Structure of a Lesson
Lessons provide maths tuition for students at Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4, GCSE, A and AS levels of their schooling. (years 7 to 12)
Every lesson, no matter whether it is an online, in person, one-to-one or group lesson, has the following main components:
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specific, transparent Success criteria is set
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prior knowledge is gauged before dealing with the new material
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practice with listening carefully ‘student voice’ and verbalizing the thinking process
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focused HOMEWORK to practise the new skills
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feedback on the homework is given at the beginning of the following session
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Track progress of each student based on their homework results using RAG scoring
Online tutoring
and how it works:
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For the online lessons, I am currently using learning space platform HeyHi which gives students access to online whiteboard, video/audio interaction and assigned homework to them.
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HeyHi is a lightweight whiteboard app which works on any device: laptops, tablets, mobile devices optimized for Apple, Windows and Android operating systems.
All my lessons are geared towards developing skills and building confidence.
Successful Lesson
Several consistent factors are essential for student academic performance and increasing student's self-efficacy.
Building upon student’s prior knowledge and skills to prepare them for acquiring - and retaining – new knowledge. Learning is like adding links to various chains of knowledge that are already there.
Explicit teaching involves: directing student attention toward specific learning in a highly structured environment;
breaking down topics and contents into easy-to-follow steps or chunks which will reduce the demand on student’s working memory; modelling skills and behaviours and modelling thinking; verbalizing the thinking process will help student to know how to begin a task or what to do when they’re stuck.
Breaking the task into small steps makes it manageable, makes it less terrifying, allows student to make steady progress and, usually, gets them to the top. Then they believe they can do it which builds up their confidence.
Tutoring involves teamwork between tutor and tutee. Having kids verbalise what they’re thinking about is critically important, not just to have them share their ideas but also to have them become consciously aware of their own ideas and learning processes. Listening carefully for ‘student voice’ by prompting student with questions which will promote mathematical discourse, helps tutor truly to personalize the learning and minimize student’s weaknesses.