tutoring

Tutoring has been going really well. It's something that I look forward to each week especially today. The day went alright for most of my periods. We did an activity based around natural selection. We are revisiting the unit because the averages for the unit were quite low in each class compared to what they had done previously. This is partly due to the unit being rushed when the 9 weeks were drawing to a close.

I felt I could not move on due not just to certain objectives not being mastered but also because of how important the theory of evolution/natural selection is for many. These students will see the topic again in high school biology and it's mentioned quite frequently in the news (whether from the typical debate or in the recent case of staph infections). The infections are due to strains of bacteria (staph) that have evolved to the point where common antibacterial products cannot kill them. As a result, these more serious infections require more powerful antibiotics and many times hospital care. What had happened is that in a population of bacteria there were some that could be killed by antibacterial soap and others that could not be. Soap was used and killed the ones without any defense. The ones with the defense persisted and reproduced. As a result, we have staph bacteria resistant to common antibacterial products.

Back to the activity...it went well for most of the classes except 4th and 7th periods. Those periods may the day pretty stressful. Going to tutoring, though, made a lot of the stress go away as I had a small group that was quite attentive. We went over topics we had discussed recently and even went back to topics that had been missed in the past (one of the benefits of tracking objective performance on each test). I just like how I can come home tired and stressed from school, but after tutoring I am refreshed and energized.

As for the turnout, it's been pretty solid. In town, I have a small yet dedicated group each week. In the other town farther away, I get the equivalent of one of my classes or sometimes larger (20-25 students). While I love the turnout, it's a bit more difficult to give individual attention to each student. What I've started to do is to give a small quiz at the beginning and then go around from group to group aiding students with whichever answers are giving them problems. This makes targeting the weaknesses much easier.