For an outside clinical expierence, I wanted to write about my experience while tutoring a sixth grade student that attends Metcalf. I have been working with this student since Fall 21'. This experience has been very rewarding because I have been able to practice techniques that I have seen used and have learned about in my teaching courses.
A New Look
While I was thinking about what I wanted to write for a clinical and observation assingment, I tried to think about real life events that I have expirenece. Then I thought, "why not write about the actual teaching experience that I get to do each week." So, that is what I chose.
To start off, I should share some background. I do have a background in tutoring. I tutored all throughout my life in different ways. I used to tutor students in my classes and then in high school, I was hired by a local tutoring center and worked with middle school students. This student however, was a different experience. My MAT 230 teacher from last semester suggested that I help him in his math content area. I was nervous at first, but have learned so much while watching and helping this student.
I'm sure you are wondering how this relates to this course, as I was as well, but then it clicked. Prior to last semester, the student (Ben) was struggling hard with his math content. Ben struggle with ADHD and has a hard time focusing on the content, writing notes, and listening to the teacher all at the same time. Ben expressed these frustrations to me as did his mom and explained that they did not know what else to do. Truth be told I really didn't know either, but I tried to do something that helped me. I contacted Ben's teacher and created a plan. Each month she would send me the lesson guides for those weeks and I would work through the plan weekly with Ben. I quickly noticed that Ben was a very smart student and was able to learn the information and retain the ideas very easily.
We found out that Ben struggles tremendously on the summates and the formatives. This is the testing at the end of each chapter. We would prepare for the assemssment, however Ben was still scoring a 1-2 on a 4 point scale.
I quickly noticed what was going on. Ben knew the material and the processes when I explained it, in simple math form. However, Ben did not understand the content academic language that was written on the test. So, when Ben got to a question and read the directions; he would spend so much time trying to figure out what they meant that he wasn't able to have time to answer the question correctly or completely.
After noticing this, I began working with Ben and his vocabulary. We went back to the basics and learned what words like "sum" and "dividen" and "product" means.
Once Ben was able to catch onto these terms; he was GOLDEN! Ben was bringing back Summatives with 3's! This was Ben's goal the whole time!
I witnessed pure joy on his face when right before Christmas break he told me that this was the highest grade that he has ever had in a Math course.
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This semester, we are focusing hard on the new vocabulary that is being taught and I am making sure that Ben fully understands what the words means prior to diving into the heavy content.
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This recent experience made me think about what we are learning in this course. Students may understand language, but academic language is a whole new game. Individuals who are English Learners most likely were not completely fluent in their native academic language. This means that not only are they still learning academic language, but they are learning academic language in a completely new language! This allowed me to apply concepts that we have learned in this course to think about how to better prepare Ben now and my future students later!
Formatives and Summatives