Checking that Your Lesson Was Useful

One of the maxims that schoolteachers repeat is that “If a student hasn’t learned it, then you haven’t taught it.” This is particularly true for tutors; we have to show our students that we’re worth their time and money!

One of the most effective ways to do that is with something teachers call an exit ticket. This is a question or problem that asks the student to use the material they learned in a lesson. An exit ticket accomplishes two things: it lets you determine if the student really has mastered the material, and it lets the student see for themselves that they’ve learned how to tackle a problem they didn’t know how to approach before.

I like to use a pretest / posttest approach. When I do this, I give my student the problem at the beginning of the tutorial. They try to solve it, and sometimes they make progress! At some point, though, they’ll run into a part of the problem that they can’t solve. This is where I step in, and where we spend most of our time with the procedure for that lesson.

For example, when I work with elementary students on dividing fractions, they usually try to divide the numerator, and then divide the denominator. Once they see that it doesn’t work, I spend the rest of the lesson teaching them about multiplication by the inverse. Then, at the end of the lesson, I ask them to try some fraction division on their own.

With this approach, students can see themselves growing (and so can parents)! It also helps us, as tutors, see that a student has mastered some material, and it gives us confidence to move on during the next lesson.

Try this technique with a struggling student, and watch their confidence grow in just one lesson!