Students find coming for extra help a very difficult task in mathematics. Admitting to not understanding a formula or a concept gives some students a feeling of failure and inhibits their confidence in the subject.

One way students are able to overcome this difficulty of not understanding is to ask their friends. Friends are approachable and won’t judge them. However, when students do not have friends in their class, they are left trying to find someone to help them with their troubles.

The answer is to use peer tutoring. The idea behind a Math Club is to go beyond the simple collecting of students who would be willing to tutor and pairing them up with those who require help.

A Math Club has many advantages. It allows students who excel at math to help their peers with difficult concepts or with problems giving them difficulty. With the design of the actual club, it allows students who may normally not get involved in a sports club to gain friends, a recreation and a little something for their résumé.

The Club consists of a hierarchical structure. One student (or more depending on the number of participants and how the students wish to create it) presides as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). [Note: Other titles are valid.] This student is in charge of running and calling meetings.

The importance of a student run club is to give them responsibility and to make it their own. The teacher will attend meetings, offer advice, and be signer of documents, but the club is student centered.

The other positions in the club include:

• Secretary (or secretaries)
• Publicity Chair (+ 3 or more other publicity committee members)
• Treasurer
• Planner
• Peer Tutors

The secretary will document all information discussed at meetings and make memorandums on these meetings available to the executive of the club, including the teacher supervisors.

The publicity committee is responsible for making the rest of the school aware of the Math Club. Announcements over the PA system, flyers in hallways, signs, pamphlets, and advertisements for teachers and classrooms (specifically mathematics classrooms) should be created and distributed by the committee. The students in the trial run of the club found that making announcements three times a week kept attendance constant during the tutoring times.

The treasurer takes responsibility of keeping count of all funds and obtains information from student council regarding available monies for the club. He or she may also be in charge of money generating techniques, such as bake sales or other forms of money generation.

The planner is responsible for developing the weekly/monthly schedule. He or she must create a list of names of tutors and the grade levels they are able to tutor. The planner should create a monthly calendar for tutors to check for their scheduled tutoring time. It is also their responsibility to determine those tutors who have poor attendance to both meetings and to their tutoring slot. Reprimands may be discussed among the club -- hopefully it will not lead to removal.

Finally, the majority of the club members are also tutors. These are the students who give their lunch hour (or at the decided time) to offer tutoring services to their peers. It is desirable to have a minimum of two peer tutors available per session -- one who has expertise for older grades (11-OAC) and one who may only be able to tutor the younger grades (9-10).

As the club gains recognition, more students are likely to join. Eventually tutors may only be required to give up two lunch hours a month to tutor.

Most students preferred the noon hour slot as a tutoring time. Students appreciated not having to stay after school to obtain help as most had prior commitments (including part time jobs). It is a beneficial slot for students as those with morning classes can gain assistance with difficulties before they start homework, while those who have afternoon classes can obtain help on homework problems they had from the previous evening before their class begins.

A classroom with ample board room is very important for the location of the tutoring room. The club presented the tutorial centre as a place for students to come to work and also to obtain help. The structure of the actual tutoring centre is a high school version of what many universities offer, including the University of Waterloo. Groups of students who see this room as a place to work will be encouraged to do their homework during the tutorial time.

The actual club may offer special events to get students involved. One activity, a bake sale, run entirely by the Math Club, generated over $80. The bake sale was an excellent way for the club to generate initial funds. The money was used to purchase a prize for the winner of the Emery Math Club logo contest. Other events the club was discussing included putting on a popcorn sale, a cotton candy sale, or ice cream sale. These events depend on what is available at the school, but also what the students want to do.

A problem of the week is often a plausible activity for the students. The club executives can offer a challenging problem to the club each week and the secretary can keep a tally of those who pass in a correct answer. (Points may be used 0-2, etc.) Whoever has the most at the end of each term could win a small prize. Pizza parties are also popular with the students of the club as well.

The strategies behind the Math Club are benefits for the students. The student-centred Math Club offers students a sense of ownership. It also offers them a way to show their independence and pride. Since students chair the meetings and the actual tutorial centre, they can take pride in knowing they keep the Club running and students coming in for help. This also shows teachers and fellow students how responsible their peers can be.

Since students are expected to commit to the Club and to their tutorial hours, they are responsible for arriving on time and offering courteous help and support to other students. This helps to give some validity to a part-time job situation.

Peer tutors who normally would not work with others will gain some inter-personal skills. Those to whom they are offering assistance will appreciate the friendly atmosphere of the club as well as the academic knowledge of the tutors. It will give the students coming for aid confidence in asking questions and also give the tutors the opportunity to gain a friend and a feeling of accomplishment by helping someone else.

With the new curriculum, students are required to have a certain number of community service hours a year. This is an excellent chance for students to gain credit for those hours. Those particular students who wish to use the peer tutoring as a means of community service will be expected to offer more than one lunch hour per month, however, they may also consider offering tutoring after school if there are enough students interested in obtaining community service hours from tutoring.

The math club goes beyond tutoring, or just doing math. It builds a partnership between students and encourages responsibility. The Math Club is a simple way to get students involved in their school community, bettering the education of everyone involved.