volunteer maths teaching for a 17yr old

[Bluehonda]

HI
I've been volunteer teaching about 8 years in a girls' school, techy stuff, small classes, 1-2 hours a week. Lots of GCSE's as a result. I'm a fellah, but the safeguarding stuff is under control, not an issue here. I'm an old grey retired techy engineer. I do a load of powerpoints and acrobat /photoshop prep stuff for them. Stirs the little grey cells.
I have no teaching qualification.
A girl (17) doing a science GCE A subject is weak at maths so I've agreed to go in 1hr a week to help 1:1.
It'll be standard deviations and maths around that level, not A level maths so I can bone up ok for that - I did a degree with maths in.
I haven't even met her yet (there's a female science dept head, and her mum, in the loop who think it'll be fine) but I gather she's a, "I'm no good at maths" lass. She'll be at a definite disadvantage if she can't do the mathsy stuff on her course.
My plan was to show her a past paper question with maths in it, see how she goes and let her lead it.
SO, question is - if you decided you were no good at maths but had to slog through somehow, how would you, or your daughter, want to be taught?

TIA
Brian

She might think that she's no good at maths and that actually not be the reality - girls have a tendency to lack confidence in their maths skills even when they're ok.

Find out what grade she got at GCSE.

Find out what calculator she has got. If it's a Classwiz it can perform calculations like standard deviation so it would be worth her becoming proficient in using it.

First lesson will be tricky because you don't know her. Ask her what she struggles with, what are they doing now etc, and then work around that (you might need to get a textbook/workbook). Lots of step by step guidance and praise to boost her confidence.

I'm guessing as you mention standard deviation, it's biology she's doing? You probably know, but 10% of the marks on the biology exam are maths questions BUT this includes things like interpreting graphs/data, drawing graphs, even drawing results tables. The amount of actual "maths" she will need to do is lower.

I'd suggest finding a list of maths skills for her exam board like here: www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/science/as-and-a-level/biology-7401-7402/mathematical-requirements-and-exemplifications

Ask her to rate herself on each skill- RAG can be useful here, and I'd focus on weak points which are easy wins. E.G. I bet she'll find the idea of logs terrifying, but on any modern calculator, they're pretty easy!

Some of the biology maths questions are a bit tricky- they require a problem solving approach. I wouldn't go in with a maths question for her to do the first time, as she may simply not see where to start (and, if in first year of A-levels, not have been taught the skills yet)- I think this could dent her confidence further.

Instead, I'd go down the route of teaching a skill, then doing some past paper questions with support- let her develop confidence, and show her how to gain marks. She doesn't have to get the right answer each time, but picking up a few marks on each maths question on the paper is far better than leaving it blank.

Really drill her on things like writing in units, conventions in drawing graphs etc- these are easy marks that students often drop.

Oh, and a further point, the conventions for biology are sometimes a bit different than the conventions for e.g. Maths GCSE- for example we are big on curves of best fit. I would check anything you're doing against a decent textbook, just to be sure that you're meeting the demands of the spec!

Hey, PACC, some super ideas there, thanks so very much. It's not actually biol, but it ES very close. I don't want a search to find it...
Looking at the maths from the spec you linked, it's almost identical. There is even for eg Capture - Recapture Sampling and the stats methods . That means I can use bio past AQA papers, for example mathsy questions and not corrupt her current teacher's homework etc. Even better, bio at this school isn't AQA. Result!! :). The teacher in the loop also teaches bio and her own maths isn't her best asset. There aren't many past papErS for my subject so maybe what I do can be shared. (I've done ppts she uses)
I asked about the student's GCSE - it's "Foundation" which I gather means unspectacular.
I've ordered 'cgp maths for bio' from ebay - costs buttons.

I noticed what you mean about the problem-solving approach they use. Looking at some of the past papers and their MS, some of their thinking, I find perplexing. Maybe that's just me!

I'll tell the lass she can break off any time she isn't comfortable for whatever reason without seeing me first, so we'll see.
I may be back.....

Have a look at the Core Maths syllabus and resources. They’ll likely be useful for a student who is not studying A level maths, but needs to use it in their course, as that’s what Core Maths was designed for.

