Certified Tutors From Tennessee Wesleyan College

Concepts: -Solving for x and y coordinates in a pair of equations using the substitution and elimination method -Graphing Equations The student initially struggled with remembering the difference between substitution and elimination, as well as remembering all the steps for solving the equations. He tended to try and do more than one step at a time and would make small mistakes along the way. He had a good attitude. By the end of the lesson you could see that his confidence had improved. I included a few strategies for visual organization. When you are solving many multi step problems at once it is important to keep things lined up and organized as you are writing them out and to not skip any steps. I also reviewed the mnemonics FOIL and PEMDAS. The student needs to make sure that he takes the first few lessons slowly and doesn't rush them. The skills he is learning right now will be very important when the equations and theorems get much more complex later on in his Algebra 2 course. I felt like he had a solid understanding by the end of the lesson and he also seemed happy with his own progress.

In today's we continued with systems of equations. The student started learning this topic in class today. We talked about the substitution method and we walked through two examples and then the student did eight problems. With some more practice she will have grasped the concept soon. Her biggest issue with the concept was remembering which terms needed to be moved in order to isolate a variable. We will continue working on this as we practice equations more. I left her three extra problems to do before the next session. I suggested that she make a chart with columns titled "date assigned", "assignment", "date due", "turned in" so that she can keep track of all of her assignments. This sheet should be kept either in the front of her math binder or in the cover sleeve of the binder. We will continue systems of equations (elimination method) in our session on Tuesday.

We worked on the algebra part of geometry. We set two equations equal to each other and solved for x. The student was struggling with how to solve for x. He would try moving the X and numbers to two different sides. We tried doing it by subtracting instead of just moving it to the other side so it is less confusing. After a few tries he was able to do them correctly. We went over alternative interior and exterior, as well as supplementary and complementary angles.

The student has a test tomorrow on parabolas and quadratic equations. While we looked at factoring and finding the zeroes of an equation, we mostly focused on finding the directrix and focus of a parabola. It's important to remember that in order to find the directrix and focus, you must first find the vertex. You must also solve for p where 4p is the coefficient in front of y. The focus is p away from the vertex on the axis of symmetry and the directrix is the line p away from the vertex.

We continued math work this week. The student is doing sequences in class. He just began that topic alongside sigma notation. His homework required him to write out the terms of sigma notation and calculate the sum of these terms. This was not as difficult for him as figuring out a formula when given the sequence terms, a process that usually requires guesswork. From then on we began SAT practice questions online and he performed well. He did about 20 questions of different variety, not just multiple choice, and I have began seeing the topics for which he would need most help going forward.

The student worked problems on synthetic division and the remainder theorem. He has a very solid understanding of the concepts and worked quickly. He still needs to be careful about making avoidable mistakes. We then did a review sheet covering older material, including translations in graphs, discriminants, and vertices. He did well after a little rust was knocked off. Good session.