Tutor and Teacher Educational Resources

A student tutor can improve their own learning by tutoring others

Students who learn by sitting in a classroom might think they know what they just learned, but do they really?  The best way to ensure that you know how to do something is to teach someone else to do it.  Here are 3 ways a student tutor can gain a deeper understanding of a subject by tutoring someone else.

1. Have the student tutor a younger sibling

If your child is learning a challenging new subject you can help them learn it better by asking them to tutor their younger siblings.  This is a benefit of having a multi-child family, but student tutors don’t have to be limited to tutoring their own family members.

2. Arrange for student tutoring sessions in your neighbourhood

A neighbourhood is full of children of all ages who are all at different levels in their education.  This type of situation can be used for the benefit of the students by arranging student tutoring sessions with the other children in the neighbourhood. An older student tutoring a younger student is an arrangement that will not only help the younger student learn but it will also help the older student fully grasp the concept.  They have to learn it in order to be able to teach it.

3. Create role playing opportunities for the student to tutor someone else

For tutors who come to a student’s home for tutoring sessions sometimes even more learning can happen when the roles are switched.  Turning a tutoring session into a teaching opportunity for the student to teach what they are learning rather than solely learning from the tutor is simple.  Just ask the student to give a lesson that teaches the new topic that they have just learned.  By role-playing what would happen during an actual student tutoring session they will still get the same benefits by explaining the lesson to their tutor.  This will help them see what they still are not clear about so the tutor can help them grasp the concept more.

Teaching as a way to enhance learning can be done in virtually any situation.  If the student can explain the new subject or skill and help someone else to grasp the concept then they have surely mastered the lesson themselves. Being able to teach what they are learning will give the student a sense of accomplishment as well as a deeper understanding of the subject.  Give your child a chance to be a student tutor.  Whether it’s at home or in the community they are sure to learn more as they tutor others!

Photo Credit: CERDEC

If you say math is fun your kids are more likely to think math is fun!

If the adults that are around your kids have a negative attitude about math this could cause your child to have math related anxiety. On the flip side, if you focus on portraying to your kids that math is fun then they are more likely to think math is fun too.

Children absorb the behavior and attitude of the adults around them

From a young age children like to copy what they see their parents doing. Daughters see their mother carrying a purse, so they practice carrying around a purse to be like her. Sons see their fathers talking on the phone, so they pretend that their toy blocks are a telephone. It is normal for children to look up to their parents and to mimic their behavior and even their attitude about certain things.

In general there are fewer girls than boys who think math is fun

Perhaps as a mother you still feel like you are not very good at math. This attitude might have been adopted because the adults around you when you were growing up gave you the impression that only boys think math is fun, but not girls. Some research has been done that suggests that the math attitudes of parents and teachers can affect children’s attitudes about math in either a positive or negative way. This means that if parents, teachers and tutors focus on staying positive about math when they are around students, especially female students then this could help more girls think that math is fun too.

Take the opportunity to teach your kids that math is fun

1. Turn everyday activities like baking or shopping into math games.
2. Think out loud when you are paying a bill so your kids can see that you use math in your daily life and that it’s even good for adults to practice math.
3. Keep a positive attitude when helping your kids with their math homework and encourage them to feel a sense of accomplishment after completing a difficult math problem.
4. If you really don’t like doing math, hire a math tutor who can help your child with their math homework.
5. Even if you don’t like math you can still say the words “math is fun” to help your children develop positive math attitudes.

What do the 3 Rs have to do with a positive learning environment?

The 3 Rs in education are usually referring to:

   READING

WRITING

 ARITHMETIC

These are important elements of education, but there are 3 more Rs that are just as important for creating a positive learning environment that enables students to learn the basics like reading, writing and arithmetic. These 3 Rs are:

RESPECT

RESPONSIBILITY

READINESS

A positive learning environment facilitates mutual RESPECT

Respect is something that adults often think that they deserve, and yes, students should have the proper respect for their teachers, their parents and other adults in their life, like a personal tutor or sports coach. However, in order for adults to gain the respect from students, there needs to be some level of mutual respect that adults should have for the students as well. If adults perpetually treat students like children who are incapable of behaving respectably then they are setting the students up to fail. In the classroom teachers can help their students learn how to respect adults, other students and themselves by setting a good example. Even the way a teacher greets a student can be a lesson on respect.

Teachers developing mutual respect with their students

When the students arrive in the classroom if the teacher ignores the students as they walk into the room and yells at them all at once to take their seats and begin their assignments, this does not convey proper respect. If the teacher were to greet a student as he comes in the door by saying “Good morning Mr. Andrews” and shaking his hand this makes the student feel like he is being treated with respect and it invites him to then return the respectful greeting by saying “Good morning Mrs. Roberts”.  This is a basic lesson on how to develop respectful relationships in and out of the classroom.

