Students are of course my first priority as a teacher and I consistently go out of my way to provide opportunities for them to meet with me outside of class to get extra help when needed. My classes are run with the philosophy that every student always gets a second chance (or third, fourth, fifth...as it sometimes may be). My research background is in math anxiety and ways to overcome psychological barriers when teaching and learning math. As a result, I am a strong believer in the fact that the best thing for an at-risk student is to get as many chances as possible to be successful as this is the most important step toward building confidence and creating a mindset that allows them continued success.
I target struggling students and invite them to come in for extra help on their schedule and purposefully make myself available as much as possible to ensure that all my students are supported. This is, in my mind, one of the most important parts of teaching and I make it a priority to get as much contact time with students as possible to ensure they feel comfortable and confident in the subject.
There are of course many students that do not take advantage of these opportunities provided for them even after several meetings and parent conversations and I need to continue working harder in my communications to ensure they get the help that they need. My students acknowledge this gift of time and (I hope) are appreciative of it. It seems this is the case for several students as shown in their teacher feedback responses. They were asked to answer the question, "Think about the challenges you have had in this class. What can your teacher do to help you more?". Some sample responses are below.
""Mr. Roberts is a very good teacher because he can help you before, during and after school."
"In this class, I think that Mr. Roberts helps us learn very well. He gives us explanations on how to do something and if we don't understand something, we are able to see Mr. Roberts before school, after school and during extra help."
"My teacher is very kind, and helps students before and after class when needed."
"I thought Algebra was a very boring subject but Mr.Roberts made me become more interested about math"
"My grade in the beginning was not so great, and then Mr Roberts helped me get an A yay!"
"I had a bit of trouble with exponents but when I came into extra help he explained a few problems for me and then went away so that I could figure them out on my own which was good because it helped me learn."
"He is always available during extra help and after school and sometimes when I dont get the homework, he will explain it during class which is great."
"In the first semester I had in the low 80's, but towards the end, Mr. Roberts fully explained to me what I was doing wrong. He helped me with corrections and that brought my grade higher."
"I have had challenges in learning substitution and exponents, but he has helped me and I understand it now."
"He is always available before and after class and school. Great job with that!"
From a parent perspective, below is an email response from a parent of a struggling student who had continually been struggling and not taking advantage of several opportunities to come in for extra help, do test corrections and retakes to improve her understanding and overall grade (which had dropped to an F before this point). Below is my message to the parent and their response:
(Note the parent was also a friend outside of school, hence the more colloquial dialogue)
Hi (Parent),
I’m still waiting to meet with (Student) to do some corrections and retakes of exams to get her grades up. She was supposedly doing some corrections on some previous assessments but they never got back to me. We have also scheduled a few different times to meet recently but she has cancelled or not shown up each time. We really need to touch base ASAP as I’m not going to let her end the year with a 42% since there are lots of easy steps she can take to get at least a C.
Even if we need to meet outside of school, I just need to get some face time with her to make sure she stops flying under the radar. She’s struggling a lot and I get that she wants to avoid it because it’s difficult and frustrating but we can’t improve it by ignoring it. Have a chat with her and lock in a time that works for us to get this stuff taken care of. I am free tomorrow and all next week before and after school (or at home is fine too…). Whatever works to get her out of the failing zone.
Ideally, we could meet tomorrow after school and Monday and just sit and do corrections together to at least get her grade up. Then we can talk retakes later.
Kevin
Kevin,
Wow! Thanks for your commitment to helping her! I am at home today but I will forward this to (Parent). I think tomorrow after school would be fine and so would Monday. Let’s plan on that
I really appreciate your helping her when she hasn’t always tried to help herself. Avoidance is not a good strategy but I understand that the middle school brain doesn’t quite get that. Thanks for not throwing up your hands! She really values you as a teacher and so do we.
Sincerely,
(Parent)
I take my student's performance very personally and am a firm believer that if a student fails, then I have failed them. With this in mind, my absolute top priority as a teacher is to give up as much time as I need to to make sure that my students are supported and have every possible opportunity to get the help they need and the right support to be successful in mathematics.