Audrey is developing her use of memory triggers through mnemonics and such. Talking Aloud proves to be a strength in Audrey’s problem solving. Audrey understood the basics of geometry quite well, and is beginning to further develop her skills into the complex familiar and complex unfamiliar sector. Being a theory-intensive topic, the main skill that will help her tackle it is just memorising the rules and knowing when to apply them. We went over a study schedule, as well as a revision plan to best prepare herself for the maths test. I gave her a list of resources to use if she was stuck, as well as a study technique to prevent burnout and procrastination. I believe this will help Audrey both solidify and extend her knowledge on not only geometry, but on all topics she has learnt this term.

Remembering the specific characteristics that define each shape (e.g., remembering which kind of angles, how many sets of parallel lines, how many sides are equivalent to one another in each specific shape)

Alora is very good at Talking Aloud when sounding her words out. At times, she jumps the gun and goes with her first guess of what the word is rather than taking the time to figure out what it is, but she occasionally goes back and checks to see if she’s made a mistake. This is my first time doing something that involved some maths with Alora, and she was quite good. She has a good grasp on the basics. She is very passionate about the subject matter which is a wonderful thing. A part of her learning will definitely be focusing on learning how to stay consistently focused. Though, I think she gets better at this as the lesson progresses and she is ‘warmed up’. Overall, it was hard subject matter today and I believe Alora did good work.

Alora struggled with grasping how the write ‘one-hundred-and…’ numbers. After recognising the pattern, she understood what to do but I think this is still something that needs to be practiced/reviewed. Occasionally, she would write her 2s, 3s, 5s, and 7s wrong (flipping them vertically.

After three lessons, it is clear that working with pen and paper is Ben’s strength in his problem solving. His Talking Aloud skills continue to improve with each week, and his Memory-Pegs and Triggers are strengthening also. Overall, Ben was fantastic this week. From the work we covered, he was quite confident and did not need my help all too much. There was the occasional mistake, but there were significantly less than there were in the weeks before. Whilst Ben still completes questions at a proficient speed, the next step will be answer questions faster – an essential skill in an exam context.

It took Ben a little while to grasp the understanding of inequalities and graphing the points on a number line. He also had a little struggle with understanding the use of brackets in substitution. As the lesson progressed, this improved with practice.

Ben proves to be very good at using Pen and Paper to visualise his working and his problem-solving. His Talking Aloud skills are also developing as he works through a problem too. The use of Memory-Pegs and Triggers were introduced this week, which seemed to gel quite well with Ben. Ben improved as the lesson progressed. He understood rules of substitution from the get-go and appeared more confident with questions as he progressed. He is quite patient with his work, and is not afraid to ask for help either. He improved from last week, with the topics covered this week being harder than that of last weeks, but there was still an evident struggle when completing problems.

Ben’s main source of difficulty was remembering the rules when subtracting, adding and multiplying in the context of an algebraic problem. He occasionally did not group like terms together when completing these functions, meaning this would occasionally lead to incorrect answers.