Helping students develop a mutual respect for one another

Having a mutual level of respect for other students is necessary for creating a positive learning environment. Talking about respecting one another in the classroom at the beginning of the year is a good way to set up standards for how the classroom should operate. Teachers can help explain to the class that it is disrespectful to the other students if they are talking during class, because it is distracting and difficult for the other students to hear the teacher or pay attention to what they are working on. Rather than immediately going to the teacher to complain, a respectful way to deal with the situation would be to politely ask the student to please lower their voices or stop talking because it is difficult to hear. These types of scenarios can even be role played by the students so that the class can learn how to respond properly to these types of comments.

Giving students more RESPONSIBILITY cultivates a positive learning environment

Giving a student responsibility can be scary. It is easier for adults to do certain things themselves. In order to teach students to enlarge their capacity there has to be some transfer of responsibility. This is also important at home with the family. If parents continue to do everything for their children, then their children will grow up unable to do things for themselves and will rely solely on their parents to do everything for them. This does not help them to reach their full potential, but rather it hinders them and stunts their ability to develop proper skills. In the classroom this can be done by assigning classroom jobs, but also by helping students take responsibility for their work, for turning in assignments on time.

READINESS is a key factor in establishing a positive learning environment

This R is a little more subjective, but it is the key to the other Rs actually working.  Students need to be helped to learn what it means to be ready to learn. You can have a discussion about how this means putting away distracting things on one’s desk. Why students can’t have their phones during school, or can’t listen to music on their headphones during a lesson. Being ready means to be focused on the lesson, listening and watching. Students can also be helped to learn how to get ready to do projects by getting all of the necessary materials ready. Emphasizing the importance of being ready to participate in class discussions is also something to discuss with students early on in the year. If all of the students proactively practice readiness, this will help establish a positive learning environment for the entire class.

Does homework help improve learning?

Do your children ask you for homework help? Do you sometimes question why they need to do so much homework? Children of all ages are bringing home all sorts of homework assignments these days. Perhaps your child has more homework than you had when you were a student. Are you wondering if your child’s homework is just busy work or does their homework help them to improve important skills?

Quality homework assignments vs. busy work

Homework assignments that cause students to practice a variety of skills on a regular basis are quite effective especially for math and foreign languages. The brain thrives when it is able to practice these skills on a daily basis. There are however some types of homework that don’t seem to require much thought, but rather take up your child’s time.

In one sense this type of homework could be considered pointless, but on the other hand, all types of homework help students develop good work ethics. Regardless of if it seems useless, it is still good to encourage your child to complete the homework assignment in order to help them learn the lesson of completing jobs that are given to them. This will help them in the working world when they are asked to do seemingly brainless tasks that simply need to be done.

How to optimize the benefits of homework!

We all know that cramming gets the job done, but there is often little to zero retention of the subject material. You can help your child retain more information by helping them set up a homework schedule where they study the same amount of material in smaller sections over a longer period of time. For example, rather than reading fifty pages of Biology homework all at once, they can break up the reading into chunks of ten pages and read them throughout the week. This will help them build upon the information that they learned the previous days without getting overloaded.

Will homework help with test scores?

One way to help your child improve their test scores is to use part of their homework time to do sample tests. This will enable them to practice using their newly acquired skills by forcing them to apply the information to the sample test questions. This has proven to be much more effective than merely reading through the assigned reading material, and then forgetting much of it by the time the actual test rolls around. Taking practice tests will also help take the pressure off during the real test, and should help reduce some of the test taking anxiety.

Now, if you still feel like your child’s homework assignments are not effective in helping them learn, you can always talk to their teacher to ask why they are giving those types of homework assignments.  They might have a good reason. Some teachers might also be open to making changes to the homework assignments to make them more effective!

To the devoted teacher, personal tutor, professor, parent or anyone who has dedicated their time to patiently and selflessly nurture and impart knowledge into young minds, thank you.

Helen Keller’s personal tutor changed her life

The inspirational story of Helen Keller has been featured in many plays and films because of what she was able to achieve regardless of overwhelming obstacles. Helen Keller truly was an amazing woman, but her accomplishments were made possible because of the dedicated instruction of her personal tutor, Anne Sullivan.

The beginning of a life-long companionship

As a young child Helen suffered from a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. She was unable to speak or communicate effectively and it was difficult for her parents to control her behavior. Her parents did not know what to do with her, so they hired Anne Sullivan to be her live-in personal tutor. Because Anne Sullivan was blind as a child and then was able to partially regain her sight she understood some of the challenges that Helen faced.

