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Afterschool Lesson Plan Database

Lesson Plan

This lesson was excerpted from the Afterschool Training Toolkit under the promising practice: Math Tutoring

Description:

This lesson provides a starting point for how small-group tutoring can be used to enhance students' learning in the afterschool hours. Based on their school-day teachers' recommendations, students work in small groups on activities that target specific math skills and areas where students need support, or enrichment activities that enhance their strengths.

Preparation:

• Meet with school-day teachers to identify students who need support or enrichment activities, learn more about the standards and benchmarks at each grade level, and identify specific skill areas, strengths, and learning goals for each student.
• Work with school-day teachers to develop an assessment tool for each student's learning goals. Discuss and design projects and activities that will give students opportunities to practice specific skills, and that will indicate that students are learning.
• Group students based on common learning goals and skills.
• Select materials and prepare activities for one-on-one work.

What to Do:

• Define the day's goals and/or skills. Begin tutoring sessions with a discussion of the day's goals. Ensure that the learning goals are ones that the students are invested in achieving by asking a question such as,"How will we know you learned this?"
• Group students and monitor both collaboration skills and learning progress.
• Encourage students to work together, ask questions, and communicate about the activity, how they are approaching the problem, and what they are learning.
• Balance homework help with other efforts to keep students interested in and focused on small-group activities and independent learning goals.
• Provide positive feedback and encourage students' success.
• Debrief what was accomplished. Each session should end with a discussion of what was accomplished and what needs to be done to prepare for the next session. Tutors should be willing to allow students to pursue new questions or ideas if this exploration will contribute to deeper understanding of the content.

Evaluate (Outcomes to look for):

• Student engagement and participation
• Progress in identified skill areas
• Increased confidence in identified skill ares
• Answers that reflect increased understanding of learning goals
• Students communicating about what they have learned and how they learned
• Students working together to problem solve