It is important to have learners verbalize their process.

As a graduation requirement, I had the privilege of designing a forty-hour experiential learning project. I decided the best setting for my growth as a future educator would be in the college's tutoring center. Below is a journal entry documenting what I learned from this valuable journey.

September 27, 2018

Since I have taken a majority of the math courses offered at SUU, I am often the only tutor who can help students needing tutoring with some of the upper division classes. Today a student working at a computer put himself on the cue for Differential Equations. When I took that class, it was not my favorite, and despite my glowing grade at the end of it, nothing I learned there really stuck. Knowing this, I went over to this student, hoping I could be of some help even with my limited understanding of the course. I started by looking over the problem, and asked him to explain his work to me, partly for my own sake. I slowly followed his explanation, and tried to watch for errors as he went. Near the very end (DE problems are very long), he paused as he looked at his work and then remarked that he’d found his mistake. This is not the first time this has happened, nor is it the last. When learners are given the opportunity to verbally explain their reasoning, often times that alone will be enough for them to find errors or solidify their understanding. We joke as tutors that it’s our ‘magical presence’, but real learning is happening! It’s happening because we’re giving them the chance to examine their own thought process. More and More I’m finding that requesting them to explain their thinking is an essential part of teaching, because not only do they often find their own errors, you as a teacher are able to easily identify where they are going wrong in their thought process and why. I’m glad I have learned how important that is, because I want my classroom to be a place where my students feel safe to verbalize their thought process and openly discuss things without fear of being wrong. Being wrong and finding out you are is more a learning experience than being right could ever be. Speaking, discussing and verbalizing math processes is a really underrated part of math education.