SG care volunteer program

This is a volunteer programs for Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) Maths Coaching Initiative.

• Target audience
  • Student with D and E grades
  • For families with per capita income of S$450 and below
• Objective
  • To achieve at least an AL6 for the students' MATH exam

This week’s objectives

It is the first week of this program, the expectation of myself is to get to know the student; set up a goal for the kid. And finish this week’s learning goal. And plan next sessions.

Background

Preparation: The work I have done is to go through the coach briefing and review the PLSE syllabus. Get an idea of how much time do I get to prepare the student to pass the exam and how to organise the training sessions including timing and venue.
About the student: Primary six student, grade is AL8 which represent < 20 out of 100

Procedure

1. Introduce oneself to both of the parents and the student
2. Set up goal for the whole program
   Increase the mark from AL8 to AL5, for <20 to 65~74, originally the student proposed of 45~64
   The logic behind is to get 6 marks increment per month for the remaining 5 months
   Target for the student is to get to his dream school which he already had in mind
3. Start collecting the student’s study materials
   School textbook, school workbook as the main source, other supplementary material depends on the progress to be used as add-ons

Session

Training session last duration of this time is two hours from 8pm - 10pm on this Friday 23 April 2021.
Taught the student on his weakness of circles, during the session, realised he has also weakness in calculation, but since exam allows to bring calculator, so didn’t work on that part much.
Instead of teaching on each question, taught him the methodology:

Write the general formula -> Formula shifpform to the given condition -> substitute in all the numbers -> calculate

Like in the circle circumference questions, taught the student to write same formula for all the questions, and then look into the given conditions and shift the formula

1. C = Pi * d
2. Change d to 2r if the only given r
3. Input all the number
4. Calculate

He can apply the method to all the questions eventually, then when doing circle area questions, he knows how to apply same method with different formula.

Feedback

Asked the student to practice, and plan to give two questions regarding circle circumference and area in the next session.
During the session, I learnt something as well:

• Be more patient, especially with kid, they are shy and fragile, more sensitive to your expression and tone. Bonding is important.
• Understand how the others' mind work, and think what’s a better way to tech them to accept
• Encouragement is important so they not feel too frustrated.
• Learnt some Math terms in English since my elementary Math was taught in Chinese, some terms I’m not familiar or never heard of. Also reviewed some forgotten knowledge like what’s chord.

To-Do’s

• Check-in weekly status to the organization
• Share the signed goal-setting document signed by the student with the parents
• Printout practice questions regarding circle for next session
• work on composite circle next week
• Review previous primary five questions since the review time left for the student is only one month at most after he finish his whole textbook.