Certified Tutors From Columbia State Community College

The student and I met from 11:40-1:40. We worked on homework regarding the trig functions and the transformations done to them. We covered reflections, vertical and horizontal shifts, and compression/expansion. We also covered the sign of the sin, cos, and tan functions in the four different quadrants.

We spent the majority of our time going over the algebra review and prepping her for graphing all types of equations. We will go over algebra one more time this week and then spend the last two sessions on chemistry review. She is getting better at it.

The student and I reviewed new sight words today with flashcards and practiced these by doing cheers with our words. We practiced writing these words on whiteboards. We also worked on numerical recognition by flashing numbers on flashcards to see if she can instantly recognize numbers from 1-20. She has recognized most of them. In addition, we worked on a math problem. She was introduced to the plus and equal signs and what these symbols mean in an equation. A strategy that was taught to solve a math problem was to circle numbers she sees in a sentence and look for key words such as total, in all, and altogether. She understands that when she see these words, it means to "put things together" (add the numbers).

The student and I did a review of some arithmetic topics. I clarified how to convert between decimals, fractions, and percentages. I also taught her the strategies of "picking numbers" and "plugging in the answer choices." I then drilled her on vocabulary (she did a great job), and we practiced some synonyms and analogies problems. I plan to continue reviewing math with her and working on reading and verbal.

We spent most of the time going over a homework assignment covering some of the triangle theorems that we had been working on. For biology, she has started to learn about cell division so I went through the steps of mitosis with her. I told her to make a chart of the steps and to look over them over the next few days. For our next session, I plan to give her a quiz on mitosis. With the second student, we spent half the time learning how to write molecular formulas for binary compounds. For algebra, we worked on a homework assignment dealing with recognizing and graphing equations with a direct relationships between x and y. I gave him a problem set for both chemistry and algebra for him to complete for our next session.

During our first session, the student and I discussed general strategies for the SAT, including the use of mental breaks and the wisdom in 50% chance guessing. She seemed to appreciate some of the tips, including the use of a watch for effective time management. She had many misconceptions about the SAT that I was able to correct or offer insight on, including the validity of choosing "no error" as an answer choice. We spent the final portion of this session working with the essay.