How to Work With an AP Physics Tutor

How to Work With an AP Physics Tutor Improving Academic Performance One way to ensure that you get the most value from your education is to hire a guide, someone who can provide personal attention to facilitate your learning process. Given that AP Physics is one of the most challenging courses you can take in high school, and given that it is usually preparation for even more specialized studies, hiring a dedicated AP Physics tutor makes a lot of sense. The responsibility for getting the most out of your education, however, still belongs to you, the student. Here are some steps you should take to ensure that you are using your AP Physics tutor’s services wisely. Do Your Best On Your Own The most successful physicists and engineers have been the ones who are independent thinkers. Before dumping all the responsibility in your tutor’s lap, try your best to read and understand the material and work through the problems on your own. If you get stuck in one place, don’t stop there and throw up your hands in frustration; instead note the difficulty you are having and move on as best you can. Not only will this build the study skills that you will need to progress along your educational path, it is also cost effective. The time you spend with your AP Physics tutor should be spent on filling in the gaps in your understanding, not starting from scratch. Prepare Ahead Of Time When you sit down with your tutor isn’t the time to decide what you need help with. You should spend time before the tutoring session reviewing what you know and figuring out where the gaps are, so that you can focus on those specific areas that you need help with. Do you not know the formulas? Can you not figure out which ones to use? Be ready to bring your AP Physics tutor up to speed with where you are, so that he or she can help you get caught up with the current material. Ask Questions Receiving help from a tutor is not a passive activity. You should take advantage of the personal attention to ask questions and seek clarification of anything that you don’t have a solid understanding of. Make sure you understand what you are learning from both a computational and a conceptual perspective. Unlike a teacher, it is not a tutor’s role to spoon fed you the entire curriculum, but rather to respond to your specific needs and fill in the gaps in your understanding. Review What You Learn Once the session is over, briefly review the concepts that you have acquired, and make sure that you understand them when you don’t have the tutor to explain them to you. Part of being a good scientist or engineer is being confident of your results without external verification. Review them again before the next session and make sure that you still have them; if you don’t, see the previous step. Build the habit of rigorously convincing yourself that you have learned the material, and any actual test you take will come to seem like a piece of cake. hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(215486, '6baac2ae-05a3-4610-9d1f-265c8cbd809f', {});

11+ Tutor Tips and Resources

11+ Tutor Tips and Resources This morning, fighting cold and rain, armed only with instant coffee, wits and 11+ resources, an amazing group of tutors talked through what they could do to help each other. Top tips for interview practice included: “I wear a funny hat when role-playing interview practice; it helps the student feel comfortable and makes it enjoyable. Then when the actual interview happens they’re not afraid.” Dino “I get them to interview me. I role play 3 types of pupil. First I pretend to be shy and don’t make eye contact; then I play an over confident child; then I try to relax and just act normally. I ask what they like and dislike about each of my characters and which pupil they would like in their school.” Mark The top nine 11+ resources were: Collins English Skills 5 Letts suggested by Rosaline Paul uses Galore Park Jamie made his own website for GCSE past papers â€" www.savemyexams.co.uk Cogmed and Lumosity for improving memory and speed; and Bofa 11 Plus for practicing online verbal and non-verbal reasoning which Madeleine uses The new RSL 11+ English Comprehension made by Rob Equivalency Cubes and Fraction Tower for maths aged 6+ suggested by Tom Mark has started using Bond Online  and  Learning Together Between everyone we had past papers for most top schools going back 15+ years, and most of the common interview questions. Phoebe, who runs 11+ programs in inner-city schools, shared some exercises and lesson plans. As ever the classic 11+ tutoring debate continued: (Thanks James) Do you tutor to help instil a love of learning …. or …. train students to pass specific entrance exams? Everyone seemed to prefer to make lessons fun and teach life skills whilst several tutors challenged the premise of the debate saying you can do both. No one wanted to be a ‘cramming’ tutor and there were several examples of pupils and parents who were clearly feeling the pressure. It takes a strong and experienced tutor to push back on parents who are  set on getting their child into a specific school. Those who do say it is easiest to do that from the beginning. Rob, for example, states clearly that he does not tutor to get a pupil into 1 specific school; instead he focusses on core academic and life skills. There was some criticism of the rat race of selective schools in London, with John commenting that parents sometimes pay for culture more than teaching. There are good teachers and bad teachers, just like there are good and bad tutors, and schools who take in 11 year olds capable of answering A-level questions might not always be adding the value themselves. I like Anthony Seldon’s wise words: “Your child is not your child. They are their own person and it  should be  the right school for them, not the “right” school for the parent” Many thanks to the 11+ specialist tutor  James for helping to pull everyone together. We’ll pop up more of the resources here and share more tips over the next few weeks. To find other 11+ tutors to recommend or book, please search the following subjects in your postcode on Tutorfair: 11 plus tutors   Maths 11+ English 11+ Best of luck to all tutors, teachers, students and parents facing the 11+ exam season. Edd p.s.   Genius prop from Rosaline: she has a laminated “Mind the Gap” sign which she uses to highlight that the gap is between brain and paper and to remind students to be mindful to bridge that gap. p.p.s I’m no art tutor but here’s roughly where these guys are based in London: