Good day lovely hivers and home edders, I hope you all have been good.
I am here again to share another wonderful home educating experience and knowledge with you all.
Today, I want to show you one of the strategies I use in my home school. This strategy is indeed a wonderful one and has indeed proven to be very effective. I first tried it on my student Joel and ever since, it's been my most preferred strategy
Here is Joel. He is actually my oldest students, It's really amazing how big he has grown, he is even taller than me now 😄😄😄.
Joel is now in senior high school and is preparing for college. I was hired years back to coach him and help him with his maths. I was hired basically because I was young and unlike his previous teachers, I was soft, empathic and could relate to his difficulties
He is my first official home student and with him I made my first and major breakthrough in home educating.
Although I had always taught my cousins and nieces at home, that didn't count for so much to my employers( Joel's parents). They were still sceptical about my competence and found it a bit hard to trust me with their son. They felt I was inexperienced.
Later on, they decided they would try me for one month pending when they got someone older to coach him.
Few days after I had started, Joel was signed up for a National academic competition and I had to help him prepare for the competition.
His parents didn't believe he could win, they just prayed that he got past the state level and maybe the regional level. To achieve their dreams. They gave me a target that to them seemed high and almost unachievable for me. They said they wanted him to come tenth(10th) in the National level.
Joel is a smart boy and I believed that he could do better than that. I believed that he could win, although he didn't believe himself so much considering the fact that a lot of other smart students would be coming for the competition.
I had to become not just a teacher but also a friend, I gave him a pep talk and helped him get rid of the idea that he wasn't good enough. I motivated him and told him and told him that all he needed to do was to study hard and be diligent. He gradually got over his fears.
We worked really hard for that competition. He had to do great, not just for himself but for me and his parents also
We went to the competition and we surpassed the expectation and goals set by his parents. Although we didn't win, he came second in the National level.
His parents were really happy, I was happy as well. Joel was also happy and proud of himself. He began believing in himself from that day.
His parents also believed and trusted me afterwards. They retained me as his permanent lesson teacher and up till date (years after), I still tutor him at home.
Joel's success brought my breakthrough.
I began getting calls by different parents to tutor their children and that was how my home tutoring began to blossom.
One of the strategies I employed in teaching Joel is the student-led classroom or the teacher-and-student-swapstrategy.
In this strategy, the child becomes the teacher while you(the teacher) becomes the student and you would have them teach you the topic you taught them in the previous class. Since you're the student, you get to ask questions and they get to answer. This strategy is always fun.
I remember when I swapped role with one of my little students, she told me to stand up because according to her I wasn't concentrating.
ADVANTAGES OF THIS STRATEGY
- This strategy exposes the student's areas of weakness.
- It encourages them to study and makes them have that sense of responsibility.
- This strategy aids retention : Yes this is the most important advantage of this strategy. It's is quite hard to forget what you have taught. Once the student has learned and taught a topic, you can be rest assured that they won't forget it in a hurry.
- It helps them gain teaching experience
- It also helps you as a teacher to evaluate their growth rate and check the progress level
Here is Joel in one of our classes where he was the teacher and I became the student. That day he was teaching me about FORCE AND TYPES OF FORCE
Thank you all so much for stopping by, I want to also thank this community
and everyone that has contributed their bits to the growth of this community. Home education is Noble and we should not make light of it. Thanks alot and God bless you all.