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Tips for Tutoring Science

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A Periodic Table

Image via Wikipedia

Hope your week has started off well. We conclude our series on tutoring tips for different subjects today. Tomorrow we’ll talk about some ways you can use an iPad to tutor and teach.

Science is a huge topic. You have everything from Physical Science to Chemistry. From robotics to genetic engineering.

If you’re tutoring science I would find out the text book the student is using and then work on getting a copy of the text book. You can use the textbook from year to year with other students you have.

Math plays an important element in a lot of Science. It’s not just Chemistry. My daughter in 7th grade was learning formulas and using them to complete problems.

Memorizing things is also important in science as they learn the periodic table or anatomy.

The internet is a useful place so if you’re looking for some guidance on a specific subject you can Google it. Using our example of the periodic table I could Google.

How to learn the periodic table.

That search gives you a ton of games to play, things to print off etc.

A great example is this site – http://education.jlab.org/elementflashcards/

A good place to start is Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

From there you can drill down to the discipline you’re looking for.

 

How to tutor / teach History

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How to teach History

Students taking a test at the University of Vi...

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve never been very good at History. One of the hardest classes I had in College was a history class. Before this class I had used flash cards to help me remember dates and people. In this class I had to know the history. The tests were all essay tests. We had four during the year but only the final exam counted. What you made on the final was what you made in the class. I think my final exam was 23 pages long and my hand was cramping by the time I got finished with it.

I think learning history involves a few different things including: reading well and being able to take an essay test.

I like this article about teaching history – but other things as well.

http://www.improve-education.org/id43.html It is a long article but has some great content.

Favorite quote –

Unfortunately, most teaching is like a single thin coat of paint. Do you want a pretty piece of furniture? You’ll need two or three coats of paint. Five is better. Rolls Royce puts 20 coats of paint on its cars! That’s how they build up a deep lustrous shine.

– end quote

Also like this – I believe, if I were teaching American History, I’d teach the whole subject in the first hour. Put six marks across the top of the blackboard–1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000. Five minutes on what the Spanish and Portuguese did that first century. Then … (read the article – they break it down very well.

A great site with tons of History teaching links –

http://hnn.us/articles/875.html

Excellent tips for answering an essay question – and helping your students do it.

http://www.johndclare.net/how_to_write_an_essay.htm

How to Teach / Tutoring Reading and English

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School teacher is using sidewalk chalk

Image via Wikipedia

I have always loved reading and still do. English I’m not so good at. If I had known how much time I would spend writing I would have paid more attention.

There are a ton of resources on this page –

http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/reading.asp

From the National Writing Project – a list of 30 ideas for teaching writing.

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922

My favorite is number 27 –

— quote —

27. Think like a football coach.

In addition to his work as a high school teacher of writing, Dan Holt, a co-director with the Third Coast Writing Project (Michigan), spent 20 years coaching football. While doing the latter, he learned quite a bit about doing the former. Here is some of what he found out:

The writing teacher can’t stay on the sidelines. “When I modeled for my players, they knew what I wanted them to do.” The same involvement, he says, is required to successfully teach writing.

Like the coach, the writing teacher should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative. Statements such as “Wow, that was a killer block,” or “That paragraph was tight” will turn “butterball” ninth-grade boys into varsity linemen and insecure adolescents into aspiring poets.

The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory: Keep it simple stupid. Holt explains for a freshman quarterback, audibles (on-field commands) are best used with care until a player has reached a higher skill level. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a chinquapin or haiku.

Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the “adrenaline rush” of the big game and the final draft.

HOLT, DAN. 1999. “What Coaching Football Taught Me about Teaching Writing.” The Voice (4) 3.

— end quote —

Here are some good assessment tools and some ways for figuring out what your student may need help with.

Here is a 117 page pdf that has an excellent reading assessment tool within it. You can right click and save as to save the file to your computer.

http://www.paec.org/itrk3/files/pdfs/readingpdfs/cooltoolsall.pdf

It’s from the Florida department of education.

It takes you thru steps to test –

  • phonological awareness 
  •  phonics 
  •  fluency 
  •  vocabulary 
  •  text comprehension
Enjoy your day!

 

How to Tutor / Teach Math – some ideas

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GDR

Image via Wikipedia

How to tutor Math

Ahh math. The first thing I like to do when tutoring a new student that we will be tutoring in Math is get them to take an assessment test. This allows me to get a feel of where they are and what they may need help with. I also like to get a general feel of how their current teacher teaches them Math. This is important especially since you don’t want to teach them how to do something and their teacher teaches them to do it in a different way… that would just cause a lot of confusion. If the student doesn’t really know how their teacher teaches it is perfectly ok to give the teacher a call.