@Bluehonda If she got a 5 at GCSE on foundation, her maths should be just about okay for Environmental Science- the maths demands are a bit easier than biology, I think. If she got a 4 then I think she'll struggle with the maths.

For AQA Environmental Science, they say the maths questions on the paper will be at least the standard of Higher GCSE.

I'd suggest ensuring she's really confident with:
-Graphs (drawing + interpreting including using a graph to find a rate)
-Percentages, including calculating percentage change
-Standard form
-Converting between units, including time
-Finding the area of an irregular shape
-Finding the mean and the range, and knowing what these mean.
-Substituting into an equation

If she can do all of those, then it's probably time to move on to some of the trickier stuff like standard deviation.

E.G. I bet she'll find the idea of logs terrifying, but on any modern calculator, they're pretty easy!

Which reminds me, it's worth you familiarising yourself with whatever type of calculator she's using, because it probably does a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily expect. Modern calculators do fractions, they do trig and give you values in surd form or in terms of pi (possibly not relevant for biology), and nobody needs to change base for logs any more, because they do logs to any base. The harder part is sometimes persuading them to give you the answer as a decimal. (I once tutored a girl who never brought her calculator. When she finally did, two days before her GCSE calculator paper, she was unable to answer a question that needed the square root of 11 to a given number of d.p., because her calculator just gave the surd. It's fortunate we found out in time for me to show her which button to use to get the decimal.)

I keep typing answers which vanish 😥. I'll go shorter.
@Hayliebells I checked - very useful at AQA, thanks a lot. I haven't found much material other than from AQA yet. I can't download the practice papers as I'm not Registered but Miss should be able to. I found Level3 past papers which I can get.
I can base questions on those and bio.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl That's a good list I think, thanks. I've checked the past papers' maths content and have to get my head round what might be hard. My mum glazed over at the thought of finding the VAT on 3 quid, and I did some teaching in industry where someone plugged numbers into a little formula and pressed the buttons on the calculator for
"10 ÷ 1 = "
so I have a little exposure to strugglers!

I'll do a few weeks SOW and cook up some Qs from the above sources, with answers stretched out on ppts.

ES is a beast of a subject for having to remember a lot of info from a book which isn't organised very clearly, so I've been grinding out ppts to try to help set chunks out with pictures and animations and whatnot, with Q's and A's at the end.

@lanthanum good tip, thanks. I'll find out what the official calculator is and get one.
The calculator app on my phone does regression analysis and calculus. Remembering how is the hard bit.
logs - you're right, half lives defeat them all (including the teacher!)

@noblegiraffe soz missed your post. Yes. I will, thanks. I've ordered CGP
which should help.
I've met the anti-maths thing!
Sitting down?
A true story: I proposed doing a few lessons demonstrating a techy thing, for the summer term. A teacher (female) said, "Don't forget they're only girls".
If looks could kill (other teachers present) she'd have dematerialized, but we just recovered our jaws.

Finally got to actually start with this student.
She got a 4 at GCSE.
The only person I've found to be as weak at percentages-level maths, is my mother! Still, that's a start.
She's keen and likeable, but this could be a bit of a struggle. If we can get her to being solid on most of the fundamentals, it should get her some marks on the mathsy questions.
There must be other subjects like Geog A where there are strugglers too, and I'd prefer to be in a room with more than one solitary girl, but the school's a bit parochial within subjects.

I volunteer to teach maths at college.

You’ll find that physical maths - or visual maths is easier than written maths to cover the basics.

Do you have any resources?

Good point.

We both have the CGP maths for A level biology book.

AH, a new problem, or THE REAL problem.
We've made headway through some basic maths stuff with some progress.
But now she's playing "games". Games as in the old Eric Berne, Transactional Analysis book "Games People Play" . (free download).
She'll give a stupid answer to something she knows well how to do, then go into a fit of giggling. Possibly trying to resemble a cute 17 year-old redhead. There's a game called "stupid" (p157 of the book) which descibes it pretty well.
I'm told that her mother indulges her, which is even worse news.

The way to "deal with" the game is to rigorously not play the partner's part, so she doesn't get the sympathy payoff, and hopefully just tires of it.
Or do I tell her what I think she's got into the habit of doing? I bet her mum does the same and worse, so if mum gets wind of something approaching "therapy" from this uppity old untrained teacher bloke, she could give us all grief.🙄