Certified Tutors From Pierpont Community and Technical College

Today, the student and I did a lot of work with critical reading.  We continued working on her running vocabulary lists and by the end of the session she was comfortable with all of the new words she has come across in her practice tests to date.  We also talked through various reading passage related problems.  After all of this time spent, I am hoping to see the student's critical reading score improve when we correct her next practice test on Tuesday.  We went over a few of the trickier math problems, as well.  I feel as though the student will be more prepared (with strategies, vocabulary and experience) for the practice test she takes this weekend.

The student and I worked through the practice test for her exam later today.  We dealt with problems related to stochiometry, unit conversions, and balancing chemical equations.  We talked about converting mass and volume to moles before begining and underlining all of the variables given in the problem as a way of identifying what gas equation to use. Our next session will be at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

We worked on geometry today. The student seems to have a very good understanding of the subject, but did not seem to learn the unit circle. After deriving the unit circle utilizing right triangles, etc., she was able to easily complete her assignment. Some key tips I advised her to keep in mind include: whenever pi is seen, the unit circle should be used; and with whole numbers, creating right triangles is usually the best method of solving the question.

Today the student and I covered some basic math concepts needed to be successful in Algebra. We reviewed all of the rules for adding and subtracting integers and did some practice problems on the whiteboards. Then we went over the rules for fractions. I talked about how to compare fractions with unlike denominators, how to multiply, add, subtract and divide fractions and how to covert between improper and proper fractions and mixed numbers. She was very quick to catch on and breezed through most of the work today. I feel like I have a much better idea of what we need to work on tutoring and so next time we will go over the rules for exponents and radicals. She is an excellent student and I am happy to be helping her out with summer with her Algebra skills.

The student and I went over the first three lessons in his American Civics book, which covered the topics of demographics and population growth/changes in the United States, the Articles of Confederation, and the origins/development of the US Constitution. We discussed some studying techniques that I think can be useful, but those will be evaluated in the next session or two to see if they're working.

Today the student and I covered two more lessons in an effort to complete his online coursework.  He received a phone call from his math teacher on his improvements as well.  We will be meeting again on Monday for a few hours.