16.4.08 reflections
today only me, fenghan and jean went!
farah had doc appt, sarah had bio attachment, tuyan was on learning journey!
today An wasn't in the centre! he was sick D:
so i tutored another girl in maths, called JL.
she was enthusiastic and lively!! just not so in maths..
she had done about 1/4 of what she had to do, but when i asked her to continue, she said "i dunno how to." and i said "but didnt you just finish half the page?!"
she said "oh. that one ah. is the jiejie tell me what to do, i write down only." acjc again -.-
then i realised a problem. alot of the children i've tutored who are weak in maths, are weak in maths, because they dont have teachers who teach, they have teachers who tell them what to do, and the children did not learn how to do maths! they only learn how to follow instructions!!
so i pulled out my ever handy markers and foolscap and drew for her a simple question. 8 divided by 2. she knew the answer!(using mental calculation) but she didnt know how to present it properly!! so i had to teach her the basics all over again! she was interested greatly cause of the marker pens (she kept asking for a different colour for every different step), and so she learnt pretty fast.
after we were done, i asked her to attempt the questions in her assessment book. and she said she was very confused!! (later on i learnt it was cause the space given was very small, the numbers were small) so i copied over one question to the foolscap, and asked her to do it.. SHE COULD DO IT! then i asked her to do the 2nd question in the book.. she could do it, but she kept asking me whether it was correct, like her confidence disappeared all of a sudden.. and she took very long.. so i asked her to copy the 3rd question onto the foolscap, and amazingly, she could do it fast and accurately!! then i asked her why this was so.. she said she didnt know, the problem just seems easier on the foolscap.. so i thought..
is it because the practice questions that i gave, and that she solved, were all done on foolscap, and so she was confident when solving questions on foolscap. but when asked to solve the 12-problems-in-1-page assessment book, she got intimidated by all the numbers, and didnt want to do anymore.. so i asked her to go home and revise more, and do the questions on the page itself, no reverting to foolscap allowed! im rather confident she'll do that, cause she was very interested in maths once she could solve it, and also because she has no foolscap (she didnt even know what it was at first)
the only problem was when i got too friendly with her.. she started putting her hand on my face to get me to pay attention to her.. a move that i greatly dislike.. i tolerated a few more times, then i put a stop to her work for a fw minutes and told her to stop doing that, cause others get uncomfortable and it's disrespectful.. at first she kept fogetting what i just said and continued putting her hand on my face, but after my constant prompting and repeated reminders, she finally stopped that bad habit, and became any other energetic girl!
so i could classify this as highly successful...
p/s in order to get her to start moving her pen at first, i bribed her with sweets :DD
Labels: 4.16.08, beryl
Jelly! wobbled @ Thursday, April 17, 2008
