Interview with Simply Tuition

 

1. How can parents help their kids to study & learn effectively?

 

 

Over my years of both being a student and a tutor, I’ve learnt that the two most important aspects that parents need to focus on to help their children reach their academic goals is to support them with both moral and financial support. Parents need to both encourage their children to reach their dreams, but also provide their children with the realistic expectations that are required to fulfil those dreams. 

 

I have seen students miss out getting into their preferred university course as their parents told them that they were ‘studying too hard’ and discouraged the extra work they were putting in, with their child only to be left with feelings of disappointment and contempt and their missed opportunity. The education boom has made getting the high marks required to enter the top courses such as medicine and law more challenging than ever before, and it is important that parents both understand and appreciate the demanding hours that students need to put in to reach their goals. 

 

 

Likewise, financial encouragement plays a large part in a child’s wish to pursue tertiary education. Time and time again, I have seen students abandon their academic goals as they begin to take on some part-time/casual work basis, usually for a family business. This is particularly dangerous if the child does not enjoy particular subjects/teachers at school, as they then fall into the ‘trap’ of short term gratification of having extra spending money or saving up to buy a car. This leads to the child potentially sacrificing a rewarding career which in the long run would provide them with far more financial success and gratification of pursuing a career they love. 

 

 

Whilst it is important for children to understand and appreciate work and earning money, it is the parent’s role to keep their child on track with their careers and dreams and encourage them in whatever way possible to pursue tertiary education.

 

 

 

2. How to tailor-make a schedule to meet kids' specific academic needs?

 

 

At Simply Tuition, we take holistic and 3-pronged approach to designing a program for students, with the end goal to have the student ahead of the class. Firstly, we test the concept being taught in (this mainly applies to maths and science). We’ll then break down the concept that down into a series of steps that the student can then understand in their own language, so that they can still understand the idea being taught without the tutor being their. If the still don’t understand the concept, it is generally because there is some prior gap in their knowledge – and this is where the hard part of tutoring is: finding the gaps. We’ll then go back and teach reteach the concept until the child understands, contently trying to fill the gaps that are missing from earlier years. Finally, we’ll provide harder, exam style questions, which challenge the student and try and get them to manipulate the steps they’ve been taught  to solve these harder questions, and this is where the concept becomes ‘cemented’ into their knowledge.

 

 

 

 

3. How to help students absorb and learn as much as they can?

 

Repetition, repetition, repetition! When I was learning piano, my grandmother told me that those who are good practice a piece 3 times, those who are great 5, and those who are excellent 7. There’s no simple way about it, in order to excel in studies you need to put the time in. Of course there are many way to help memorise information such as acronyms, singing it to yourself, the list goes on, but many students feel that they are not capable of acquiring a certain level knowledge which is entirely false! Anyone is capable of learning anything, as long as they are willing to put the hours in and study heard. There’s no substitute for hard work!

 

 

 

 

4. What is your approach (as a educator) to help students if they cannot study effectively for tests and examinations?

 

 

From my experience, there are two main reasons that hold students back from studying effectively for tests and examinations. Firstly they don’t fully understand what is to be examined during the test, so they end up studying the wrong content. Teachers often provide a set of outcomes (usually at the beginning of the term) that outlines all the required knowledge that student must know, and what the exam is to be based around. The problem is that most students ignore it, as see it as irrelevant and discard, as it is full of technical jargon they don’t understand. What they don’t realise however is that this is the most important document that they will get all term for that course! It is vital that students hang on to the outcomes/syllabus and study it as hard as they can so they know what is in their upcoming exam.

 

 

The second reason that most students study ineffectively is due to procrastination. Every student is different when it comes to both how they procrastinate and how they overcome it, however, it is important that every student know when he or she are procrastination. A good idea for students who find they are struggling to overcome procrastination is to Google procrastination tips (not during exam time or this can end up as further procrastination!) and try out what works for them. The most popular methods used by my students is to write out a checklist of what work they need complete for that exam, or use personal rewards, such as watching 20 minutes of TV or video games after they do 2 hours worth of study. However, what works for some students does not for all, so it is encouraged for students to experiment to see what works best for them!