I can’t stress enough how important extra help is to being successful in Math. Some of the highest average students in my Honors sections got there because they came regularly to extra help. Another benefit is that a teacher that you might feel is not very approachable, is usually a lot more so at extra help where they aren’t trying to manage a large class.
The problem sometimes is that students don’t know how to get the most out of extra help.
Here are some tips to maximize your experience at extra-help.
- Don’t come in cold. Teachers don’t want to simply reteach the same lesson and try to guess what you are struggling with. The best thing to do before extra help is to try some problems at home and circle questions you couldn’t do or write down questions that came to mind (or build an “I got pwned page” during the week). Then in extra help, you can ask specific questions about problems you didn’t understand. For example: “On problem 27, I don’t know where the “5” came from” is a lot more useful than “I just don’t get the Pythagorean theorem – could you tell me how it works again?“.
- Bring a friend to extra help (or make a new one there) and work on problems together. You can learn a lot from each other and it helps motivate you to go. A lot of students just come every day after school to my room to do their homework. Sometimes they don’t ask a single questions but at least I’m there in case they need it.
- Do random problems on the smart board (from HW or problems from the book/handouts that weren’t assigned) during extra help. Sometimes teachers give mini classes (organized extra help) but most of the time they have open sessions – just ask the teacher if it’s ok.
- If someone else goes to the smart board to try a problem – stop what you’re working on and copy down this problem. Then try it at the exact same time that the other person is doing it at the board. Don’t watch them – just try the problem. If they get it right, compare your work to see what you did wrong (or right). If the teacher corrects the problem on the board, follow along and compare your work to what the teacher does. Ask questions of the teacher when they are done helping the person at the board.
- Do not come in, take out your cell phone, play a game for 15 minutes and then leave claiming at the next Parent/teacher conference “But I went to extra help every day!“
Please remember – the best students go to extra help as well, not just students who are struggling. No one should be embarrassed about going to extra help. And it shows your teacher that you really care about the class and you want to do better!
How often is extra help usually available typically?
Hi Donna. In my school, math teachers are available after school almost every day (it’s rare that they aren’t). In any school it is usually at least once a week. Have your child check with his/her teacher.