MED 308W								JoAnna Nangle
Journal – Week 11, 05/01/07 and 05/03/07 

On Tuesday, I worked with one student for about ten minutes on Part II questions from a Math A exam.  The question we worked on involved triangle properties and exterior angles, which the student was able to recall after some guided questions to refresh her memory in the beginning.  In the past when I have worked with her, she was very uncomfortable solving equations, but in today her confidence was much higher, and grew as she realized how she knew the correct steps to take.  Although we did not have time to complete the question, I thought the session was very successful since she was able to see how she has grown as a mathematics student in such a short time.
On Thursday, I had the opportunity to work with the two girls who have been coming in together.  We were working on a Part IV question from the Math A exam that entailed finding area of a triangle, area of a circle, and using the Pythagorean Theorem.  I believe if we had tried to do this problem when the girls first came in, they would have been overwhelmed and there would have been a lot of “I don’t  know” or “I can’t do this” responses to my guiding questions.  Today, however, the girls were both up for the challenge and immediately noted the need for the Pythagorean Theorem as well as how the question was asking to find the remaining area in the figure.  They were able to correctly set-up equations with only minimal help, but then had some trouble – mainly with confidence – about how to solve the equations.  The girls quickly got over the hump though, and after some encouragement to boost their self esteem, they found the correct answers.  We did not have time to put all of the answers together to come up with the final product, but I thought the session ended very positively despite this.  The girls and I discussed how the tutoring program helped them, and they said they enjoyed coming and would miss it for the rest of the year.  When I told them how happy I was they came in so frequently and the enormous progress I saw in their development since the beginning, they smiled and beamed more than I had seen during the entire experience.  We ended by discussing different topics they could review during the month before the exam and how important it is to write as much information down for the Part II’s, III’s and IV’s as they can for the most credit.