This Middle school student was moving to China and needed to improve her Maths skills
to match those required at the international school she wished to attend.
So she undertook weekly lessons for two months with us.
Her fundamental maths skills were good, however,
she would make mistakes in her work that when pointed out to her, she could easily fix.
This showed a certain amount of confusion in her thought.
We began by reviewing her old topics, ensuring
that her understanding of them was rock solid and that she could think creatively about them.
Once she had a solid foundation to build on, we used that
to extend her understanding into new topics using the old ones as references and analogies.
We used easy foundational questions and digital resources
to reinforce the core skills and understanding in conjunction
with more complex questions and open inquiry to expand the complex thinking skills she needed to thrive.
We spent a lot of time focusing on how she could organize both her thoughts and her work.
She learned how to identify what tools she had available to her to tackle new problems
and how to carefully lay out her thinking to avoid mistakes and to clearly communicate her methods.
This student showed a love for mathematics as an art form and a constant desire to learn and improve.
While she began her journey with us making careless mistakes and muddling her thinking,
she learned both clarity of __expression__and how to tackle complex situations.
And with these new skills, she was accepted into her school of choice.