How to help Hospitality and Tourism students who struggle with Math. A practical project.
Ciet, Giovanni (2022)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022120225735
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022120225735
Tiivistelmä
Students who struggle with Mathematics are a reality in degree programs in Hospitality and Tourism Management. These struggles can be caused by a lack of skills but are often also the result of poor mathematic resilience, lack of confidence, or wrong beliefs and attitude. Indeed, the social preconception that Math is difficult or boring, or that is not really needed later in real working life, can represent a block that might cause anxiety. This Math anxiety turns out to be counterproductive and hinders the students’ learning abilities.
The purpose of this project was to make a practical experiment on how to help students who struggle with Mathematics. The experiment consisted, at a first level of intervention, of being present in the classes of Basics of Math and Excel, Financial Accounting, and Operational Budgeting as an assistant teacher who is closer to students and offers support; and, at second level of intervention, of offering extra private tutoring session to students who needed.
The project, therefore, focuses on eight students who received extra tutoring sessions and provided feedback about their improvement. To achieve the goal of helping these students obtain a better grade in these courses, a direct teaching approach focused on basic concepts, and a guided problem-solving method was used. This approach was inspired by a program being used in the USA called Response to Intervention, which has been showing positive results.
The results of this project show that students were positively affected by the extra tutoring sessions offered, and based on their perception, they’ve increased their learning outcome by gaining confidence and by having more time to repeat the basic concepts at a slower pace. Also, the direct teaching approach was well accepted and highly valued. On the other hand, this project fails to make empirically significant findings as it lacks the quantitative data needed for a better analysis. It also lacks a defined structure for identifying struggling students and a more in-depth plan on how to work with them. Instead, it takes a more experimental approach.
This is a small step towards finding more ways how to support struggling students in math. Hopefully, it’s also an example to take on, improve, and use for helping design future courses and studying programs that aim at higher inclusiveness of all students regardless of their skill level.
The purpose of this project was to make a practical experiment on how to help students who struggle with Mathematics. The experiment consisted, at a first level of intervention, of being present in the classes of Basics of Math and Excel, Financial Accounting, and Operational Budgeting as an assistant teacher who is closer to students and offers support; and, at second level of intervention, of offering extra private tutoring session to students who needed.
The project, therefore, focuses on eight students who received extra tutoring sessions and provided feedback about their improvement. To achieve the goal of helping these students obtain a better grade in these courses, a direct teaching approach focused on basic concepts, and a guided problem-solving method was used. This approach was inspired by a program being used in the USA called Response to Intervention, which has been showing positive results.
The results of this project show that students were positively affected by the extra tutoring sessions offered, and based on their perception, they’ve increased their learning outcome by gaining confidence and by having more time to repeat the basic concepts at a slower pace. Also, the direct teaching approach was well accepted and highly valued. On the other hand, this project fails to make empirically significant findings as it lacks the quantitative data needed for a better analysis. It also lacks a defined structure for identifying struggling students and a more in-depth plan on how to work with them. Instead, it takes a more experimental approach.
This is a small step towards finding more ways how to support struggling students in math. Hopefully, it’s also an example to take on, improve, and use for helping design future courses and studying programs that aim at higher inclusiveness of all students regardless of their skill level.