Finding the Right Math Tutor
Saturday June 7, 2008
Use the summer holidays to improve your math scores! Finding the right math tutor can be more challenging than one would think. The main reason for hiring a math tutor is to improve math marks. However, to improve math marks means to learn the math and to learn the math means to understand the concepts. Sometimes, learners get caught up in trying to memorize patterns, rules and or procedures without really understanding why they're used or why they even work.
Here are a few pointers to help you find the right tutor:
- Identify the area the help is needed and look for a match, somebody who has a proven track record.
- Understand that one shot deals are usually not effective, book your tutor on a regular basis until the confidence and achievement level has improved.
- Make sure a good relationship is established. You need to feel comfortable with your tutor, you need to feel good about succeeding in math and a good tutor will ensure that you develop a 'can do attitude'.
- You should be completely relaxed with your tutor and be able to address your weaknesses without embarassment.
- Each session should leave you feeling much better about your ability to do math.
Comments
The most important advice is missing here: Do NOT find a tutor who simply solves the problems for you. It’s virtually impossible to learn any mathematics by watching someone else working problems — you have to work them yourself. Try out your tutor: Ask him/her to show you how to get started; ask for tips on how get unstuck on problems; ask WHY something works, not just how to do it. If the tutor can’t answer any of these questions, try another one the next time. A tutor’s goal should be to guide YOU to do the problems, not to prove to you that the tutor can do them. (By the way, the same is true for your teacher!)
I am thinking of getting back into the “tutoring” game, but have much work to complete. The same is true with students needing assistance, which is why the basics are important to buildig a strong foundation. And lastly, empirical evidence is an excellent and fun way to improve their learning curve. Why do we need mathematics? (To balance a checkbook, make breakfast, bake a cake, buy petrol for the vehicle, drive from here to Ensenada, fly to the moon?…. yes to each scenario). An excellent event coming in FEB is engineering week (eweek.org). Go there and learn. thanks
The most valuable thing that I learned during my time as a teacher was to elicit the answers from students, rather than tell them the answers. Of course the same applies during tutoring. It turns out that this is actually an art form. A skilled teacher or tutor can lead a student through a problem such that the student is actually doing all of the thinking on his/her own. This is the only way to succesfully teach/learn math. Unfortunately, many private tutors and commercial tutoring agencies are afraid of being accused of “not helping,” and so they just give the child the answers. This results in the child leaving the tutoring session feeling like they have learned something, whereas in reality s/he has learned and retained nothing.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if parents started tutoring before the student had an F average and 2/3 of the school year had gone by? It’s so important to take the time so that the student to understand the concepts themselves. Yet parents expect the tutor to to complete the homework with the student, assigned for that night, study for an upcoming test and catch up on all the problem areas studied before the student started tutoring. I try to convince the parents of my students to start tutoring in the summer for the math courses the student will start in the fall. That way, the student will have an advance look at the concepts and we can identify problem areas before the class teacher does. But I haven’t found a parent yet willing to do this.
I love tutoring math and love my students but sometimes I feel like I’m running to catch a train that has already left the station.