Study Hut has been collaborating with the AVID program providing AVID SAT Prep for 6 years. AVID takes place every week with six tutors from our Redondo Beach Location that are hand picked to facilitate the AVID tutorials. AVID SAT prep and test prep training is conducted by the owners of Study Hut Tutoring, and helps students improve upon their test prep skills. The AVID sophomores begin with pre AVID SAT prep and AVID juniors dive deeper with full AVID SAT prep.
During the AVID classes, each student comes prepared with their tutorial form filled out with their question or information that they want to review or understand better. Each student has a chance to get up and present their question to their small groups and then the tutor will help answer any questions needed while the other students take notes and participate in the discussion. Each student gets about 5-6 minutes for their individual question which makes the hour go by quickly once each student has presented.
We are able to track students progress and the students get points for their achievements, being engaging and participating in the group lessons. Another awesome collaboration we have going on with Peninsula is that a Study Hut manager along side a teacher lead ACT/SAT training as well.
There are about 25 students that are taught by one manager and one teacher that receive instruction and receive homework assignments to complete and to help track their growth. The sophomores receive test prep once per month and the juniors receive test prep help once per week. We use an online system that we use in office that helps track progress and makes for a smooth class and easy way to generate the information needed. The manager will help with the Math portion of the test prep and the teacher will help with the English portion of the test prep. We are very excited for the school year and to see many familiar faces around campus!
With finals right around the corner, a lot of different high schools are gearing up for their weekend finals cram sessions. Study Hut tutors will be helping out at Palos Verdes High School, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, and West Torrance High School. The AVID classes are holding the sessions in the Palos Verdes Peninsula School District.
There are a lot of different ways that students can maximize their results during tutoring in large groups. First, find other students who are studying the same subject, or better yet are in the same class with the same teacher. Someone may have taken better notes, or have been there on a day when you were absent. Together your group can try and work your way through the more difficult concepts of the semester together. Go through the study guide for the final together. Make sure that the answers make sense to everyone. If you are having trouble with a concept, have a friend explain it to you. They may be able to make it make sense in a way that your teacher could not. Do the same for your friends. Teaching the material to your friends will also help you get a better grasp on the information. If any of you have contradicting answers to one of the questions, make sure you find out what is actually correct either by looking in your book, asking a tutor, or by searching on the internet. Afterward, review the information later in the day or the following day on your own to make sure that it all sank in.
Keeping your binders or binders organized is important for a few reasons. You will know where everything is, which means: no missing assignments that you totally did, no missing notes to search for while you are studying for a test, and everything no shuffling through every paper trying to find a worksheet from class. You will spend less time trying to find things. An organized binder will also keep you from getting stressed out or frustrated because you will always have your things and be able to find them. Luckily, keeping your binder organized is super easy to do.
First, be diligent about keeping up your binder. If you let it pile up until there are papers falling out everywhere and all the pockets are tearing, you are not really keeping your binder organized.
Use dividers to separate different classes and sections. Some students like to separate notes and homework, while others like to just divide it by classes. Do whichever way works best for you.
If you do not have time to put a worksheet or handout in its proper place when you get it in class, put it in a front pocket. Then every day when you get home, put all your pocket papers in the right place before you get started on your homework. It will only take a few seconds but it will make a world of difference.
With your organized binder, you will find that you have fewer missing assignments in class, better access to your notes, and overall a better grade!
Study Hut tutors have the opportunity to work with the Academics Via Individual Determination (AVID) program at different high schools. One of these schools is Peninsula High School in Palos Verdes. During her freshman year, a student named Cindy was among one of the students I got to regularly help last school year. Now as a sophomore, Cindy comes in to Study Hut for tutoring and it seems fair to say that she is both enjoying it and benefitting from it. While waiting for her ride after one of her sessions, Cindy decided to hang around. Since I did not have a student at the time, I invited Cindy to sit at my table until her ride came (more like she invited herself to come sit). We chatted about her AVID class, school functions, friends, and life in general. Although the conversation only lasted about five minutes, it was one of those small events that happened to make my day that much better. It was a great feeling knowing that she was comfortable enough to talk to me like a friend and I was able to provide her with advice as a mentor. On behalf of the Study Hut tutors, we strive to provide an environment that balances serious styles and laid-back styles in order to allow students to succeed inside the classroom and beyond. This is just one example of the bonds that the tutors and students experience at Study Hut – I am sure there have been and will be plenty more.