Developing a unique form of communication

Anne Sullivan was able to work with Helen to develop a way of communicating by making signs in the palm of her hand while allowing her to feel the object that corresponded with the sign with the other hand.  This was not easy to do and it took time and patience for Sullivan to endure with Keller through much frustration. In this way, over time Helen was able to communicate not only with her personal tutor but also with others. She was even able to read lips with her hands and she learned how to speak based on feeling the vibrations of the vocal chords.

Going on to do great things

With the constant support of her personal tutor, Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller went on to higher education and eventually made history as the first blind and deaf person to ever graduate from University with a degree. After finishing her education, Keller became a writer, a public speaker and a women’s rights activist. Through most of these accomplishments Anne Sullivan remained by her side as her loyal supporter and companion until her death in 1936. Keller continued to inspire the world until her own death in 1968. Her inspiring story continues to be remembered through the play and film titled “The Miracle Worker” that are both based on her autobiography.

A great teacher or personal tutor must possess patience, endurance and faith in their students

The reason why this story of Helen Keller’s personal tutor is so inspiring for many of us is because we may have had a dedicated teacher or personal tutor who made a difference in our life. All life-changing educators share the same characteristics of endurance and never giving up on even the most difficult students. Perhaps you had a teacher who believed in you and worked with you until you achieved a new skill that you never thought was possible. They encouraged you even when you felt you wanted to give up.

Where would you be today without that one teacher or personal tutor who believed in you?

What if Helen Keller’s personal tutor, Anne Sullivan had given up on her because the task of educating a young blind, deaf girl was too difficult? Where would you be today without that childhood teacher who helped you work through your reading disability and caused you to love reading or that crazy science professor who inspired you to pursue your career in scientific research? It is because of these instructors who have spent their lives helping others become the best they can be that we can now say that anything is possible.

Not all people learn the same way. This is an obvious fact and obstacle that educators have been dealing with since the beginning of classroom learning. We can’t expect children to sit in a classroom, under the same instruction and all progress at the same speed. For hundreds of years the typical education system has labeled some students as being smarter and more capable than the others and some students as being less smart and incapable of learning.

Teachers and personal tutors have been trying to implement ways of broadening instruction to cater to each individual’s learning styles and needs. However, the way our schools are set up does not make this type of teaching and learning practical or possible. The exciting news is that in today’s modern world that is full of ever evolving technology there is now a way to personalize learning for each and every student in the classroom. Here’s where adaptive learning comes in.

What is adaptive learning?

Adaptive learning is a form of online learning that uses technology to customize subject material for each individual student. A company called Knewton has developed a way for an electronic device to actually keep track of how the student is learning based on how long it takes them to answer questions, how quickly they are reading sections of text and even takes into consideration what time of day the student performs better in certain subjects. Based on the information about that particular student, the computer or handheld device will then offer recommendations of what the student should work on next in order to strengthen their understanding of the subject.

How will adaptive learning affect the way we learn?

Adaptive learning allows students to learn at their own pace, with a customized curriculum that caters to their specific strengths and weaknesses.  If the computer can tell that the student is struggling with a certain concept and getting frustrated, then the program will adapt so the student can review other concepts that will refresh their memory, and build their confidence, before moving on to the more difficult concept. Adaptive learning programs, like the one developed by Knewton have developed a way to work with certain companies to turn textbook curriculum into interactive and adaptive learning tools. Knewton plans to expand this system even more to eventually encompass even more educational information available on the Internet.

How will adaptive learning change education?

This type of learning can not replace the need for classrooms and teachers, but it will help to facilitate learning and be a complement to classroom learning.  Adaptive learning focuses on the increase of knowledge and mastering subject material.  Classroom settings and working with teachers and tutors doesn’t merely supply knowledge, these are important factors that help students develop social skills and ways to handle life situations which are arguably just as important as learning the facts.

Knewton has been developing a program that eventually can be used by people all over the world as a tool to provide adaptive learning to anyone with access to the internet.  Based on an article from The Daily Beast, the owner of Knewton predicts that within the next ten years schools will no longer be using paper textbooks and homework assignments, but will do everything online. Knewton has already done a case study with Arizona State University students and the results are remarkable.  Drop out rates have decreased, more students are passing their classes, and the teachers are more able to provide personalized instruction to their students.

Adaptive learning will not only change the way students are learning, but it will also change the way educators teach. Rather than presenting lecture style lessons to the entire class, teachers will be free to help individual students as the others work on their computers or tablets.  It will be interesting to see how schools will receive these new advancements in technology and how they will be incorporated into classrooms around the world.

Thank you to DeSales University for their amazing photo!