Tutoring this year

This last year has been unique. I was put in charge of the Math Center, our tutoring lab. This meant that my duties were completely devoted to helping students and overseeing student tutors. Having spent the last 25 years in the classroom I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this year has been a good one in some surprising ways.

It’s easy to say that I enjoyed a year’s break from grading. The unexpected thing was how invested I was in the grades of students who came into the Math Center on a regular basis. How happy I was when they did well, how hard it was when they struggled. Usually, as the instructor of record you work to be more dispassionate about how students are doing, but I didn’t feel the need to do that this year.

In addition to these feelings about student’s grades, I allowed myself to be involved with my students on a more personal level. I’ve always liked getting to know my students, but this year there were about ten students who would come into the lab several times a week, some of them every day. With these students, I have learned about more than just their struggles and successes with math; I’ve learned about them as individuals. One student revealed their mental health struggles, while a couple of others shared how they their struggles in coming back to school in their late forties, early fifties. I learned about struggles with children and partners, job searches; so much more than I would normally learn about students.

I was also reminded of something I loved when I was a tutor in my undergraduate years, the going back and forth between different subjects. Doing Pre-Algebra one minute, Statistics the next, some Calculus and then back to Intermediate Algebra. Having to keep mentally on my toes, not knowing what the next question will be. Sometimes there would be several students from the same class all asking the same questions, and that would be nice because I would be able to get into a groove, but I much prefer the mental challenge of multiple subjects.

Overall this has been a refreshing and restful year. I’m ready to get back into the classroom, but I don’t regret my year of tutoring. I’ve heard from my students that they really appreciate the work I’ve done, and really isn’t that the best reward any of us can have?

No Shame!

Overseeing the Math Center this year has given me a lot of opportunities to help students when they are struggling.

I was working with one of my regular tutoring students the other day, when she became frustrated with how much she was struggling and suddenly she let out a big sigh and said, “I’ll never get this, I’m so stupid.” I stopped right then and calmly said, “I know this is hard, but you are not stupid.”

Later that same day, another student expressed her frustration at how hard the math was. She too questioned if she would ever get it. I reminded this student I told her, “I remember when we first met you were just finishing getting your GED, now look at you, you’re taking Pre-Calculus.”

I then saw an opportunity to tell all four students in the center, “Your worth is not determined by how well you do in a math class.”

There are many ways that students can shame themselves, but the most common are two “shoulds”: I should already know this, or I should learn faster.

For the first. regardless of what they “should” know, students can only know what they know. It’s important to help students let go of the judgements they have on themselves. Work with students to take pride in what they have learned, rather than focusing on what the “should” already know.

As for the later, it’s important for students to understand that learning math is a process. Most of us don’t just open a book, look at something and KNOW it, it takes time to learn. Even if we’ve forgotten what it was like learning Algebra, we can all remember the struggle to learn a mathematical concept.

For both types of students a reminder of progress is always a good thing. It’s easy to get caught up in the “shoulds” and to forget how much one has already done.

All of this can go a long way to helping a student’s self-esteem, and that can actually improve the overall academic outcome (study here). This contrasts with expecting that academic outcome will boost self-esteem.

A student’s self-worth should never be dependent on the grade they make in math class.

Show compassion for those students who are mired in self-doubts and self-loathing about how hard they are finding math class. Help refocus students on what they have done right to get where they are. Let students see that you see them as more than just their grade in your class. All this will make it, if not easier, less painful for students to learn math and make math class a less dreaded experience.

By the way: The student who said she was stupid went on to get an 80 on her test. YEAH!

I'm grateful to Yakima Valley College for the opportunity to serve as an Instructor of Mathematics.

Gestalt of Math Instruction

Teaching math courses is about more than just imparting academic knowledge. There needs to a holistic approach, a gestalt if you will (that is, an organized whole that is more than the sum of its parts). That is because all good instruction has two parts: knowledge of the material, and the harder to define intangibles. For example, what we instructors believe about our students.Guess what, it affects how our students learn. And this is magnified when dealing with students in developmental math courses. Here's why.

Students in developmental math courses often come to us with baggage. Not only do they not know the material, but they have judgments about their own ability to do math, either from being told directly that they are unable to do it or from self-judgments because their past struggles with math. 

Additionally, having to take a course that is not ‘college-level’ often sets up barriers of resentment and frustration in students. This can come from the frustration over the added time in school, or concerns over financial aid.

It is no surprise that many developmental classes have high attrition, which is just a fancy way of saying high drop and fail rates.

Add to this all together and it is easy for teachers to feel overwhelmed.

I have heard of teachers who walk into class the first day and announce to the class, “Half of you won’t pass this class.” Teachers who do this often say, “I’m just being honest with the students.”  Though these teachers are well intentioned, such pronouncements will often have a negative impact on students. 

An alternative is to keep a positive attitude. Tell students, “You can do this!” Emphasize places where they already know what to do and encourage them every step of the way. A positive attitude has been shown to improve student achievement in studies of K-12. (here) And, as I talked about in my last blog (here), validating students has been shown to increase retention. While it has not been studied as of this writing, my contention is that a positive attitude and validation can only increase passage rates of developmental courses.

This is not to say that we should be dishonest with our students. If an individual student asks about their grade, or if they are going to pass based on current scores, we need to let them know as kindly as possible where they stand. Acknowledge the student’s struggles and encourage them to keep attending class even if they drop.

When it comes to the things taught in developmental math courses, namely arithmetic and basic algebra, I  believe that the old adage, "Everyone can do math" is true. It may not always be at the pace we would like for them, but they can get there.

Additionally, to my mind, one of the best way to help students learn math is to help them get past their fear of math.

Most importantly, we need to remember that we are in the classroom because we feel called to teach mathematics. All of us want to help our students succeed. And remembering that good instruction involves more than just academics is an important part of it. 

I'm grateful to Yakima Valley College for the opportunity to serve as an Instructor of Mathematics.