeting a problem area while maintaining interest without my student getting bored of doing the work? He’s not competent enough in this topic but is getting sick of repeating it with me almost every lesson.

It is sometimes a challenge to keep going over the same material without the student getting sick of it. But it may be necessary to do as some topics don’t stick easily (like algebra for example). However, each student has their strengths and weaknesses and sometimes a topic just won’t stick.

There is probably a dualistic approach to take here:

  1. Try to improve your communication so that the content sticks a little better,
  2. Make the education process a little more interesting since it’s repeat content

A couple of things you could try:

  • For homework ask them to do a couple of those problem questions and to give you a presentation on how they answered the questions next lesson. The process of them teaching you will enhance comprehension while providing a different context for communicating the idea
  • Make sure you make them understand the importance of the topic you keep redoing. There’s a reason you are so persistent about it, make sure they understand and agree with you. The more important they believe it to be, the harder they will try.
  • Confront them (nicely) about how they seem to be getting sick of the problem area and not putting in required effort/interest. Ask them why they are feeling this way and show them that you understand how tedious it is. Then, as in the previous point, share your views and make sure they understand/agree.
  • Get the student to make their own commitments (verbally) to mastering the topic. When homework is decided (at least in part) by the student, they will be much more committed to seeing it through since they are the ones that made the decision to keep trying this topic.
  • Provide them with new worksheets for that topic. The different presentation and format of another workbook/worksheet will serve as at least a small novelty and this may slightly increase interest, especially if you make a big deal about it.
  • If this is a topic which arises explicitly within other topics, try teaching them this concept from within  a different topic. Careful if you try this since it may only confuse the student further. However, if done carefully it can offer the student another perspective on the same concept and this may be just what they need.
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