I love to tutor. The joy of seeing a student's eyes "light up" when he or she understands is priceless. After more than thirty years of teaching, I have a very large "bag of tricks." I have succeeded many times when less experienced teachers have failed.
The first thing I do is put the student completely at ease. The relaxed student can learn a lot more easily than the nervous student. Then I ask for the last test or problem set which gave the student difficulties.
I then start looking at...
I love to tutor. The joy of seeing a student's eyes "light up" when he or she understands is priceless. After more than thirty years of teaching, I have a very large "bag of tricks." I have succeeded many times when less experienced teachers have failed.
The first thing I do is put the student completely at ease. The relaxed student can learn a lot more easily than the nervous student. Then I ask for the last test or problem set which gave the student difficulties.
I then start looking at problems and go over them slowly, explaining every detail of every aspect of every step. Then I find a similar problem and involve the student in its solving. We do this over and over until I am satisfied that the student really understands. When the session is over, I tear out the sheets of paper we've been writing on. These have been carefully labeled so the student can go over this same material by him/her self.