CAS Project – Helping out

The Aim 

I believe that finding study methods that truly work is very important yet hard to establish. Throughout my secondary education, I have faced the struggle of not finding mine, going through mindless regurgitation and memorization methods that usually helped me remember but not understand the content. It is only recently that I have found the method that is most efficient in both helping me understand the content and remember it, through methods such as active recall, and efficient note-taking.

For my CAS project, I wanted to use my newfound knowledge to contribute to the local community near my home. I live near a village which has many aspiring young students. It was my aim through this project to tutor a student struggling with studying to maybe influence a change in their mindset and methods to lead to better results. It was perfect when one of the ladies from the village who is a known friend of the family, told me about her son’s struggles in school.

It was from that day that I organized a few sessions with her son ‘Akil’ who i 14 years old, inviting him to my house, where I would spend around 40 minutes to an hour with him going through his homework and materials for upcoming exams. 

The sessions

 With the mix of studying and activity at school, I was only able to execute four study sessions. Which made it vital to prepare each session to be effective. Things considered included:

• Assessing the needs of the student: their learning style, weaknesses in current study method
  • Akils learning style was similar to mine, in which he responded well to taking notes in which he was able to gain an idea of the content in bullet points, and then progress to explaining the content either to me or himself to lock it in. 
  • Akils was failing initially in both enthusiasm and results from his previous study method because he mainly regurgitated information, writing it down aimlessly till the words filled his page, but didnt ever truly understand the knowledge present. Hence, this new form of learning I introduced forced him to understand the value of the knowledge presented as he was asked to teach it back to me. 

 

• Setting objectives: to plan the progression of study methods 
  • 1st session → Setting the foundation 28th April
    • I spent 30 mins getting to know him, however, this wasn’t hard as I already am familiar with Akil which made it easier to understand him and also influence change in his current practice. I told him about he purpose of my project, to which he was open to the idea
  • 2nd session → Starting the Work 
    • I spent a 1hr session with Akil on the 5th of May, looking over his notes for Geography, a subject I also take in the IB. first I asked him to show me his syllabus, it was then that we wrote down all the needed points of knowledge required in his syllabus to narrow down the focus of his studying. After doing this, we made bullet points of all the notes that fit within each syllabus point. 
    • After this note-taking I told him to look at his notes at home, read over them, and try to understand them without writing them down again for the next lesson he would teach them to me

• Continuing the progress: On the 12th May 
  • On the 12th of May a week later, we met again for him to teach me his geography notes, which would allow me to monitor whether or not he truly understood the content 
  • Having his notes in hand I was able to ask him questions in grey areas that still needed work, which we went over after he had finished. Overall, he did very well in his understanding and I was proud that he was able to do it organically rather than memorized and mechanically. He had truly understood the knowledge presented
• Testing his progress: on the 19th of May
  • For our last study session, I wanted to test him on his new knowledge. Hence I asked his mom ‘Sasi’ for a past test paper of his. In this class, he went over all the questions and then I marked them using the notes of his teacher. He scored 75% compared to the 35% previously scored in school. This was a great achievement as he put less effort this time, was more effective, and achieved his personal best. 

What was learned from the experience 

Through this journey, I learned the value of sharing knowledge and engaging with those around me to help and make them more successful. I valued this project because it not only allowed me to help someone close to home but also verified that my study methods also work on others.