Learning Skills
General Learning Skills
General educational
mentoring involves helping a student develop a set of learning skills. Each student has a unique combination of
learning strengths and weaknesses and the goal of the mentoring is to start with
the students’ strengths and build a set of study skills and habits that will
compensate for the weaknesses. The
student will learn how to set goals, schedule their study time and figure out
what it means to study for a class or a test.
They will work on the process of getting started on a paper or project
and then scheduling the work through to completion. Some students may need to work on problem
solving skills in mainly in math and science, but applicable to other classes
as well. In some cases the issue is
learning to visualize the problem and in other cases reading and understanding
the problem is the key. Finally, many
students need to work on test taking skills.
Since each students’
needs will be unique, a specialized plan will be developed for or each
individual. Initially a meeting will be
scheduled with the student and the parents to discuss the problem areas. In general the mentoring will involve a
regular meeting to work on specific schoolwork issues as well as a daily check
in to develop organizational skills. As
the student becomes successful the number and type of meetings may change. It will be very important to get feedback
from the classroom teachers during the mentoring process.
Tutoring in Science plus Learning Skills Mentoring
For some students, it is beneficial to work on general learning skills in addition to tutoring the student in a specific subject. For example, a student may have problems with organizational skills or problem solving skills plus they may have trouble figuring out how to study effectively. Often these problems cause the most trouble in the students’ science and math classes. In this case working on the general learning skills can be combined with tutoring in a specific science or math class. In addition to the weekly meeting to study subject material, there will be a daily check-in to develop regular study habits and provide general academic support. Work on other academic issues, like getting started on an outline or an essay can take place during the daily check-in, the regular weekly meeting or scheduled separately as needed.