In the beginning of spring 2014 semester, Laura, Justin, and I had one-on-one advisement sessions with Mr. Mullen’s AVID (http://www.avid.org) class at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School (PVPHS). We split the class up into four groups & had each freshman student bring up their grades, as well as a write-up of their future goals for spring semester. The main objective of these one-on-one meetings was to assess & acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses in each individual’s academic performance, analyze certain areas in which the students needed improvement, discuss their past history of success & setbacks, visualize how they should go about working towards those improvements, and how they could tackle their educational struggles so that they may be able to achieve their end goals.
During these mini break-out sessions, I noticed a pattern with a couple of my Biology students. Nicco, Sarah,Tessa, and Annie, talked about how hard it was to retain all the information their teachers expected them to digest & how they continued to struggle with this particular subject. I informed the students that they should be delegating at least 45 minutes per day to Biology because the subject requires a lot more memorization than most of their other subjects. In addition, I advised them to take advantage of all the resources available to them, whether it’s their textbook, materials given out in class, valid online resources, or even videos from places like www.khanacademy.org.
I felt that these individual conference meetings were very beneficial to the students because each student goes through their own distinctive battle. As an AVID tutor, my goal is not only to teach the appropriate set of skills, but also to ascertain students’ attitudes towards school and their self-perception as learners. Furthermore, by uncovering the root of their concerns about school & listening attentively, I develop relationships with my students based on mutual respect, thereby opening their minds to learning and applying skills.
From iLead to AVID, Study Hut covers ground in the South Bay!
Study Hut has had the privilege to extend our tutoring services to local high schools in the South Bay, including South High, Palos Verdes High School and Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. We are able to do this by orchestrating in-class programs like AVID (http://www.avid.org/) in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District and ILEAD through the Torrance Unified School District. In a typical AVID or ILEAD class, Study Hut will send a number of tutors (typically ranging from four to eight) who each specialize in variety of academic subjects. Our tutors then have the unique opportunity to break the class into smaller groups of students based on subject each student feels that he or she need the most help with.
Last Tuesday was an awesome day at both South High and Peninsula! We arrived at South High for ILEAD at 8am to offer additional tutoring on late start mornings. We then separated the students into a “Math and Science” classroom, and an “English, History and Foreign Language” classroom. Tori and I were put in charge of English, History and Languages room. After an hour of answering questions about everything from World War I and the differences between Preterite and Imperfect in Spanish, our manager Justin was nice enough to take us out to a quick breakfast to refuel before we headed up to PVPHS to tutor in AVID for their third and fourth periods.In AVID we like to take a more hands on approach by encouraging the students to break into groups and take turns writing their questions on the board. Their peers then use their notes and textbooks to help them solve their problem. In my English groups in AVID, we had some remarkable discussions about Animal Farm (my favorite) and determining Direct Objects vs. Predicate Nominatives.
