Week 12

This week I spent two hours with student going over contemporary studies from previous week. Again the learning sessions took place while at home with minimal distractions.

We finished up with his essay on electricity and were able to go over MLA formatting that was required by the assignment. We also talked of all the studies sessions we held overall and I asked what was more helpful and what wasn’t when completing his work.

I understand the concepts that we all studied and in trying to simulate the reading to his study time we were able to find out what worked best with my student. The biggest breakthrough I had with the student, is understanding his “student model.” By understanding how he understands and works problems out we were able to make good progress. He said that; understanding, fairness, preparedness, and knowing the students from my list were the most helpful to him and what he appreciated the most.

I believe by understanding the principles of the mental model and my approach to different ways to interact with student that I was able to be successful.

Week 11

This week I spent approximately 2.5 hours with student going over functions (Fx) in algebra and a little in bit of contemporary studies. Learning sessions took place while at home with minimal distractions. The tutoring took place over 2 different sessions M and TR.

Student was starting to understand the concept of functions and was making good progress with his homework. I believe that every study session we hold works in correlation with multiple intelligence; helping the student retain what they have learned. We have always worked on ways to understand a problem vs. memorizing it for a specific test. By working on retaining he has been able to go back and reflect on other problems and rationalize and understand how he came to a solution.

I feel confident that the student does not try to memorize anymore, but rather uses a hands on approach to solving problems and then reworking the problem in order to understand it in a clearer sense. What I could improve on is maybe trying each of the eight intelligences, to see if there is one that benefits him more.

I really didn’t run into any challenges with this session. I believe that student is more confident and understands more now that before his techniques and strategies to understand and complete homework.

Week 10

This week I spent a total of three hours with student going over searching Contemporary Studies, Algebra and his Honors English class. Session took place at home using book and internet sites to aid in the completion of homework. For his report in Contemporary Studies we listed the criteria for his report in one column and his beliefs on the subject in the other. I also asked him to list his interpretations and what he might have heard or his in subject area from friends and or any readings he may have done.

Student needs to complete a summary essay on electricity and the origins of how, when and why. His beliefs were that when Thomas Edison had found out how to create electricity that each state started to create their own. After doing some reading and internet searches, he learned that he was only partially right in regards to who created or exploited the potential of electricity. He found out that Tesla, once working for Thomas Edison and working on a different current system was the actual true inventor to the electricity of today. He also learned that once invented, only a few places (major cities) had electricity and that many of the rural cities didn’t receive electricity until in some cases the 1960’s.

One problem that we ran into was so many people say something on a subject that one may have the tendency to take it as truth. Scientific Inquiry in this instance isn’t about discovering something but rather to research and pull facts from fiction. He learned that it was once thought that Edison was the creator of electricity (and he was) but Tesla was the creator of the AC/DC current system today that the world relies on.

I believe that our tutoring centered on scientific inquiry as we ciphered through facts and inaccurate beliefs that one holds through word of mouth. I believe this was very helpful in the realization that when one questions the truth or what is thought to be the truth, a person can actually find the answers through research.