Description: Faith in education is vital for students to reach their full potential. Tutor Rosie describes how a mindful teacher can help students gain confidence and belief in their own abilities.
When teaching any subject, a learner’s confidence is the key to their success. However, often, students lack confidence in subjects which they find challenging. As tutors, we should work to help our students gain confidence in both our subject and in their learning ability. Below are some tips on how tutors help your students become their most assured selves.
Get to know your student.
Whilst this seems an obvious point, to begin with, developing a professional but warm relationship with your student is key. This is a unique benefit given to tutors working one-on-one with students. This helps us to understand what our students’ level of confidence is and how we can help to improve it. Perhaps, for example, our student lacks confidence because they have previously had a teacher with little patience.
When we work continuously with the same students, we are given the opportunity to get to know what they enjoy. We learn how they prefer to work. This allows us to tailor their learning to help improve their confidence in our subject. For example, if we know they find Topic A frustrating, perhaps we schedule it next to a more enjoyable topic. This reduces their frustration and reminds them that they are more than capable of achieving.
Put yourself in the learner’s shoes.
All of us have subjects or activities that we lack confidence in – perhaps languages, sports, or public speaking. Tutors are confident and competent in the subjects that they teach. It is important they remember that learners may not share this confidence.
As tutors, we should be prepared to empathise with our students. Remember how it feels to work on a subject or activity that you find challenging. Think about what was beneficial to you at that time. Keep in mind that the topics which you find simple may take time for your student to understand. Make sure to remind your student that it is OK to take time on any element of a subject. This is true regardless of whether this is generally considered easy or challenging.
It’s also important to remember to meet your students at their level. Do you feel intimidated when you hear the complicated language being used that you don’t understand? Remember that students may not have heard of acronyms and vocabulary that you see as familiar, and ensure that you explain these phrases to them before you begin to use them in lessons. Walking alongside your student will prevent them from becoming intimidated and losing confidence due to feeling that they are behind or that their learning is not at an acceptable level.
Create a safe space to make mistakes.
No one likes the feeling that they’ve failed at something – however, failure and learning go hand in hand. Making mistakes is an inevitable and beneficial part of learning and one that we need to accept in order to succeed. Students will often avoid answering questions or offering new ideas in lessons as they are worried that they may be wrong. It is important to cultivate an environment so that your teaching space becomes a place where mistakes are expected and accepted.
Remind your students that you yourself have often made mistakes when learning and that they should be patient with themselves if they feel frustrated. Students are more confident to give input when they become comfortable with making mistakes, which will benefit their learning.
Prioritise feedback.
Feedback is an important tool for students and for tutors. It is important to consistently provide your students with positive feedback that focuses on their good work. This will remind the students of their capability to achieve, and motivate them to continue this success in the future. Success does not have to come from completing an entire piece of work successfully – perhaps the student has done one section particularly well.
Tutors can acknowledge both areas in need of improvement and give positive feedback on a piece of work whilst still being truthful to their students. For example: ‘I can see that all of Section 1 was correct, that’s fantastic. There are some mistakes on the next page so we can look over this further.’
Make sure to frequently remind students that they are progressing well. Even if you feel that their progression is clear, they may not see it reflected as clearly as you do. Remind them of their successes: for example, review everything you have covered so far in a topic to show them how much they have remembered or remind them of specific difficulties that they have overcome.
Reward perseverance, effort and creativity.
All tutors want students to progress academically in the subject that we are tutoring. However, it’s still important to reward students for other valuable qualities that they show and develop during lessons.
Perhaps a student doesn’t quite find the textbook answer for a question, but they suggested a new useful method of finding key phrases in a text. If you can see that a student has tried especially hard on an exercise but the answers are not correct, remember to praise them for the effort that was clearly put in. These are important qualities that will inform their academic work. Ultimately, if a student feels confident in their ability to approach their learning then their work can only benefit from it.
Takeaway:
Being confident is a highly valuable trait both inside and outside of the classroom. With the right support, students can gain huge amounts of confidence which will continue to benefit them throughout their lives.
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