Getting Extra Help: Deciding Whether You Need Help

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During your school career, you may have times when you need extra help. The first steps in getting help are recognizing that you do need help, seeing what subject you’re having problems with, and establishing the best plan to get you back on track in your studies.

Students are sometimes ashamed to admit that they’re struggling, or they may feel they’ll get in trouble if their grades drop (especially if they have done well in the past). With this in mind, look for clues that a problem may exist at school in general, in a particular class, with a particular instructor, or with a certain student or group of students. Consider the following clues about potential problems:

• Your grades drop. If you’ve done well in the past, but your grades have dropped, it may mean that you’re struggling with new content. For example, perhaps you always did well in math, but you’re now having trouble understanding trigonometry.
• You reach a plateau. You may not be doing worse than before, but you aren’t improving. In this case, a tutor, book, or other tool may be able to help you come up with strategies to re-energize your learning.
• You just aren’t interested in class. This may be because you’re bored and need to be in a more challenging class. And if you’re not underchallenged, the class or instructor may just be boring! Even so, you need to look for some element of the topic that interests you. Think about the topic in a broad way, seeing how it relates to subjects you are interested in. See whether you can tie in ideas and topics that you do find of interest to your boring class. In addition, tutoring may be able to help you deal with frustration with a topic that’s giving you fits.
• You’ve stopped doing homework and don’t turn in other assignments. This may indicate a struggle with your class or other problems, like too many parties, friends who aren’t serious about studying, or instructors with whom you don’t click. School performance, especially a drop in performance or interest, can indicate more than just problems with the academic and learning. If this sounds like you, talk to someone you can trust — a friend, an instructor, a counselor, or your parents.
• You’re trying your best, but you just can’t grasp the concepts in a class. Students learn using a variety of methods, and most students have a preferred learning style. Some students learn best visually, while others learn best by doing. A different approach, possibly with a tutor, can help you tackle a subject using a different learning style and make learning easier for you.

Now that you know some of the signs that indicate problems on the horizon, you can best decide how to handle them, first by identifying that there is a problem, and then by recognizing that you can use extra help.

Identifying the Problem

To identify a possible problem, seek input from instructors and parents. (Yes, your parents should also be allowed to contribute their input!) Also ask yourself the following questions: