First, let me tell you how to NOT increase confidence with a student and I am guilty of this throughout my career.

​

1) Have the material too hard for the student.  To a non-teacher is a no brainer but to a math teacher that is judeged by their end of year scores and told by admin to "stay on pace" and to follow all IEPs (must teach at grade level (even though the child is far below)), this is incredibly hard to pull off for all students.

​

2) Assume that studnets know an "easy" topic.  I use to believe students when they would say "Oh, we did this last year and I know it".   I know say "Yes, I know, but just in case others don't know it, we will do it".

​

3) Laugh or make fun of when a student misses an easy question.  To a non-teacher this almost sounds cruel if you do it as a teacher, but trust me it just comes out at times.  

​

"What is 2x3?".   "ummm, 8?".  "Oh goodness".

​

Just a simple comment or bad body language will do it.  Is very hard when you have taught a topic for many weeks and the student can't recall even the simpliest of facts from it.   

​

Yes, I believe that most of the time the student is not putting forth the effort, but it still erodes confidence.

​

So, how does a teacher build confidence?  After about 28 years into teaching I started to offer zoom tutoring (this was right after the pandemic so it was a natural progression for me to make some extra money) and I found my demeanor with kids much different than when I taught kids who struggled.

​

It was very different.  I was one on one.  I wasn't under the gun to get high test scores.  The parents trusted me.  And I was just much more relaxed.  I also looked at it differantly.  I was being paid to help their child improve in math.  I went in knowing the kid was not very strong at math and this helped with my mindset.  Here is what I did that totally made me a great tutor:

​

1) I was very patient.  When they couldn't tell me what 3x4 was, I laid it out and showed them.  I didn't seem inpatient and my body language didn't tell them they were dumb.

​

2) I went back how ever many steps to review what they missed.

​

3) I talked to them about their life and made it more personable.

​

4) I gave the parents a report after each session on what we did and if I saw any red flags.

​

5) I decided my job was to improve their math, NOT to pass an end of year test.

​

As a result all of my studnets have thrived in their own way, gained cofidence, happy to be tutored, and have become better math students.  MIT graduates in the future?  Most likely no, but that is ok.  They have built up a math confidence.

​

**I will acknowledge that this would not work for any person that is not willing to get help, so that is the first and formost requirement

I started thinking how I could translate this to the classroom to see if I could get the kids more confident in math.  Here is what I have done (and still tweak each day).

​

1) I think of work in 3 different levels.  Level 1 is below grade level, just the basics.  Level 2 is on grade level and Level 3 advanced material on that topic.  I set up my work this way.  A worksheet would start at level 1 and go to level 3.  Kids could progress at their pace.  My middle school math website is set up this way.  My low kids focus on level 1 and adv kids focus on level 3 material.

​

2) For kids way below grade level I don't care if they pass the end of year test.  It is not a realistic goal.  So, I worked with them on grade level material, but lowered down to their ability.  I don't have them do any abstract of complicated problems.  They are not there yet.

​

3) I made homework meaningful, short, and efficient.  My lower kids do myquickmath.com and xtramath for hw.  I don't have to do anything, they just log on and its there doing basic and quick stuff.  Mymedium to  higher level kids do thatquiz.org on their ability level.  Usually 10-15 questions and average time takes them 15-20 min for 3 times a week.

​

4) I really tried to dig into them as a person to see what made them tick and why their confidence was low.

​

5) Assessments for non-confident kids became a work of art.  How can I challenge them at their ability?  I had to make it so they did not always get a bad grade.  This would kill their confidence.  Are some assessments super easy?  Yup.  

​

6) I tried to look at the non-confident kids as ones I wasn't concerned with passing the end of year exam.  That would be nice, but if I took it off the table in my mind then my focus became clearer for them.

​

7) I tried to get the parents involved more with what they wanted.  Parent is a grade chaser?  Ok, your kid can make up all their work for the last 3 weeks and I will give full credit.  For math, I just want them to do the work.  Its not an ego thing.  I just wan them to practice math.  For parents who don't care about grades and just wants their kid to be happy I would work mainly on this with the kid.  Sometimes very easy assessments.  Sometimes rewards.  My focus was getting them to enjoy math.

 

There is no perfect answer, but I try anything I can to create a classroom where the non-confident studnet becomes confident.