2019 Education magazine

2019 “Education making a difference” LINCOLN DAILY NEWS Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 Page 25 This is no different than simple memorization, which is already a problem for students and teachers. For example, effective math tutoring should show how learning math occurs in general, and not just what the answer to a problem is. A math tutor is explaining both how a problem is solved, and what exactly is occurring in the background, so to speak, for the problem to work. As another example, in writing assignments, a writing tutor is not just telling a student what to write. A good writing tutor is one that explains what exactly a teacher is hoping to gain from a student’s writing. This is not just what good writing looks like, but what good writing is doing for the reader. Goetz says that this means effective tutoring “needs to be procedure oriented not answer oriented.” By doing this, a student should have a better understanding where they are struggling, not just “I don’t get it.” This can annoy students, because most of them would rather just be done with their work, but that attitude doesn’t help them actually learn anything in the long run. Learning is “a process of recall, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation,” according to Goetz. An effective tutor will ask questions of a student, hoping to see evidence that the student can do each of these things, usually by asking questions that are more than just simple yes-or-no questions. Considering tutoring and finding a tutor Before considering tutoring, it is important to review class material, and find out if this is an issue of leaving homework wrong or incomplete, or something else. Sometimes, a student can display test anxiety or otherwise become much less confident in the classroom. This can happen at all levels of education, from grade school through college, and is nothing to be concerned about. There is an idea that requiring further assistance makes a student deficient in some way, and that simply is not true. Some students benefit from tutoring if they struggle with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or other learning disabilities. According to a story from the US News and World Report, a student may qualify for “an individualized educational plan, or IEP, which CONTINUED