High School: What happens during a session?

This article is written for families with students going into or returning to high school.

What happens during a session?

We recommend that high school students try to spend 90 minutes in a session with us. What happens during a session is discussed and negotiated between the student and an instructor at the start.

Current wisdom suggests a portion of the session should be spent working through their learning plan, designed to improve mastery of fundamental math skills identified during their last assessment. Too many students want to ignore the basics, to their detriment.

Another portion of the session can be spent getting help understanding topics currently being taught in their school class. Our team of instructors has extensive experience with the Alberta high school curriculum and has chosen Mathnasium curriculum that parallels each unit within a course; these are added to the student’s learning plan. If needed, instructors will walk the student through one or two sample problems and explain the method to solve those problems and the reasoning underpinning that method. Students will then attempt to work through the remainder of the problems on their own – if they get stuck, instructors are always nearby to help.

Finally, the remaining portion of the session can be spent completing homework assigned in school. Students have access to our guest Wi-Fi network and can access their internet-based texts or digital learning platforms (e.g. D2L); we can print out those pages for them to work on, if required. Instructors are readily available to help a student understand problems and provide guidance to obtain solutions, should they encounter difficulty while working on them. We will also review their solutions and look for any obvious errors.

During summer months, a student’s learning plan topics can be prioritized to focus on mastery of required skills for their next math course – especially those in which they know they lack proficiency.

High school students are typically very involved in directing how their time is spent with us. We can help them prioritize their efforts, improve on their weaknesses, and build on their strengths.