9. Avoid “shortcuts” and other destined-to-fail approaches
Avoid “shortcuts” and other destined-to-fail approaches.
Sometimes students will strongly assert that there are allowable shortcuts that
they can use, often including ones that their instructor has demonstrated in
class. There are good and bad shortcuts. Examples of obviously good shortcuts
are the pattern rules for differentiation (e.g.
). Examples of bad ones are trying to do too many steps in
one’s head instead of writing down intermediate steps of a multi-step
calculation.
One problem that you can get into occurs when a student asks you to tutor them
something that they obviously cannot do (that, in fact, you cannot do reliably
either) involving massive skipping of steps. Consider the derivative problem
below:
Given: 
Find F’’(x).
Start by finding F’(x):
**
**
Next find F’’(x): (use product rule)
**
**
**
**
**
Therefore:
**
So:
This can be simplified further, but that’s not the point.
I have actually had students become angry when I was unable
and unwilling to tutor them how to write this solution directly while SKIPPING
(or doing in their head) all steps marked with **.
There are several reasons why you should not attempt to tutor this if you find
it objectionable. First of all, it is obviously bad practice, and will only lead
to more bad habits in the future. Second, it is a form of intellectual
dishonesty for the tutor to teach something that the tutor honestly believes is
not in the best interest of the student. And last, if you cannot solve a problem
like this yourself with all these steps skipped, how can you possibly teach
someone else to do it?
The fact remains that we occasionally get requests to do exactly that. My advice under these circumstances is to gently and briefly explain to the student why you think it is a bad idea. If they are still insistent on trying it, attempt to find them another tutor who might be willing (for some reason) to try. Lastly, if neither of those options pans out, you as tutor have to make a decision about what will be best for the student in the long run: attempting to teach them a bad practice, or risk alienating them from the LSC by your refusal. Tough question!