You can say something like: Hi. I’m tutoring Johnny and just want to make sure our tutoring complements your teaching. Could you let me know how you teach him to do fractions… etc.

This link has a nice assortment of tests –

http://math.about.com/od/mathtests/Math_Tests_and_Assessment_Samples.htm

Some different state tests – I always do a couple – the grade they’re in. If they do great then do the next grade, if not (they don’t do well) then do the previous grade.

Here are a couple of sites that will give you some ideas for teaching Math –

http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/teaching.php

I like this site because it allows you to try a few different things – I like this section of the article –

— quote —

The child needs to know the basic addition and multiplication facts very well, or she will have difficulties with fractions, decimals, etc.  These basic facts need to be known by heart.

One of the best ways to start children with math is to have them skip-count up and down from a very young age.  Use a number line to show what the ‘skips’ or steps mean.  if your child can master the skip counting by twos, threes, fours, etc., she has learned a lot about addition and later on multiplication tables will be an easy fare!  See also this article How to drill multiplication tables.

— end quote

I like this artice – http://letsplaymath.net/2008/05/06/struggling-math-student/

Tips for teaching someone who is struggling with Math. Also recommend these books if you have someone that is having a hard time with Math –

Go to the library and check out Family Math if they have it, or The I Hate Mathematics! Book or Math For Smarty Pants, for a more interesting approach to mathematical thinking. Order them through library loan if you have to. Play around with math for awhile before you attempt to do textbooky work again.

One thing I like to show students is how you use Math even when you get out of school and aren’t an engineering major you’ll still use Math all of the time.

Note – these are just ideas to help you out. If you have any methods you would like to share we would love to hear from you. Just send us your comments using the form below.

How To Tutor

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Welcome to a new week. By the end of this week we should have our online tutoring guide finished and you’ll be able to check it out. This week we’re going to be talking about how to teach and tutor different subjects. Next week I think I’ll be talking about tutoring with the Ipad which I think is pretty exciting.

What we’ll be doing each day is showing you some places online where you can research how to teach the different subjects. You probably already have a way you tutor and teach your students. These aren’t meant to show you the only way to tutor something, but they may give you a new idea or two. Also this will be some guidance you may want to show to people you are training to be tutors in your business.

I also realize we all learn in different ways… and not always the same way. Again they are just some methods you can use. Here’s the tentative schedule.

Math
English
History
Science

I hope you have a wonderful day… I also have jury duty today so wish me luck.

How To Get Your First Tutor Student Part 3 Revised

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business card

Image by Sean MacEntee via Flickr

Advertising Part 1

Today you’re going to work on creating some business cards. We’ll be using them for a variety of different purposes over the next few days so we’ll work on preparing them so we’ll have them when we need them.

Creating the Business Card –

On your business card you’ll want to have the following –

Name – contact info (phone / email etc).
What you’ll be tutoring. The area of students you can tutor. How you are qualified to tutor their child, and A sales bit.

John Smith Tutoring

Call 555-5555 or email us @ me@mymail.com.

Tutoring High School Math (Algebra, Precalc, Calculus and more).

We have a bachelors degree in Math, we would love to make your child our next success story. Bring this card and get the first tutor session free.

If you use Microsoft Word you can find some really nice business card templates here –

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT010253223.aspx

I like to use black and white since these are cheaper to print. You’ll want to make about 50 or so.

Make a List –

Now you want to think about friends and family members that you know. First you’ll want to concentrate on people who live within your tutor service area. On your list you’ll want to put the easiest way to contact them – by phone, email, facebook etc.

Start contacting the list – phone those you can first, then email the others. When you call them after catching up a bit, let them know you’ll be tutoring. Something along the lines of….

I’m starting a tutoring business this fall, we’ll be focusing on High School math. I was wondering if you could help us out.

(wait for response) – they’ll either say yes or no with an excuse – usually the excuse revolves around their kids (our kids are in kindergarten or college). If that is the excuse you’ll then ask them if they know anyone who lives in your service are that may need some help.

If they say yes then ask them if you can give them some business cards. Even if they say no you can ask them to take some business cards for you.

If you’re on facebook you’ll want to announce it there as well. Keep it simple and non salesy.  Something like – Hey friends wanted to let you know we’ll be tutoring High School Math this year for students who live in the (your county / district) area. If you have a student that needs some help (or know someone that does) we would love to help them. You can send us a message. Thanks much.

We talk quite a bit in our tutoring business guide about using facebook to get students, but this is a wonderful place to start.