Finals Approaching – Only One More Week of Tutoring!

                Hello everyone.  It looks like I will be writing one more blog after this one to talk about my final tutoring adventure after next week’s session.  It’s crazy to think that this was my second to last time (4/26).  I remember thinking before the semester and being worried about how I was going to be able to manage this volunteer requirement, but now I laugh at those thoughts.  I think I told myself you only have to be there an hour a week and you can sneak out and get back to your college schedule.  Interestingly enough, now I find myself staying for the entire 2 hours!  It’s funny how things change haha.

                This past Monday I tutored a female student in Spanish and math!  I was definitely more excited to help with Spanish, but of course, we decided to do math first.  Being an engineering major, I consider myself fairly competent in math, however, when I was helping her I found myself googling the answers.  I have never had to do this before (at least during tutoring)!  She was working on proofs and proving that a certain polygon ABCD is a parallelogram and that certain interior angles are congruent.  When I first saw it, I was baffled and didn’t even know where to start.  The last time I did proofs of polygons was back in high school and I remember not liking them.  That just goes to show you how useful that material is if it’s used once in 7-8 years and how often you use it, but that’s another story… Any ways, using google, I was able to explain the answers and work through a few proofs with her step by step.  I’m hoping by explaining it to her, it will begin to make sense what steps and what things you should look for when developing your proof.  I also reassured her that once you get through this material, you will never have to use it again.  She seemed to like that!

                The second hour or so we focused on Spanish and the present progressive.  Thankfully as hard as Spanish can be when starting off, the present progressive follows a simple formula that is easy to remember to use.  The present progressive is the form you use when you talk about someone doing something or in the midst of something.  She is running.  I’m eating.  They are watching TV.  In English, this commonly done by adding –ing to the verb.  In Spanish, the verb estar is used for is/are along with the verb + ando/iendo depending on if it is ar or er/ir.  So if it’s yo _____________ (hablar) con acento Americano, the completion of the sentence would be yo estoy hablando con acento Americano.  So estar is conjugated and the verb has an ando or iendo ending.  How I explained this to her was that estar is conjugated normally as any other verb.  So you have to look for context and the “who” of the sentence.  Next, you take the verb and chop of the ending.  So hablar becomes habl…  Then since hablar ends in –ar, you need to add ando.  If it ended in er/ir, you would need to add iendo.  So if the subject is me (yo) the sentence would be yo estoy hablando.  I drew a few charts on the side of her paper so she could follow the pattern.  After the first few attempts, she really started getting a hang of it!  That was fun to see.  But like all Spanish things, writing it is one thing and speaking is another.  So of course I made her practice speaking these words.  Now the ending can get tricky with this new addition and become a mouthful, but she also seemed to pick up on it pretty quick.  If it’s mouthful, just say it slower.  You can work on your speed later.

                That’s it for me this week!  Until next week.

--Ross

Tutoring Near the Finish Line

It’s hard to believe that it is almost May!  Where has the semester gone?  It feels like a blur at this point.  It was the busiest semester of my college career, but also the most fulfilling.  It’s really awesome to see how you can take on a daunting challenge and do well; it really makes you feel good inside knowing all the hard work is paying off.  One of my commitments this semester that has really changed my perspective on life has been tutoring at Bradley Tech High School.  It doesn’t seem like much, having only visited on Monday’s, but already I have visited the school 8 times and will try to squeeze in a few more before final exams.  I think the only word to describe my experience is WOW.  I didn’t know what to expect when signing up to tutor in an inner city Milwaukee school where I became part of the racial minority, but I have been pleasantly surprised at every turn and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

                Not only has this experience helped enhance
my tutoring skills, I feel more confident and comfortable working with people of many different backgrounds.  Some days as a tutor your patience can be tested.  Whether the students were thinking about spring break, the nice weather, or were busy texting, sometimes it was hard to get them motivated.  In these cases, I did as much as I could to get the ball rolling and then let them decide.  I came to the conclusion that if they don’t want to work, I can’t make them work or make them learn, they have to decide that for themselves.  Another thing I have noticed is that repetition combined is essential.  As mentioned in a previous blog entry, they sometimes don’t pick up on patterns as quick as you would think they would, but if you show it to them enough times, it finally starts to click.  You can’t take offense that they might not be learning much from you the first time through, so you just have to keep going and continue showing as many different ways as possible.  This is huge for Math!

               Today I was helping a student with Parallelograms.  She had to find the missing lengths, which were comprised of just a variable or a variable with a math operation.  She had most of the worksheet completed, but needed a little help with some tougher ones.  It was interesting to me because she already knew how to do them (the tough problems).  She was telling me that the certain sides equaled each other.  I agreed and then told her to write that down on the paper.  At first she wrote it down wrong by placing a minus sign in between the two math operations.  I told her to take a step back and then reminded her what she said earlier when she said they were equal.  So instead of a minus sign, I said put in an equal sign in between the two lengths.  Then she was like ohhhh and then I can solve for x by algebra.  Exactly!  Sometimes all you need is that little extra push to get things to click.

                These kids are very lucky to be in the Gear Up program.  In hindsight you always wish you could do something different.  I say this because some of the kids in the program treat going to these afterschool homeworkathons as a chore and do everything they can to not do homework.  Years from now, I bet the ones that didn’t take advantage of this amazing opportunity to have 1on1 help will wish they did.  But they are young and want to have fun!  School sucks at this age, it’s the last thing they want to do.  I think I was the same way… I find it interesting to reflect on how similar I was to some of these kids.

Maybe I will get time to post one more blog before final exams!

Until then, signing off.

--Ross