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As an in-home tutor for over five years, I quickly realised students are, in general, disorganised, lack planning, scared to implement their ideas, and rarely reflect on their learning. This is a good description of the majority of students. Of course this does not refer to the top 20% but believe it or not, they too lack in some of these areas. Why aren't students taught about organising, planning, implementing and reflecting? The answer is simple. Students are not taught these skills directly because they are not academic subjects. The word, "directly," was used in the sentence above because the skills of organising, planning, implementing, and reflecting (OPIR) are worked into the classroom, but their use is indirect. Since the OPIR skills are not subjects, they do not appear as benchmarks or standardised outcomes that make up the accepted curriculum. They are different than traditional subjects and therefore are difficult to classify. Too many other requirements make their way into the curriculum and therefore they are officially omitted. A good teacher will teach their students to work on the OPIR skills, won't they? We are creatures of habit. As such, most of us tend to do things the way we were taught. Teachers are no different. One would hope, in teachers college, a teacher would come to understand the need to provide instruction in a variety of different ways. However, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and our strengths are usually relied heavily upon. This means a teacher who is very logical is likely to teach in a logical manner. A teacher who is bodily/kinesthetic is likely to teach in a way that caters to that style. I hope you see what I am getting at. No matter how forward thinking teacher training is, all of us fall back on our past. Unfortunately, the OPIR skills do not have a historical foundation and therefore are rarely reinforced in the classroom. Learning Strategies to Strengthen OPIR Skills To strengthen the OPIR skills you need only implement learning strategies. Learning strategies such as the daily check list, brainstorming, mind mapping, anti-procrastination plan, and journaling are easy to implement if you understand their significance. In-Home Tutoring to Reinforce Learning Strategies The classroom isn't reinforcing learning strategies. In-home tutoring can be the perfect environment for the introduction of learning strategies in an effort to strengthen OPIR skills. Too much emphasis is placed on homework support. A better use of the time between students and tutors is to think about OPIR skills. When students are better at organising, planning, implementing and reflecting, they become more independently successful. Surely, independent academic success is the goal of any tutoring. If you are a teacher, tutor, or a parent, think about how you might help a student with their OPIR skills by introducing them to learning strategies. Help them succeed in all subjects. Show a student how to learn instead of what to learn. That is something to reflect upon. Christopher Binns is the owner and operator of Tutor Direct and Certified Tutors of Canada an In-Home Tutoring Company. Both companies are education based and help students achieve their academic potentials. In addition to being a certified teacher, Christopher is the creator of the OPIR Framework, a process by which to support learning taking into account multiple intelligence theory.
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learning strategies, organising strategies, planning strategies, implementing strategies, reflecting strategies, academic achievement, in-home tutorin,
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