Background:As it says on my profile, I am a Sec. Math Ed. major. Just the same my brother is also very good at Math. My parents are just besides themselves because they can not figure out how my brother and I have come across our talent and liking of Mathematics. (They are history buffs).
My parents moved to California before a graduated high school. My brother would occasionally call me for some homework help whenever either of our parents uttered our favorite lines, "I don't know anything about Math Alex. Go ask your sister." (They are our favorite lines because this is when my parents actually admit that we know more about something than them).
What:
Ever since was brother was placed in an Advanced Algebra class he is always calling me for help on how to do problems or help understanding the theoretical ideas behind the material. If it came to problem solving help, we would agree to get online,, on Messenger and he would type out the problem for me. From there I would work it out and then coach him on how to work out the problem without just simply giving him the answer. (He gets mad at me for doing that, but he later realizes that it helps him to do it on his own). For the theoretical ideas of Math we just usually discuss that on the phone. He might not understand why something is the way it is. This is when I ask him what the material is covering and to tell me exactly what he doesn't understand. Sometimes he will read his textbook out loud to me. I'll stop him every once in a while to go over what he just said, putting it into words that he would better understand. Some textbooks are just way too wordy and vague for a junior in high school.
From http://recycledproducts.org/
Alex just acquired a graphing calculator not too long ago and at first he was very over whelmed by it. (I remember feeling the same way). Although he has read the manual (part of it anyways), he sometimes still calls me up asking me to remind him how to do something on it. I'm afraid if he were to ask our parents about it they would get sick from looking at all the buttons, haha! Just kidding! Every once in a while I will have to go online and type out the buttons he would have to hit to get a specific function to work on his calculator. I believe this is because he is a visual learner and it is hard for him to be told what button to hit. He usually needs to be shown what the button looks like to register that if he hits it, "this" will happen. I am the same way and have very similar learning styles as my brother. Therefore I know that going online and working Math problems out there is the best way for him to get it without me being physically there. Our online Messenger is a great way for me to tutor my brother and I have been doing it for quite a while. This was why I choose to do Online Tutoring as my Artifact.
So What:
This process of online tutoring seems to work quite well for my brother. Our Messenger conversations are a form of visual for him because he is a visual learner. However it would be more benefical to him sometimes if I was actually there with him showing how to do things. Some materical is too hard to try to explain without being there to point to out a step by step process. Another then that one thing, our tutoring system works.
Now What:
My brother will be a senior in high school next year and he will only have four or five classes. One in which is Calculus. We are very sure that Alex will be needing my help next year and we will obviously be continuing our online tutoring sessions.
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That was really good and detailed. I would think that that should be put in your portfolio, if we have to do a type of write up like that. But I do agree that you didn't do the what, so what, and now what part. I think you have all the information there, you just have to condense and organize it. w00t!!
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