Learning from minor mistakes

Meeting My Students Where They Are

I like to try and meet my students for our first session. I also try to make sure I learn as much as I can about my individual student so I can provide the quality private tutoring feel to the session.

In a way, this is something that really helps me think about all the tools and skills that the student has, and what skills or tools I think will help them the most.

At this time, I also like to learn what the student has and hasn’t been able to accomplish in their course. Usually, students tell me that they failed their first test, earn 0’s on their assigned homeworks, or just cannot understand anything that the professor and their classmates are saying. I think this is where my tutoring really starts to get interesting.

For example, I had a student who told me that they failed their first three tests and their final is in a week or so. This is- honestly- the worst case scenario. I have had some students who are in pretty tight spots, but this one; this one was a whole other level.

I was worried at first since they failed the first three general chemistry exams. Then my student hit me with the whopper: they gave up on the third exam, didn’t study at all and only studied about 4 days before the second exam.

I was so scared for my student. I could not believe that his person didn’t study for the last exam, that just struck me as unheard of. But, they had their reasons. I could tell this student really did want to improve and they did, in fact, regret their choice to NOT study before the exams. They really, really, really want to pass college chemistry and move on to dental school and take their DAT. In the end, the student made the choice to put aside their previous obligations and engagements and started to study in a very difficult and rigorous manner.

The Process

After we talked a bit about how my student ended up in the position they were in, I was able to figure out what were the things that we needed to do immediately: start working off of the exams, practice the problems, turn them into flashcards, and keep practicing those problems.

The reason why I chose to have my student write the problems on a flashcard was to have them memorize HOW to solve the questions. Not memorize the questions or the answers themselves. This is the biggest mistake that students make when studying general chemistry: they memorize the answers, not the method to solving the questions. This is why students can spend HOURS and HOURS working on flashcards for general chemistry or organic chemistry and not see any change in their exam scores or on their MCAT, DAT, or PCAT. Also, every person is different, so flashcards can be useful to everyone, but they need to be done in a certain way for certain content.

So, with this in mind, I made sure to tell my student to make flashcards for specific general chemistry exam problems that required a lot of steps and calculations. That way, they could focus on only the process of solving the problem and not on the answers or the numbers themselves. That way, it didn’t matter what numbers or change in variables the professor wrote, the METHOD for solving the problems remained the same, and that was what my student was aiming for.

Obviously, it is not wise to memorize anything in such a short manner. It is pretty much known that memorizing or “cramming” does not lead to long-term learning or the information does not really make it into long-term memory. A really good book that covers this is “Make It Stick” and a wonderful collection of psychologists have created a HUGE library about how to study and how to teach (https://www.learningscientists.org). I would recommend giving them a look and a listen. They have a really extensive podcast library.

Anyway, my student did it! They made flashcards and then did the most important part: REVIEWED THE CARDS!!!!

This is how my student was able to turn their colossal mistakes into learning moments. Even though my student admitted to giving up and not really wanting to try, they did try, and they learned a method to studying.

The Point

After all of their efforts, my student earned a passing grade on their final exam. Hopefully, as of writing this blog post, they will be able to earn a passing grade for general chemistry I at FIU.

The point is this: just because you failed one or two exams, are not earning the scores you want on the homeworks, or just feel lost in class, there is always time to correct your path and get back to earning high scores. There is always a way.

As I type this, my student just sent me their review of my services so I will go and write that one up real quick.

Feel free to look at more posts of mine or send me an email if you have any questions about flashcards and how to use them.

-Jose