Matthew Buckner

9th Grade General Science

Riverside High School
Ms. Melvin

Decision about Who, what and How to tutor/teach and How to Assess
Ms. Melvin talked about this for a week or two before we made a decision on what I was
doing. She knew her four 9th graders were having trouble in Science and with my major in
Science we thought it was a perfect fit. The way we decided on what I was going to tutor on was
almost an accident. I wanted to go to their actual Science teacher and ask her what she was
teaching and or getting ready to teach. She said that she was finishing up a unit and was going to
start on density, mass, and volume the next week. I said perfect, and asked her if she minded me
testing on this and tutoring them and she said no, that would be great! We decided that I would
test them twice, a pretest and a posttest and activities in between.

Tutoring Lesson/Unit and Assessment Description

I tutored on density, mass, and volume. In Science, this is a very important skill that you
need to know. After the pretest I knew what they needed to learn and what they knew so I started
them all out on the definitions of the words. This sounds simple but they didnt know them, so I
hard to start pretty much at ground zero. The next time I met with them we went over the pretest
and I asked them questions about it. I then looked on the internet to find some fun and
interactive games they could play and we used them on day as well. They really liked that. The
next couple of times we used worksheets and helped each other solve the questions. Ms. Melvin
calls these kids her 20 percenters. What she means by this is that they have the intelligence but
they go at things in a different way. What I realized early was the more I praised them the better
and more confident they became. The assessment I chose for them was a simple worksheet that
their teacher gave me. It had 10 problems of varying difficulty that asked them to solve for
Mass, Volume, and Density. (Copy Attached)

Link to Standards
SC.S.PS.2

Students will:

Demonstrate knowledge understanding and applications of scientific facts, concepts,

principles, theories, and models delineated in the objectives.
Demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationships among physics, chemistry,
biology, earth/environmental science, and
Astronomy; and apply knowledge, understanding and skills of science subject
matter/concepts to daily life.

By learning how to calculate the density, volume, and mass of any object, these students will be
able to complete assignments in a wide variety of subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology,
and many others. Learning this simple task will carry them through their college careers if they
choose to go. They didnt just learn skills in Science, they also learned how to manipulate an
equation, which is a skill needed in higher level math classes.
Results of Assessments
Pretest results
Student

Pretest score

Posttest score

30%

80%

30%

90%

60%

100%

60%

70%

Overall

45%

85%

Density, Mass, Volume Test Scores

100%

Percentage scores

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

90%

85%

80%
60%

70%
60%
45%

30%

30%

Student A Student B Student C Student D

Overall

Student
Pretest

Postest

We set the aim line to 80% because that is mastery at most levels. As you can see there were not
any students above mastery when the pretest was administered. However, after working with the
students together and some one on one tutoring they have exceeded the goal of 80%.

Reflection and Data-Based Decision-Making

Looking back through the semester these students werent confident in their ability to achieve the
skills the teacher was asking them to do. This could be from a lot of things, but one thing I
believe is that they werent praised enough through school. Also from the pretest data I could
also gather that some of them didnt read the sentence carefully to pick out which variable to
solve for. One particular student solved for density for every one of the problems. So what I did
after I saw that is worked with her one on one to show her how to read the problem carefully and
to write down each variable that is given and to place a question mark on the one that is not.
This method worked well for her and she picked it up really well from then on. One thing that
didnt work well was just giving them a worksheet and asking them to do it. They knew they
werent getting a grade for it and all but refused to do it. Like said before, the greatest thing that
helped these students was to show them that they already had the ability to do the work they just
needed to be cheered on a lot and given the confidence to do so. If I were to teach this
differently I would do a lot of hands on activities that would not only allow them to calculate
numbers, but see what they are doing and why they are doing it. There was one student that
didnt complete mastery score on the posttest, however, I dont think its because he didnt know
how to work the problems. I believe that he didnt want to finish the test because he just got
bored and tired of working problems. The reason I think this is he got the last problems wrong
and stated he guessed at the last three. I believe the most effective part of this whole process was
that I showed the students that I believed in them and genuinely cared from them. Once they
saw that they believed in me and progress was made.
This experience has really changed my attitude and opinion about being a Special Education
teacher. These teachers love and care for these kids like they are their own. Most of them need
that love and attention because they dont get it at home. I believe thats why some of them act
out. Now dont get me wrong, a lot of them have disabilities but some just need believed in!
Thank you for this eye-opening experience it was great!