An example of how to save a math career, in 15 minutes of tutoring time.

An example of how to save a math career,

in 15 minutes of tutoring time.

I wish I was exaggerating on this one, but I have saved many a math career in 15 minutes of tutoring time. How it usually goes, is a student is doing some fairly ho-hum math calculations, and is frustrated as they are consistently and constantly getting the wrong answer. My response usually goes like this:

Me: I see you are having some trouble with getting the answers you need there. I have something I can show you that will help.

Student: Really? I mean I just don't get math.

Me: Well actually what I see here is your math concepts are fine. What is holding you back is your penmanship, copying steps from one to the next, general neatness and basic arithmetic going wrong.

Student: huh? What do you mean?

Me: I would start with the copying things right first. Slow down. Write down the problem neatly, then before you even try to solve it check the book to make sure you copied the numbers, letters and math symbols exactly right. Doing the wrong problem 4 times is always slower than doing the right problem once.

Student: Oh wow, that would be quicker. What was that about the copying steps?

Me: well once you do that for the original problem, make sure you leave room to do the whole problem on your page. I generally recommend single columns of problems, not crowding your paper, and checking to see if you copy the information from each line of the previous step correctly to the next.

Student: that's a lot of work.

Me: doing it wrong and failing the course is worse.

Student: I guess

Me: also make sure that your basic arithmetic is done right. If you have to use scrap paper do to things on the side before it hits your paper, do it. Think on paper, not in your head. I often find myself doing my own internal math wrong, and this is my day job.

Student: that would help too. Ok I guess I will try that.

Me: Keep at it. After I have met very few people who are actually bad at math. Your problem was just sloppy formatting, which I just taught you how to fix. Good luck, get lot's of practice at what I just showed you.

Students: thanks, I sure will!

Obviously the above is an idealized showroom example, most students have much more entertaing ways of responding to my suggestions! However, I have gone through this routine more times than I can count, usually with elementary and intermediate algebra students, (at my tutoring lab these courses are taught in college classes to replicate the same work usually done at the high school level). The thing here is too is that I don't other than that have a 'typical student' who needs this help. Many of my students come from NYC, coming to our campus because it is an excellent technical school with a wide variety of majors, and low price. However half of our student body, is commuter students from the local area. Unless I were to compile a long list of statistics, I couldn't say which group needed this more. Simply put it seems that a large proportion of all struggling algebra students need this talk, and they aren't getting it in high school. I have to wait for them to get to college, go to my workplace, and then I can save their math career in a simple 15 minute discussion. How I wish I could do something to fix that in a more systematic way than sheer chance!