In an era that emphasizes the need for “deep understanding” in learning, it’s alarming that most of the students I meet requiring tutoring are totally reliant two ineffective strategies to find an answer – 1) guess and hope, or 2) don’t even try – that way you can’t get it wrong. Until recently my typical strategy would be to identify areas of  misconceptions,  and make students aware of what they needed to know to correct their knowledge of basic mathematical concepts . I stressed the importance of reasoning over guessing, and provided students with opportunities to practice and apply their new-found knowledge.  I figured I was helping them acquire the “deep understanding”  they had previously missed out on, and that this newly acquired knowledge would improve both their self-confidence and their motivation.

The really exciting part was that these students started to catch on quite quickly – cognitive conflict would kick in and these students started thinking for themselves to find solutions to problems they themselves had discovered.

It didn’t work  very well.
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