I recently received an email that gives a good perspective on teachers and their stance on district fund allocation. This thread is admittedly slanted, and only reflects one person’s point of view. Nonetheless, I find it thought-provoking. Please feel free to email info@studyhut.com if you would like to propose a rebuttal. I will post the best response:
Today we spoke about students needing to keep track of their own grades in the last 7-9 weeks of school here since teachers are not posting now as a way to get attention to the 180 days of school issue and to try to convince the school board that teachers who haven’t gotten a raise in some years deserve one. You may know that when money was ultra tight, we teachers agreed to cut our own (and more importantly the students’) work schedule as a way to furlough our salaries and keep the district solvent. [And we know you all chipped in more than your share as well to PEF and I do the same for my kids in MBUSD]. Anyway, it’s an allocation of district revenue issue that everyone should be weighing in on, and teachers are financially stressed and as inflation raises everyone’s cost of living, it is getting more and more difficult to live on a reduced work schedule. Not to mention, should we as a society, be reducing our educational calendar as the rest of the globe certainly is not decreasing theirs? If you disagree with me, I certainly would respect your differing viewpoint, and welcome you to share it with me. But, for better or worse right now, we need to be extra vigilante of our own school performance and stay on top of our homework and prepare for exams. There are only 7 weeks to Memorial Day (including this week) and then final exams are the week after a severely truncated Memorial week (with Monday off and 2 senior project minimum days for students).
Study Hut tutors could not be more excited for the big Finals push. We have students from AVID coming in for private tutoring all week, but we also have a huge event scheduled for Saturday. As in years past, we will be hosting an all day tutoring and study session on campus at Palos Verdes High School. We will have access to multiple different classrooms, and tutors will get to go into different rooms and help students with the specific subjects they need most help with.
This year, there will undoubtedly be math tutoring, science tutoring (including biology tutoring and chemistry tutoring), history tutoring, from World History and EHAP to U.S. History, Government, and Economics tutoring. Math tutoring will include algebra tutoring, geometry tutoring, algebra 2 tutoring, pre-calculus tutoring, trigonometry tutoring, and maybe even some calculus and FTS tutoring.
We will also, of course, have English tutoring, writing tutoring for students with an upcoming final paper, Spanish tutoring (all levels), and probably a few other subjects as well.
The event is free (and required!) for all AVID students, and speaking from past experience, it is an extremely productive event for all students involved. The teachers always come to support, supervise, and offer their knowledge as well.
And best of all, we are getting El Taco Man ordered, so he will be showing up with his cart, and all the tacos any young man or woman can eat. Does it get any better than this? I think not. See you on Saturday.
AVID 10,
Bagels tomorrow! Yay! Thank you bagel families!
Grade POs due. EC to write a letter to last guest speakers: Michelle and Laura.
Room 306 is ours thanks to Ms. Sheridan who wanted to keep the room but realized it was perfect for our AVID class and gave it up for us. A big thank you to Ms. Sheridan who comes back from maternity leave this coming Monday!
Thanks to all who RSVPed (Yes or No). I attended the AVID 12 dinner tonight and it was a great time. I doubly look forward to ours on Wednesday!
Tomorrow we will spend half the class on our essay. Tuesday will be the same and notes are due Tuesday as well.
We had a great lesson from Studyhut’s SP and Rob Stone on Wednesday where we learned that for difficult problems with “easy” answers, it’s a great opportunity to “work backwards” and plug in the answer choices into the problem to find your answer (starting with the middle number). Thanks Rob and SP! HW for practice on this lesson is out of the book and is due our next Wednesday A day in 2 weeks.
There are many benefits of doing the Avid program at Peninsula High School. On average, Avid can benefit as many as 60 students daily. Students come to Avid with two study questions on the subjects they mainly struggle with. They receive assistance from other Avid students that are familiar with the material or are going through the same material. They are prompted by questions from the tutors that will ultimately help them get to the answer, as well as keep them on track if they stray from the boundaries of the correct answer. If utilized to its highest potential, the Avid program can help students learn valuable study skills that they can carry with them as they go on to college. Many students come to look to their fellow students and tutors as mentors. Also, Avid students that really need help with schoolwork, but cannot afford a private tutor find the program to be of great benefit. The Avid program takes students with great potential but not exactly the right skills and helps them fine tune as well as push their abilities to become better students. As a tutor, I also find benefit of my presence at the Avid program. I believe it to be a rewarding experience not only for the students, but for myself as well. I am able to help students that would not otherwise seek outside help for their studies, and I am able to challenge my abilities by tutoring more than one student at a time.
