Math Tutorial

My nephew and neices visited us for the weekend. I love it when they come over, my daughter has playmates, which means she gets entertained while I do the chores in peace.

Tonight, my nephew asked that I teach him some of their math lessons. Honestly, I felt nervous. It's been a long while since I last taught or tutored someone, let alone a kid. I had to do some research first so I could somehow remember the process.

Of course it's one thing to understand math, it's another thing to teach it. To a kid. I am very systematic when it comes to teaching. It's not my profession but when I do teach someone, I wamt to make sure that we end the session with that person learning something - one way or another.

Guaging the Knowledge

So to start, I had to know where my nephew is at. I myself learn that way. I trace back to the topic that I understand then slowly tread my way forward.

I felt it's not enough that I ask him if he knows this or that. He might just say he knows it even if he still has some questions aboutnthat topic. So I went ahead and do a short quiz.

Our topic was reducing fraction to the lowest term. The requisite for that is the greatest common factor. So I had to make sure that he knows how to factor. I also had to make sure that he knows what a factor is. I am sure he knows how to do multiplication and division and skip counting but I made a quick review nonetheless.

Meticulous explanation

I gave him a one by one, step by step process of how to reduce the fraction to its lowest term. Since I am teaching a kid, I had to makenit interesting. Hence the drawings and the arrows and the circles and stuff.

Even at work, when I was mentoring trainees, I teach them the long and tedous process first just so they understand how it works. When I am confident that they already understand the logic behind it, I let them in on the short cuts. That way, they will appreciate the automations more.

Simplify

To a kid, it is easier when you give them a simple view of things. So after I gave him the boring explanation, I gave him a 1-2-3 step combo for the process.

I love how his eyes lit up while he was answering the questions on his own. We started with his eyebrows almost already meeting each other, we ended the session with him smiling.

Give tips and tricks

I did give him some advance lessons so he won't get left behind in class. But the best tip I gave him is that he should never be shy to tell his teacher that he needs more examples or more explanations.

When I younger, some of the teachers I met almost always scolds students who seem to not understand their lessons. It always felt as if it's a mortal sin to ask questions in the class. If you did not understand the lecture, it's as if there is something wrong with you.

But the point of going to school is learning things you didn't know. So before we ended our session, I told my nephew that he should study his lessons in advance so he could understand it beforehand. Learning is a responsibility both of the teacher and the student. If he has questions, he should not hesitate to raise his hand and throw those questions to his teachers. There are no stupid questions. It would only be a stupid question if you did not ask it.

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