How can a tutor keep students thinking

Technology gives students access to an extraordinary range of sources and learning opportunities that they might never discover otherwise. The Internet also provides ways for students to collaborate with peers from other states or countries who share the same interests.

Apart from offering a significant enhancement to their academic and creative lives, technology also helps advanced learners feel more connected with others, less alone and isolated. Let Kids Work Together For advanced learners, working with peers is critical. Social and emotional difficulties diminish when they have opportunities to learn with intellectual peers.

Accommodate Pace Accelerated learning should always be part of anything you do for an advanced child. Acceleration includes a broad spectrum of options—from assigning more difficult texts or research questions for a report to forming and coordinating a cluster group of high-ability students with another teacher. Advanced learners often acquire new concepts and knowledge quickly.

In fact, some children learn very quickly, while the rest of the class requires more time to synthesize new information. Strategies such as compacting, independent study, and even creative thinking activities enable above-grade students to learn at an appropriate pace for them.

Determine Prior Knowledge Find out what advanced students have mastered. Nothing's worse than twiddling thumbs over lessons already learned. Advanced students come into our rooms with abilities, experiences, and skills—much of which they either hide or lay aside. Give them credit for the knowledge and skills they possess, and help them create alternative goals.

Avoid drill-and-practice assignments that can cause boredom and potential discipline problems. Keep them engaged with a process that challenges their thinking and includes their interests. Try to assess their knowledge level prior to a new unit by a variety of means, from producing a K-W-L chart to engaging in informal discussion.

Encourage Goal Setting Give advanced students opportunities to set their own personal learning goals. What are we going to do today? Now what? All students need experience in setting goals for themselves.

Research demonstrates that setting goals has a powerful effect on student confidence and achievement. Advanced learners who come to school overflowing with ideas and energy need to develop the skill to break long-term goals down into smaller, short-term goals that are within their reach.

When students set smaller goals that lead to a larger achievement they care about, two things happen: They can focus their energy and ability, which would otherwise become diffused, and they can measure their progress in a tangible way.

Perfectionism, a common affliction of high-ability students, becomes more difficult to address in students who lack experience at goal setting. Teach Creatively Creativity is not about paintbrushes and poems. These students tend to be out-of-the-box learners, so they occasionally need alternative ways to process new concepts and information.

Creativity is not about paintbrushes and poems; it is a way of thinking and an attitude. For instance, you can request that the tutor and teacher copy you on all email communications. Or maybe you just want the tutor to let you know whenever she communicates with the school. There may not need to be as much communication as the tutor gets to know your child and as she and the teacher have collaborated for a while.

Some teachers object to a tutor using a different method than what they use in the classroom. Giving your child a different way to approach a challenge can be key in helping him work through his struggles. If so, listen to his concerns, and encourage him to talk with the tutor about them. They can work together to create more overlap between the two settings. They can also agree to stay in touch with each other as your child progresses to monitor how things are going.

You get all types of important information about your child throughout the year. After they think of ways to initiate a conversation, have them role-play talking with a teacher.

This can be done as a small group activity in the classroom or one-on-one with a trusted teacher, social worker, parent, etc. Create a secure environment: Students need to feel safe in order to be vulnerable and honest enough to ask for help.

Would you speak up and admit you needed help if you thought your peers would laugh at you? Teachers should encourage a climate of curiosity, risk taking, and openness. You can use team-building activities to increase the sense of community in the classroom, create posters that reiterate your classroom rules and values, or hang inspiring quotes on the walls.

Another great strategy is for teachers to model self-talk when doing something that requires risk taking. When I make mistakes as a teacher, I use them as opportunities to talk about imperfection and how to be resilient. Engage students from the outset of your lesson with an introductory hook. This could be anything that piques interest, establishes relevance, or inspires curiosity in the subject of the lesson, for example:.

Keep your hooks short and segue them directly into an overview of the learning goal. Weaving humor throughout your lesson lightens the mood and makes for a more fun experience. Present learning content in a variety of mediums, including video, audio, and digital resources. Using such tech-rich resources is engaging for two reasons. Transform activities into games by including levels of difficulty, rewards, and competitive elements. You can read more about gamifying learning here.

Gamified learning programs can do the work for you. The learning programs in the 3P suite, for example, provide a host of student-friendly games for mathematics, literacy, and science. All you have to do is select the appropriate curriculum and grant your students access. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.

These cookies do not store any personal information. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Use group work and collaboration Collaborating with small groups gives students a welcome break from solo bookwork.

Encourage students to present and share work regularly Giving students a regular opportunity to share their thoughts and demonstrate learning in front of their peers drives engagement in two ways: it makes students accountable it lets them hear from someone other than their teacher. A few ideas: Have students present in groups after a group task.

Let students read or present their work while sitting down. Give your students a say in classroom activity by: providing a choice of different activities e.