Improve Your Math Score by Teaching Math to Others
This week I would like to share an approach to improving your own math score on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT by helping other students to improve their score. Every student I tutor is encouraged to pass along their knowledge to other students as there are many benefits for both students.
I believe that if you want to take yourself to the next level without too much effort, simply teach what you already know to someone else. Helping someone else to learn something new requires a much deeper understanding of the underlying material than simply having superficial knowledge of the subject matter. By engaging with someone else with less understanding than you, you will find that you often have to be creative with your explanations in order to get the other person to acquire a complete understanding of what you are trying to teach. This will force you to think about the subject matter in different ways. A nice side effect of this process is an overall improvement in both your current knowledge and your critical reasoning skills.
This is especially useful for ACT and SAT preparation and also mathematics in general where it often helps to solve problems by thinking “outside the box.” By helping others to understand how to solve problems you will be forced to review the tips, tricks and techniques that you already know. This will help you to internalize them more quickly so that you will be able to more easily identify problems where a specific strategy will be useful, and you will become more adept at using them.
Ways To Help Others
There are several ways to help others:
You can find students in your school (or elsewhere) whose current score levels are below yours and offer to tutor them in a formal setting.
You can let other students know that whenever they are stuck on a math problem, they should see you, and you will be happy to do your best to provide a solution for them.
You can answer questions on forums where students post ACT, SAT, and general math questions.
Benefits Of Helping Others
And now here are some of the benefits of helping others to improve in math:
You will be forced to review material that you have already learned.
You will be more likely to internalize strategies that you are familiar with so that they’re application becomes faster and more reliable.
You will begin developing a deeper understanding of the underlying mathematics leading to a higher level of mathematical maturity.
You will improve your problem solving and critical reasoning skills at a faster rate than by simply learning new material.
You will be providing a service to others by helping them improve their grades and standardized test scores.
So get out there and offer your tutoring services to someone who needs your help. You will be providing an invaluable service to another person. They will certainly be grateful for your help.
Of course, this applies not only to improving your math scores but to anything in life that you want to perform well in: be it college, sports, or even just playing video games!
And what about the fact that primarily you’re actually helping yourself to get into your college of choice? Well, we’ll keep that as our little secret.
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