Mathnasium of Avon, IN's Top 5 Moments!

1. Our favorite “aha!” moment with a student.

A: I had a student who was really struggling to understand comparing fractions. Comparing the fraction to 1/2 was helping some, but when I asked about his favorite food and we started talking about candy, it was like magic. I asked if he would rather have one piece of a candy bar that had been cut into 5 pieces or a piece of one that had been cut into 16 pieces. He immediately smiled and said that one that was cut into 5 pieces would have larger pieces! From there you could tell that he had finally made the connection, and was enjoying comparing fractions.

2. A time when a student earned a reward.

A: We had a student who informed me that she wanted to get a coveted Squishmallow, and since we only had a few of them, she knew that she had to work hard. Throughout the next few sessions, she came in ready to work, ask questions and learn. As she completed pages and mastery checks, I could see her excitement grow as she earned more stamps on her cards. Finally after a few sessions of hard work, she had earned enough cards for her prize. She was so proud of herself for not giving up and working towards her prize. After she proudly showed off her prize, we talked about what her next goal would be, and this has really motivated her to continue working hard.

3. Positive parent experience.

A: I always like to seek out parents, and share their children's successes with them. When one of my students completes a new assessment, it is a great opportunity to connect, and make sure that the parents understand what their child is accomplishing. For some of my students, this is the first time they have heard an adult genuinely complementing their work in math. I love to celebrate the child's successes with their parents!

4. Favorite ways to teach concepts.

A: One of my young students was struggling with decomposing numbers (for example 5 = 2 + __). We were all getting frustrated, and my student started shouting out numbers hoping to guess the right answer. I pulled out the dominoes, and this helped make the questions into something he could visualize. I asked him to find all of the dominoes with 2 dots on one side. Then we looked at these dominoes, and found the one that had exactly 5 dots all together. Finally he could see that the domino had 3 dots on the OTHER side, so 5 is 2 and 3 more! Once he could understand what question I was asking, we began to make forward progress.

5. A time when a student scored well on a test.

A: I am always happy when my students do well on tests, but when the student has consistently struggled in school and they do well, that is really exciting! One of my high school students has always worked really hard at Mathnasium, but has struggled to put everything together on school tests, and she has often seemed defeated after getting a poor grade. This spring, she made some major conceptual breakthroughs, and she got a fabulous grade on her first test of the second semester of Algebra 2! I was so excited for her success, and the well-deserved recognition that she was finally getting from her teacher at school. I am so proud of her hard work and her perseverance!