Feel like your well is running dry as you near the end of the school year?

Need a fresh idea to try in your sessions? You may not be able to actually pull a rabbit out of a hat, but you can certainly try out some of the advising team's favorite magic tricks. Keep reading for new creative tutoring ideas from your peers

Pac-Man Points

Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde are ready to help your students tackle the ACT!

Meagan Heim has her students imagine themselves as Pac-Man while they wield their pencils over the test, gobbling up one correct answer after the other. Though they certainly weren't yet born when Pac-Man came to life, students can’t resist the idea of gobbling up points as they navigate each section of the ACT.

Insult the ACT

It's about time we stop taking abuse from the super fast ACT science section.
Students may feel tired and weary by this point in the test, so arm them with a few insults to put the science section back in its place.

Shane Alpert introduces an I.N.S.U.L.T. acronym to help her students maximize their initial 30-second scan of each passage. Try having your students look for Inverses, Negatives, Scales, Units, Labels, and Trends while scanning each passage. They get all the information they need quickly, and they more easily catch all the small tricks!

Athletic Endeavors

We’ve all heard competition analogies help psych students up for tests. Dan Vowinkel offers an effective twist on these analogies by focusing on studying with a mindset and routine similar to one an athlete might use.

Dan has his students treat test preparation as an endeavor that requires endurance, speed, and execution over time. This helps his students build the foundation against which other mindset-focused competition analogies can play.

Dear Future Me,

Students can get nervous taking tests, that’s totally normal. But what can you do to help them cope with test-day jitters?

Meagan has her students write letters to their future test-day selves. They describe the experience they expect to have on test day; lay out plans for before, during, and after the test; validate their preparation and progress; reassure themselves; and generally focus on positive thoughts and goals. Click here for more details, and feel free to follow her Sample Letter to help provide a calming and relaxing ritual for your students!

Strategies + Calculator = 730

Did you know students can score as high as 730 on the Math Level 2 diagnostic only answering questions that use strategies and/or the calculator?

Allison Lee-Villanueva does, and for first sessions, she pulls all incorrect strategy and calculator questions from the diagnostic to see how many problems her students can work through without drawing on nitty-gritty details from their math courses.

Jumping so quickly to 730 allows Allison and her students to tackle all the other trickier problems and concepts on the road to an 800.