Homeschooling Parents

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by nahkoe

Ditto.




Because math isn't about memorizing, it's about calculating and finding possible solutions. It really does depend how far you're going to go with it, I tutor students totally differently based on their majors.

I guess I'm thinking from a homeschool perspective. We are actually tutoring and know if a child is getting something or not.

But aren't there things that are important for memorization like multiplication? I can't imagine not struggling if I didn't know the tables by heart.

How do you tutor based on their major and how do you assess them?

Or the student figured out how to give the right answer without understanding the concept. Or, any number of things can go wrong. It's not usually too big of a deal, except that the longer a student goes without understanding it, the harder it is for them to believe they can understand it.

I could see that happening.

I've never had the money to buy much lego, but we sure do have quite a collection. lol It's one of the few things I'm making sure gets to Texas with us.

I always bought the kits on sale. January is the best time.

I don't know for sure. You'll have to keep trying and I'll let you know later.

[nahkoe]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

I guess I'm thinking from a homeschool perspective. We are actually tutoring and know if a child is getting something or not.

Teaching and tutoring are a little different, IMO. I'm pretty familiar with homeschooling (I was homeschooled, as were my siblings, as was my ex, and his siblings, and most of my friends homeschool their kids, and I homeschooled mine up until this year). It depends on your approach which you end up doing, IMO teaching is more the introducing of new concepts and explaining them the standard way (or the way explained in the textbook used). Tutoring is working with those concepts until they make sense. This, is strictly an "in my own head" sort of distinction, not something I've seen anywhere and it's also subject to change at any moment.

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

But aren't there things that are important for memorization like multiplication? I can't imagine not struggling if I didn't know the tables by heart.

I have never memorized the multiplication tables. I calculate very quickly in my head. If I can't remember 8 times 9 (and I never, ever can..lol) I know that 4 times 9 is 36, 36 plus 36 is 72. Or, I use a calculator. lol I'm in college, no one knows! There are some multiplication problems I can remember, but not all of them. The ones I can remember, I usually visualize as something totally different, using memory tricks I guess. Honestly, how I think is extremely difficult to explain. lol Sometimes I think my head is broken.

I really haven't studied too much into elementary school memorization, but I do think it would probably be pretty possible to succeed in college math without ever memorizing the things they expect you to in elementary school. I was one of the students who *really* slipped through the cracks and I really picked up very, very little in elementary school math.

Most of my students struggle with elementary school concepts, 3rd grade especially (I had 2 kids in 3rd this year, I always found it amusing when I was helping with homework on the same concepts I just tutored earlier..lol). This makes me think a lot more students miss things than really get noticed until they *do* get to college and try to meet the math requirements for a degree. It also makes me think that memorizing them is *not* important. I don't have my students memorize (usually, there are some exceptions) but show them why it works, if you can see why you can *always* find the answer, vs memorizing and only seeing the answers to what you have memorized. My brain seems to shut off at the end of the semester and I'm having trouble coming up with one of those glaring examples I know I have.

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

How do you tutor based on their major and how do you assess them?

If all they need to do is pass pre-credit algebra, I use a lot more memorization (this is my exception) for concepts they absolutely can not grasp. It's a cheat though, it will do them no favors if they choose to go into a math heavy major later on. There are some things that in pre-credit algebra are *always* and therefore you can memorize them, but if you go into college algebra, or pre-calculus or beyond, they are NOT always and memorizing them that way would be painful later on. (imaginary numbers mess with "always", so do radicals, so does trig, but it adds about a zillion new ones..lol...trig is DEFINITELY my exception to memorization, but even in trig you only need to know enough to pass the test, once you do that the concept is far, far more important than memorizing the trig functions..you get books to look those up in when you need to use them).

If they're going into a math heavy major, I absolutely never use those cheats. I will spend hours and hours explaining the same thing in every different way possible, and researching new ways to explain it, but I'll never say "you only need to know this much to pass this class and go on".

Multiplication is actually one thing I think is taught horribly wrong in elementary school. I tutor *college* algebra, and I spend way too much time explaining the pieces of pie on plates concept. It's extremely difficult to factor if you can't see the pieces. (I do tutor a lot of visual learners, it seems we struggle with math quite a lot...lol). Even my non-visual learners do well with this explanation though. Positive/negative sign is another one, you can *memorize* how it works, but my students always mess it up (and this is one thing you can almost always trip a math professor up on too...negative signs are miserable things). I teach my very own "invisible 1" theory. lol My students rarely make another mistake once they grasp what I'm trying to say, and it's saved more tests for me than I care to think about.

Slope is a big one that's explained differently depending on the major, you really don't need to understand that x and y mean something if you're not going into engineering or math. If you are, you'd better understand how they relate to what you're solving for (engineering especially..if you don't understand how x, y, and z coordinates relate to trig and what it means, you will have big problems) I also break the pieces down much, much smaller for math heavy majors. I tutored an engineering student this last semester and we spent a lot of time going over WHY things work. Memorizing was failing him miserably, you can't apply concepts if you just memorize the solutions. If you can't apply concepts, your bridge is not going to work right. If your bridge doesn't work right, you're going to have some unhappy people.

I assess based on questions I ask, what I see them struggling with, what I know their major is, their goals (barely pass, or an A), and my own intuition. I also base my decisions about how much to push the concepts on how the student is doing emotionally. Math anxiety is painfully real and if they're near tears and ready to throw things at the wall (or me? lol) I decide the concept isn't that important and give the shortcuts. Sometimes we touch on it later and it makes sense, sometimes it's just one of those concepts we decide to forfeit for that course.