2nd March 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There are many hurdles students come across during their education, but maybe no subject has hurdles quite as intimidating as maths. It’s certainly true that we receive requests from lots of students wanting A Level tuition because they have found the step up from GCSE so difficult, but maths is different from lots of subjects in that the concepts are often brand new when a student begins them, compared to other subjects where future study tends to build upon concepts at a lower level.
It’s really nice for a tutor when they can dispel the false mystery around a concept which appears so difficult, when actually it’s so accessible but for a small pre-conception by the student. The perfect example of a subject like this is algebra. Generally taught towards the end of primary school, many students can be very confident mathematicians until they’re introduced to algebra, and suddenly they feel lost. Adults too often talk of losing confidence at this stage, and a sure-fire way to make any blackboard look complicated is to add the odd x and y surrounded by numbers.
Obviously part of a tutor’s skill is trying to help a student to remove the blocks from their thoughts which are preventing learning, and with algebra there’s something so simple they can do. In general, before schools begin to teach algebra, students will be shown sums where a number has been replaced by a box, and asked which number should go in the box. It is amazing that this creates virtually no problems, but as soon as the box is replaced by an x, a student can really struggle.
The tutor’s challenge is always to understand what a student understands, and to try and remove any obstacles preventing further understanding. The frustration over algebra is something lots of us forget as we continue to study mathematics, or maybe something we understood so quickly that it’s difficult to understand how anyone can’t see it from our point of view. We encourage our tutors to think more deeply about ideas such as this, and consider that what may appear to be a simple idea for many of us, is actually very complicated for a student just starting out.