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Jessica Williams
Dr. Smith
Eled 3111-005
24 November 2015

Tutoring Reflection
For this class I have done a total of 10 sessions of tutoring with Terrence Sly, a fifth
grader at Devonshire Elementary School. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. The first time
I worked with Terrence I spent a few minutes in which I got to know him, and learned what some
of his hobbies were. At first he was very shy which made it difficult at times to work with.
When I go to the classroom, the teacher first does a mini lesson with the whole class to
make sure they understand the content. Then she separates the students in to groups based off
their math level. Mrs. Stanton does a great job of integrating meaningful technology into the
class. Mrs. Stanton created a website for her students to use to do their work. The website has
their math and reading assignments for the week on there. Once the students are broken into
groups they log on to the website and do their weekly assignments called math investigations.
The first objective I worked with Terrance on was division. It was challenging at first
since schools do not teach division the way I grew up with when I was in school. At first, I was
incredibly skeptical of this way and didnt want to conform to it and I found myself trying to
teach him my way. I let him show me the way he had learned and it made a lot of sense. I was
glad I learned how to do division his way.
The next topic we worked on was volume and area. Terence was really excelled in this
topic, I was really proud of him! I did not have to help him much with volume and area I only
prompted him when he was stuck. After, the students mastered basic volume problems, Mrs.
Stanton added an extension to where they would have to split the shapes in two and find the two
volumes and add or subtract them together. This was a little more challenging for Terrence
because he could not remember where he split the shapes. The last topic we covered was
fractions. This was the hardest topic by far for Terence. He did well with adding and subtracting
basic fractions with common denominators but struggled quite a bit with fractions with different

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denominators. I would constantly have to stop him and ask was he sure that was the correct way
to add, and could he add those if they were not the same. My last visit we worked on fractions
again, it was amazing to see how much he improved. The first thing he would do would check to
see if he could make a common denominator and once he did that he was set and did everything
correctly. Overall, he made great progress with fractions and I felt like I had done my part of
helping him succeed. As the weeks passed by I felt like Terrence and my self developed a bond
that stay with me over time.
Over the ten tutoring sessions I believe Terence and I developed a bond. Terence was
very shy and timid when we started out but he eventually grew to like me and we got along well
together. When I first came into the classroom I could tell he was a bit of a trouble maker. He
was always joking around with his friends and the teacher called him out quite frequently for his
behavior. Over the course of ten weeks, I could tell a huge improvement in his behavior and
overall growth as an adolescent. He was very polite and kind towards me. He also showed
growth in his academics as well. He was struggling a lot with fractions but he worked hard and
showed great accomplishments. At the end of the ten weeks I was sad to say goodbye but I
firmly believe he will move on to middle school and excel in whatever he sets his mind to.
At the beginning of the semester I was having doubts if this was the path for me. I was
hoping this experience of getting to work one on one with a student and making a visible
difference in their life would help me realize teaching was what I wanted to do, and this
experience showed me that I am on the path I want to be on. The hardest part of this experience
was the day I was there and they were taking an assessment and all I could do was read the
questions out loud to him and make sure he understood the problem. It killed me that I knew, that
he knew what to do he just needed the extra shove and encouragement but I could not give it to
him. I realized that is what will make me a great teacher. I want my students to strive for

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excellence, and do the best they can. Overall, this experience was wonderful and I would do it
again in a heartbeat. Just being able to help a child one on one and help them realize their
potential was an amazing feeling.