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    Final Reflection

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    api-437996036

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    Final Reflection

    Uploaded by

    api-437996036
    25 views2 pages

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    final reflection

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    25 views2 pages

    Final Reflection

    Uploaded by

    api-437996036

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Over the past semester, I had the opportunity to volunteer and tutor 3rd graders at an

    elementary school in Salt Lake Valley. I tutored a few different students throughout the semester.

    I only met with one student at a time. All of the tutoring sessions were online because of the

    COVID-19 pandemic. It has been great to see the students’ academic growth over the past few

    months. I joined the online tutoring twice a week (Monday and Wednesday). Through this

    experience, I saw students who struggled to grasp basic mathematic principles while other

    students were achieving a higher-than-expected understanding of mathematics for their age.

    One of the students I was working with struggled to understand the concept of finding a

    missing number. The following session was probably one of the most difficult tutoring sessions I

    experienced. The student did not understand and became frustrated. No matter what I tried to do

    to explain, it didn’t seem to help their comprehension. An example of a math equation they

    struggled to understand would be something like this, “Joy has a certain amount of candy bars.

    Her brother gives her three more candy bars. Now she has seven candy bars in total. How many

    candy bars did she have to begin with?”. The student would use markers to represent the number

    of candy bars. He would put three candy bars in to represent the “3 more” and then add 7 to

    show the total amount of 10. I believe he was trying to rush through the problems. I asked him a

    few questions to try and help him slow down and focus on the keywords.

    When he continued to answer incorrectly, I decided to try using a more algebraic

    approach. First, I rephrased the question and said that “Joy has ____ candy bars to start. Her

    brother gives her 3. She has seven candy bars total. How many did she have before her brother

    gave her any?” I asked him if this would be addition or subtraction. I said that it could be both

    depending on how we approach the problem. We could think of it as “7-3 = 4” or “_+3=7”. He


    seemed like he started to understand so, I had him try the next problem. With a better

    understanding of the algebraic equation, he answered some of the problems correctly.

    I believe that this was a difficult session because the student was unable to see success in

    their efforts to understand the problem. When they finally did answer a question right, I didn’t

    feel fulfilled as a tutor because it seems to me that the student understood the process that he had

    to take to get the answer but did not understand the WHY behind the process. The student was so

    willing to continue trying and did sincerely want to improve. I believe with this type of attitude

    he will soon understand the WHY behind this concept and continue to develop in his mathematic

    abilities. He will have to learn to practice slowing down, searching for keywords and seeing what

    approach he needs to take with the problem. It is great to want to jump in and start the equation

    as fast as possible, it shows that he wants to learn, but it is important not to rush through so that

    he'll learn and remember the mathematic technique.

    This student had many strengths and I am sure he will do well in the future as he

    continues learning mathematic principles. I am very thankful I had this amazing opportunity to

    meet with so many wonderful, bright, and dedicated young students. Being a tutor has helped me

    understand how my skills are limited and truly see the importance of this Mathematics class for

    Elementary School teachers. As a teacher, students will ask us many questions. We need to

    understand the WHY behind the principles to teach accurately and answer questions.

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