CAS Project: Tutoring a Younger Student

Planning:

For my CAS project, I decided to play to my strengths. By talking to my friend, Vinuda, I realized that he required some assistance in his academic journey in OSC. I chose to take up the opportunity to help a friend and utilize this experience as a CAS project. He specifically requested for help in MYP 5 chemistry and math. To take up this challenge, I decided to revisit some of the curriculum of MYP 5 to refresh my knowledge and understanding of some of the concepts. For example, bond enthalpy in chemistry and bearings in mathematics were some of the topics that gave me trouble during my MYP years and revisiting them not only gave reinforced my understanding of these concepts but also gave me a sense of great nostalgia.

My goal for this project is to take up the challenge of teaching someone which is a skill in its own as well as improve on my planning and collaborative skills to come up with an effective and impactful learning schedule for Vinuda. The topics he requested special attention on were bond enthalpy in chemistry and logarithms in mathematics. So I plan to have separate sessions on just these topics and extra lessons covering other topics. We decided to meet at 8:30p.m. on the 2nd and 3rd of April 2022.

The following paragraphs are Vinuda’s initial thoughts and comments on my project:

I first approached Johail because I knew that he was doing these subjects at a higher level in DP2 and I thought that it would be good to get some help from him. I hope that through our lessons I will get a better understanding of some concepts in math and chemistry as well as strengthen my relationship with Johail. 

Session 1: 

This lesson was based explicitly on bond energy. To prepare for this, an hour before the session, I went over the topic and refreshed my understanding of the topic. During the lesson, we first went over definitions to make sure that he understood about the underlying concepts and I helped fill in gaps in his understanding. After he was sure of the concepts, we went over some practice questions which we found online. He was pretty proficient with the topic but there were a few silly mistakes that were being made with the calculations in terms of algebra. He was also in the habit of skipping a few steps while doing these calculations which might have been the source of the problem. After advising him about this and telling him to take his time while approaching problems, these silly mistakes drastically dropped and we ended the session after we were both satisfied with his performance. The session lasted for 53 minutes.

The following words are his reflections over the lesson:

In chemistry, we were learning bond energy and how to calculate it which I didn’t find difficult but we did some practice questions together and it helped as it made sure that I was doing all the steps correctly. 
Session 2:
This lesson focused on surds and logarithms in mathematics. Since I was pretty confident in my abilities in these concepts I decided that little to no preparation was required from my side in terms of solidifying core ideas. Instead I picked out a few questions from my MYP 5 textbook for Vinuda to go over and solve during the lesson. When it came to surds, he was able to solve basic problems like expanding brackets and performing mathematical operations on surds. But when it came to more complex concepts like rationalizing the denominator he was slightly struggling. He showed me some questions he had trouble with on a practice paper he was doing in class and we went over them. I did one question by verbalizing my entire thought process while solving the question and for the others we went step by step to ensure that he understood why each step was being done. After going over these questions, we moved on to the textbook questions I had picked out and we focused on the rationalizing questions. After being unsure about a few, he was able to swiftly solve any problem and I believe he had got a grasp on the topic. Moving on the logarithms, there were little to no issues in this concept. He was able to solve logarithmic equations and manipulate them to get the desired outcome. However, in some questions he had trouble identifying the appropriate identity. To fix this, we went over each identity and I helped him realize some of the patterns present in them. This would help him notice these same patterns in the questions and know when to use which identity. We concluded the session after going over a couple more practice problems. The session lasted for 74 minutes.
The following words are Vinuda’s reflection over the session:
In math, Mr. Scott gave us a practice test and Johail helped me with some of the questions I was stuck on. I was struggling with understanding questions where I had to rationalize the denominator but he showed me the method of multiplying the denominator and it helped me understand how to do it. He also helped me understand log identities more thoroughly.
Reflection:
Through my CAS project, I believe that I have helped a student and a friend in their academic journey at OSC. The 127 minutes we spent together not only augmented his academic prowess but also strengthened our relationship as friends. Through this CAS project I have met LO2, LO3 and LO5. Learning outcome 2 was met since I had taken up the challenge of being a tutor and mentor to a student which is something I have never done before. This experience helped me understand what it took to be a teacher and the patience and attention the challenge required. Secondly, I had demonstrated planning for the entire project as well as for individual lessons which meets learning outcome 3. This planning gave structure and fluidity to each session. Lastly, by working with a student to help improve his knowledge and understanding, I demonstrated the skills required to work collaboratively like patience and effective communication. I truly enjoyed my CAS project and I hope to have the opportunity to help students in the future.
The following are Vinuda’s conclusions and reflections on the entire project:
Johail and I conducted some online lessons on Zoom where he helped me with Math and Chemistry. He is a good teacher and very approachable and not condescending which helped me feel comfortable to ask questions during the Zoom lessons.

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