Engineering Majors Tutor High School Students for SAT via Zoom
While many college students were catching up with social lives and soaking up summer sun, two students in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas led a virtual summer SAT preparation course.
Isaac Brooks and Tori Moore are volunteer tutors for the annual course sponsored by local nonprofit organization IntelliChoice.
“I tutored a lot in high school, and I really enjoy it,” said Moore, a sophomore pursing a degree in biomedical engineering. “I love that eureka moment when a student gets it.”
IntelliChoice offers the free 30-day summer virtual SAT camp to rising ninth through 12th grade students. Fifty-seven Dallas-area high school students signed up and logged in for two hours of class each weekday morning in July.
Moore, a Eugene McDermott Scholar from West Palm Beach, Florida, prepped for her own SAT with success but said the guided practice can be more efficient and create better results.
“Doing practice on your own is valuable but having someone who can answer questions that may arise as you are working is beneficial,” Moore said. “I found that when I was doing my own preparations, any time I was confused on a topic it would take a good deal of time to track down an answer.”
Moore, who has tutored for IntelliChoice since fall 2020, led one hour of SAT math instruction via the Zoom platform daily Monday through Friday. Brooks, a computer engineering junior who also shares Moore’s love of math, but led an hour daily covering the verbal portion of the SAT.
Both have completed their calculus requirement and speak fluidly about Math SAT content including algebra, geometry, statistics, probability and graphing.
The tutors used the Zoom platform with a combination of Khan Academy tutorials, Microsoft OneNote, virtual whiteboards and other digital tools such as Google Forms. They integrated survey questions for checking understanding and enabled chat to give immediate feedback.
“I started working with mostly sixth graders and middle school students, and I loved every second of it,” he said. “I found that teaching math concepts was only half the battle. You also have to make sure students are staying on task and working on things that are challenging to them.”
It is easier to give immediate feedback and encouragement to look at tougher problems when tutoring in person, Lee said. Without facial cues or body language, it is tough to measure boredom and true participation in an online setting.
“What has been useful is they [Brooks and Moore] set up an anonymous Google Form where students can submit feedback on the structure of the class,” Lee said. “They also used polls to gauge the students’ understanding of the questions they asked. These helped them to stay in touch with how the students are feeling about the class and how confident they are with the material.”
Summer prep students each received a hard copy of The Princeton Review SAT Prep and were assigned “homework” each day. The SAT is broken up into three sections and lasts 180 minutes. The cost is $55, and IntelliChoice reimbursed $30 to students who submitted official scores after sitting for the August test.
Brooks, who grew up in West Fargo, North Dakota, had summer jobs and didn’t always feel enthusiastic about prepping and studying while school was out. He said that the students being tutored are truly inspiring for using their free time for academic pursuits.
“When I see high school students taking two hours out of their summer mornings to study for the SAT with us, I feel good about their work ethic and their potential to do well,” Brooks said. “The fact that they show up every morning and work hard is a testament to their diligence and academic focus.”