Tutoring Reflection

Kirsten Dent
Date of tutoring session: 2/28/2019 Student Age & Grade: 8th Grade, 13 years old
Answer all in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
1. What topic(s) did you cover in your tutoring session?
The topic I worked on with the student was finding the slope and y-intercepts of different
equations. The assignment that I helped the student with wanted the students to find the
equation using y=mx+b, create a table, graph the equation, and then come up with a story
problem. It was a really fun and interactive worksheet but it was a little challenging for the
student I was working with.
2. Did you use any problem-solving strategies or tools from this class? If so, describe how this
went. If not, what techniques did you use to help your student?
The worksheet she was assigned had many of the different problem-solving strategies on it.
They had to graph, use a table, and solve for variables. All of these problem-solving strategies
are very important for her to understand. Her teacher is just introducing her class to the
equation y=mx+b. They have done many activities using this equation but this assignment is
pulling it all together to help them know how to use y=mx+b in many different ways. As we
were working on her assignment, I would give her helpful hints about how everything should be
set up. I allowed her time to figure out the section, such as filling out the table, on her own first
then we would go through and talk about it to see if she fully understands how to do that part.
It’s very important with these kinds of assignments to teach them to check their work before
they move on because if they mess up in the beginning then the whole assignment is wrong.
3. Describe any challenges you faced in the session. (What was your student’s attitude about
math? Did you notice any knowledge gaps? Was the lesson/homework too easy or too hard
for the student’s skill level? etc.)
There were times where I would tell the student that they didn’t do a step correctly and they
would respond with, “no, that’s how my teacher told us to do it”. I would look at it and double
check to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake then I would try to explain it to the student. I had
to come up with many different equations off the top of my head to show them how the
equation was supposed to be solved. This happened a few times throughout my tutoring
session. Sometimes the student realized their mistake and changed it and other times the
student would say that they were just going to check with their teacher later. I realized during
this session that I need to try to understand the students more. It is totally frustrating when you
have two people telling the student different things, I understand why she wanted her teacher
to check her work. So, I learned that it is totally fine if the student decides to check with the
teacher.
 Tutoring Reflection

4. Describe any triumphs you had in the session.

Trying to explain how to find the slope of an equation using two data points is very hard
especially when the student has just barely learned it. The student in the beginning kept getting
stuck on this concept but by the end she could do it with almost no problems. It was also hard
for her to understand what happens to the equation if it has a zero slope but once I showed her
an example, she understood really fast and the next time a zero slope came up in her
worksheet she had no problem solving it.
5. What are your take-a-ways from the session? (Did you learn anything about teaching from
it? What would you do differently or the same to help your students?)
Like I said earlier, I struggled sometimes with the student thinking that her teacher said
something and I was saying something else. For example, the problem we had to figure out
would have a y-intercept of 9.5. The student I worked with said that her teacher told her that
none of the answers should end in .5, they should be a whole number. I understood what she
meant and I went through and double checked all the work and I showed her that the only
possible answer it could be would be 9.5. This was hard for the student to understand that the
line could go through a point that wasn’t a whole number. So, the student decided to wait and
ask her teacher if it was right. This could have been frustrating for me because it felt like the
student didn’t believe me but I just took a step back and realized that they trust what their
teacher says. The student wants to make sure they are doing the assignment the way their
teacher wanted them to.
6. Other thoughts? (How comfortable were you with the topics? Did you face challenges with
the student’s teacher’s instruction style/rules? Can you relate to your student’s
struggles/triumphs?)
Learning about slopes and y=mxtb were some of my favorite things to learn about when I was
in middle school. I loved helping this student understand them better and help them with their
worksheet. I remember when I first learned them it was really hard to understand because
there are many steps to solving an equation using y=mx+b. I feel like this assignment showed an
easy way to understand all aspects of this formula. The only thing that needs to be changed on
the assignment is the one that goes through 9.5, the teachers knows it already and is planning
on changing it before she hands it out next year.