Assignment+Two

For my tutoring assignment I met with a 17 year old young man who is presently attending Cabell County VoTech. During our initial visit we talked about his history with school, what he liked, what he didn't and where he saw himself in 10 and then 20 years. I had him write down some areas that interested him, what he liked to do and what he thought were some positive aspects about himself. We continued talking about a number of different things, including what he thought he was good at doing and what he thought he could improve upon. I found out that his parents, in his opinion, never really stressed the importance of education. He was of the mindset that it was something that you just had to do. You went to school, did your work and then got out. In the mean time, you did what you had to do in order to get out. I talked with my student at length about how his assets and deficiencies could help or hurt him as he traveled through life. I tried to get him to tell me how what he was learning in school could benefit him down the road and enable him to achieve his goals. During this initial session I was trying to connect with my student to get him to own the importance of education. I tried to get him to see how certain pieces of knowledge could have an impact on what he could achieve. At this point, I think I was somewhat successful connecting in this way.

I found out that my student struggled with math. At 17 he was still working on pre-algebra concepts. His failure to pass the subject in prior grades made repeating the subject necessary. As we talked a little more, I found out that he had been through some testing and knew that he was a kinesthetic learner. From this information, I knew that he would have to be actively engaged in the learning process. I gave him some paper and a pencil so we could work problems together. My student did not profess to have an IEP that would enable him any special privileges so I knew that he would have to be able to grasp things that meant something to him. He did divulge that he had medication for ADD and had been to the doctor for his learning problems. It was rather easy to see that he had some attention difficulties so I realized that shorter, focused sessions would be more beneficial for him. We began studying some worksheets that his teacher had provided for him. These sheets contained rather simple multiplication and division problems containing one variable. Immediately I could see that he relied heavily on a calculator and could not visualize basic relationships with numbers. I also picked up that my student had not memorized his multiplication tables which made the simple math much more difficult without a calculator. At this point I decided to go back to some basic rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I probed to try to find out the reason behind his not learning some of these basic facts. His statement, which he repeated several times, was that he slept through these lessons. It became a common theme for me to reiterate these basic rules of adding and multiplying positive and negative numbers. He was made to write all these out for himself, and we would go over and over different problems that contained these facts. I found it best to stick with a few concepts and repeat them in order to get them to stick. We would look at one concept several different ways. For example, division of numbers is related to fractions and these, in turn, are related to decimals. During this time I would also take the number relationships and relate them to a future job and how his use of mathematics could make him a great employee. (He was in VoTech to become a welder.) I tried to emphasize that his personality, which was a great asset for him, along with his knowledge could enable him to be very successful. He had already formulated how his science background could help him a great deal in his work with metals. I had begun the process of making the same concept stick, only we were using numbers.

At our next meeting, I began where we left off and had him tell me the rules we had already gone over and had him apply them. Repetition was very necessary to his learning process. I found that I was reteaching the same material but I was beginning to see the connection in his eyes. Using the background information I had, we reviewed for about 20 minutes and then I slowly moved on to percentages. With the relationships we had already covered, I thought percentages were the next step. We worked on these for another 10 to 15 minutes and then when we got to doing some basic long division, I lost him. I could see the fire and passion go out of his eyes. I immediately stopped and had him look over the information we had covered previously and we called it quits. I told him that the next time we got together we would write it all down again and start back up. I apologized for the overload and told him that it would come as long as we took it slow and steady. He seemed to recognize this as he was excited to work with me.

Additional notes: I found that working in a private environment such as an office was beneficial for him so that others would not see what he was working on and make unfavorable comments. I also bought flash cards that we are going to work with. We discussed a special reward if he was able to make good progress in learning his multiplication tables. Also, from our work, I think he could see the benefit of number recognition in knowing these basic facts. I am also going to get some skittles or M&Ms for him to use with multiplication, division and percentages. I think it will help with his kinesthetic learning.

In summary, my work with this 17 year old was enlightening. I can understand that at this point he is just trying to go through the motions and do the problems he has to do in order to graduate. I think he has long ago given up on understanding the material. It is my hope that with continued tutoring he can not only understand the basics better, but be able to understand the relationship to his current studies and the long term impact this can have. He has a lot of work to do to make up for all the years he neglected math. I believe, however, that given a slow and steady process that incorporates relevance and learning styles, he can pass algebra and eventually graduate!