Well yes and no. Yes, I can work with your child to help them understand their current material as well as the material leading up to the current concepts. Unfortunately, comprehension is not something that happens overnight. So yes, over time we should see higher grades (directly correlated with higher understanding), but “fixing a grade” from an F to an A is not something I can guarantee overnight.
The short answer – I’ve been tutoring different ages and levels of math since I was 16 years old. As far as my qualifications and credentials, I’ve gotten my Masters in Education and have been a part and full-time teacher for a local school district teaching middle school math since then. I upkeep my methods of teaching and understanding of the materials annually at math conferences.
The long answer – ever since I was a little girl I knew that I’ve always wanted to be a teacher – I didn’t know which subject I wanted to teach when I was younger, but definitely, the educational profession called to me. My fifth-grade teacher saw this in me and actually nominated me “most likely to be a teacher” at my fifth-grade graduation. Fast forward to my second accounting class in college, where my professor and I entered a debate on why the corporate field was/wasn’t for me. His comment to me was, “you don’t want to be an accountant, you’d make a better math teacher than an auditor”. Needless to say, he was right, but of course, it took me four years in the audit world for me to see that.
Teaching is my calling. Children are my passion. Matt happens to be really awesome. I was designed to teach math before I even knew it.
Most of the students that I tutor are middle and high school students who are struggling with the math content in the classroom. At 1300 Preparatory Academy I do have students who are both accelerated and grade level students and need the content either repeated or explained in a different way as well. Parents also reach out to me asking to help their children advance or even preview the upcoming concerts.
In short, I act as a guide to help your student be successful in whatever they need help with. My current tutoring age range is third grade through pre-calculus.
Unlike most tutoring centers, I do not follow a strict curriculum that I’ve created or purchased. Instead, I help the students with whatever they are working on in the classroom. We prepare for tests, review challenging homework problems, go over lessons missed, and if time allows, play fun math games with fractions.
During our sessions, I typically have the student explain to me their steps for solving the problems. When students can do this without any assistance from me, I know that they understood the problem. The more problems they do correctly, the more they are likely to find the patterns and complete similar problems on their classwork and homework assignments.
Additionally, because of my years of experience with students in a classroom and individual setting, I know just by looking at the student when they really understand a topic versus when they are just making pretend to understand the topic. I require that students prove to me that they can do the work on their own before they move on to the next problem.
Gosh! That’s a great question! Mathamagical camps are for kids who love math and kids who don’t quite love math… In fact, these could even be for adults! Most of my mathemagical camps are geared toward the fun math that teachers just don’t have time to teach in the classroom – I know they don’t have the time because I was that teacher who wished to run these lessons with my students, but never had a chance because I had to finish the curriculum…
Math is magical and fun and so real world that I feel like it’s a disservice to our children not to teach them about financial literacy; or how geometrical art can really be; or how numbers and number sense are so important to our daily lives; or really how the list goes on and on.
