Your Goal: To help students form good study habits. These habits include stydying with peers, doing homework regularly, asking questions about confusing topics, using the textbook as a reference, and preparing for exams.

Your Duties: To attend class as a model student for three hours each week, facilitate student study groups for five hours each week and possibly hand out or collect assignments at study group meetings, meet with the instructor of the class for up to one hour each week and prepare for study groups (review homework, prepare test review, report attendance, etc.) for one hour each week.

You may but don't have to: Hand out papers in class, assist students with in-class seatwork, proctor make-up quizzes, or meet with students outside of scheduled hours.

Getting Started: Ask students how they did on the homework. If the entire group has the same questions, do your best to answer them. If different students have different questions, try to assign students to answer each others' questions. If the homework is not yet started, ask students to work together on the homework.

In Progress: Encourage students to work together and answer each others questions, but don't hesitate to help a student yourself if you feel it's appropriate. As students work, circulate among them watching their work. Listen to student comments and help them tie what they are learning to what they already know -- for instance, you might mention that the number of zeros of a polynomial is less than or equal to its degree. If you see errors correct them, but don't hover over students checking every step. Instead, prepare comments on technique for later as you observe student work -- are students skipping too many steps? are there "=" signs between unequal quantities? Are students saying "four three" instead of "four to the third power"?

Resist the temptation to work problems at the board for the whole group -- while it's occasionally appropriate, the more you do this the more students will rely on you to do their homework for them.

You may be asked to hand out, collect or administer assignments. This helps connect work done during coaching to work done in class and boosts attendance. If time spent on homework during coaching sessions is limited, students may come to sessions better prepared.

Finishing Up: Students will concentrate better longer if you always use the entire hour; be prepared with a task in case students finish early. Possible tasks include: advanced questions on the current material, a tour of the AAC, review for an upcoming test, review of material covered to date, relationships between current topics and topics covered earlier in the course (or in future courses!) tips on using the textbook, or creating flash cards.

Troubleshooting: Promptly report attendance problems to the instructor of your class. Math Coaching sessions are mandatory and also help students get better grades. Poor attendance may indicate a larger problem that an advisor could help with.

If students are attending but not collaborating you need not force them to work in a group. Encourage them constantly but gently, and if you see a specific situation in which they're sure to benefit from working with a group point it out to them. Whether they work alone or with their peers, they should be using the time to work on homework, ask questions about the lecture, or participate in the planned activity.

If a student is being disruptive to the coaching session, politely and calmly ask them to stop the disruptive behavior. If you feel that you've tried this and it hasn't worked, you may politely and calmly ask them to leave the coaching session; tell them you'll mark them "absent" for the session in question. If a student is repeatedly disruptive, report the problem to the instructor of the class.