Tutoring is not just a job, but it is a lifestyle that I have chosen for myself. I am a committed math tutor who is passionate about student success. As a tutor, my goal is to get every student that I work with to connect to and understand the material. I typically employ a reconstruction method during my tutoring sessions. By reconstruction, I mean I help the student build (construct) the concepts by asking a series of questions that he or she needs to answer in order to understand the material. This method not only allows me to help the students do the computations, but also helps the students retain the knowledge better. Another method that I typically employ is to relate mathematics is to relate the material back to things people know about. I have a wide variety of interests that I use to help communicate with people. These interests range from art and cooking to science. A great example is how I can relate the relationship between a function, its derivative, and its second derivative to position, speed, and acceleration. All of math has its roots in the natural sciences and should be explored in that context. With that being said, I find that I love tutoring calculus and differential equations the most because that is when the examples get interesting.
This method of mine has been something I have tweaked over a period of 7 years. I started teaching mathematics in the fall of 2008 and have continued teaching since then (also worked as a tutor for the last 4 years). I have worked at places like Ivy Tech Community College and Northern Illinois University. The classes I have taught and can tutor for ranges from basic arithmetic up to differential equations and linear algebra. My most recent reviews from Waubonsee Community College are great. One student even stated that I was the best professor he ever had. I am highly qualified to be a tutor as I have a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from Purdue University and I am also nearing completion on a Ph.D. in pure Mathematics at Northern Illinois University.