I don’t mean to be too critical but “do you understand that?” is not a question to which the answer is ever likely to be useful. It very tempting, but the answer (invariably a sort of glazed “yes”) contains no information whatever. When tutoring, your aim should be to elicit evidence of understanding. In other words, ask a question with a definite answer to which a person who did understand what you’d just explained would have no problem responding.
A good ideal to aim for when tutoring something like maths or computer science is never tell them anything—it’s amazing what you can manage to teach in a session which consists entirely of you asking them questions and them providing you with answers.
Yes, that sort of Socratic method of teaching works rather better in fairly logical, self-evident areas. Less well in history etc. though you can use a bit of it almost anywhere.
I don’t mean to be too critical but “do you understand that?” is not a question to which the answer is ever likely to be useful. It very tempting, but the answer (invariably a sort of glazed “yes”) contains no information whatever. When tutoring, your aim should be to elicit evidence of understanding. In other words, ask a question with a definite answer to which a person who did understand what you’d just explained would have no problem responding.
A good ideal to aim for when tutoring something like maths or computer science is never tell them anything—it’s amazing what you can manage to teach in a session which consists entirely of you asking them questions and them providing you with answers.
Yes, that sort of Socratic method of teaching works rather better in fairly logical, self-evident areas. Less well in history etc. though you can use a bit of it almost anywhere.