
Because kids today are so used to working on the computer, they get in the habit of doing math in their heads—which means they can skip steps and carry errors forward. If you work with me we'll always do math with paper and pencil (or marker and board). You'll learn to think a problem through, not just click an answer on a multiple-choice assignment.
Here Madison is working on equations. Can she arrange the cards so that touching sides have expressions of equal value?Madison and her twin sister Kylee sometimes work with me at the same time because they're at similar levels. I often help families with more than one child. Sometimes we meet separately, sometimes we work as a team.In this photo my student Rhodes is 8 years old. He struggled with 3rd-grade math, so my goal that summer was to prepare him for 4th grade.
Here he's selecting answers from the TenMarks online math program.TenMarks gave Rhodes a challenging 3rd-grade math problem, and we're reading through it to make sure he understands the question: Can he accurately compare two fractions which have different denominators? Are they equal or is one larger than the other?
I had him draw visual representations of the two fractions on a dry erase board and I guided him through the question again, using his diagrams to help him compare the two fractions. He got it right!Caitlin is one of my adult students, a nurse who studied Spanish previously and now needs a refresher course with an emphasis on medical language. To accommodate her busy schedule, we meet in the evenings at a coffee shop.
Here we're reviewing verb tenses, since after speaking to a patient in the ER, she realized she had mixed up present and past tense. I always try to tailor my lessons to a student's specific needs.This is Nobel, a student from Ethiopia. I asked him to convert 5/8 of a full circle into degrees, a problem that requires multiple steps to reach a solution. He was just arriving at the answer when this picture was taken.
He first had to recognize that a circle has 360 degrees. One quarter of that is 90 degrees, so one eighth equals 45 degrees. Five of those total 225 degrees.Zohar, a 6th grader in this photo, is using her knowledge of coordinate grids, maps, and ordered pairs to interpret grid moves in the context of a silly word problem. She really likes art but has resisted math until now, so I let her illustrate the problem as a way to get her engaged (that's her drawing beneath the text). Letting her express herself as we work on math skills has turned her math attitude around. Who thought math could be so much fun?Nick is 16 in this photo and working on his summer math assignments with me. I often teach him and his brother Sam at home. In this photo he's using the Khan Academy online tutorial to help him improve his math skills.
As he watches, I sit next to him and reinforce the online lesson, query him about what he's seeing, and occasionally review math vocabulary he's forgotten over the years. As he's quizzed by the computer, if I notice a mistake in his computation or a misunderstanding of a concept, I can immediately correct it at the exact moment he needs it.In response to the pandemic, I developed some strategies for remote tutoring. Here, my student Jay is following a math tutorial on his computer with guidance from me on his iPad. We're using FaceTime, a videotelephone program that comes with most Apple devices. Other technologies are available for Windows and Android systems. See the remote tutoring page on this website for more information.Michelle, shown here when she was 15, was a North Denver high-school student whose native language is Spanish. Reading and understanding nonfiction English assignments had been hard for her. I taught her a method of two-column note taking to help organize and focus her thinking. We looked at complex sentences and how to combine them into coherent paragraphs, and she worked on turning a published essay into a formal oral presentation.
Here we're discussing components of an effective presentation—a lesson she took to heart, as you'll see in the next picture.Michelle chose to research current U.S. immigration. She studied and wrote about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that President Obama and the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services initiated in 2012. Since she's a child of immigrants, the policy directly affects her and her family.
After three weeks of hard research and focused writing, she presented her fully bilingual slide and oral presentation to a group of immigration lawyers at the Stern and Curray Global Immigration Law Office in Cherry Creek. Not bad for a 15-year-old who was struggling to write an organized paragraph just 2 months previously.
Here he's selecting answers from the TenMarks online math program.TenMarks gave Rhodes a challenging 3rd-grade math problem, and we're reading through it to make sure he understands the question: Can he accurately compare two fractions which have different denominators? Are they equal or is one larger than the other?
I had him draw visual representations of the two fractions on a dry erase board and I guided him through the question again, using his diagrams to help him compare the two fractions. He got it right!Caitlin is one of my adult students, a nurse who studied Spanish previously and now needs a refresher course with an emphasis on medical language. To accommodate her busy schedule, we meet in the evenings at a coffee shop.
Here we're reviewing verb tenses, since after speaking to a patient in the ER, she realized she had mixed up present and past tense. I always try to tailor my lessons to a student's specific needs.This is Nobel, a student from Ethiopia. I asked him to convert 5/8 of a full circle into degrees, a problem that requires multiple steps to reach a solution. He was just arriving at the answer when this picture was taken.
He first had to recognize that a circle has 360 degrees. One quarter of that is 90 degrees, so one eighth equals 45 degrees. Five of those total 225 degrees.Zohar, a 6th grader in this photo, is using her knowledge of coordinate grids, maps, and ordered pairs to interpret grid moves in the context of a silly word problem. She really likes art but has resisted math until now, so I let her illustrate the problem as a way to get her engaged (that's her drawing beneath the text). Letting her express herself as we work on math skills has turned her math attitude around. Who thought math could be so much fun?Nick is 16 in this photo and working on his summer math assignments with me. I often teach him and his brother Sam at home. In this photo he's using the Khan Academy online tutorial to help him improve his math skills.
As he watches, I sit next to him and reinforce the online lesson, query him about what he's seeing, and occasionally review math vocabulary he's forgotten over the years. As he's quizzed by the computer, if I notice a mistake in his computation or a misunderstanding of a concept, I can immediately correct it at the exact moment he needs it.In response to the pandemic, I developed some strategies for remote tutoring. Here, my student Jay is following a math tutorial on his computer with guidance from me on his iPad. We're using FaceTime, a videotelephone program that comes with most Apple devices. Other technologies are available for Windows and Android systems. See the remote tutoring page on this website for more information.Michelle, shown here when she was 15, was a North Denver high-school student whose native language is Spanish. Reading and understanding nonfiction English assignments had been hard for her. I taught her a method of two-column note taking to help organize and focus her thinking. We looked at complex sentences and how to combine them into coherent paragraphs, and she worked on turning a published essay into a formal oral presentation.
Here we're discussing components of an effective presentation—a lesson she took to heart, as you'll see in the next picture.Michelle chose to research current U.S. immigration. She studied and wrote about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that President Obama and the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services initiated in 2012. Since she's a child of immigrants, the policy directly affects her and her family.
After three weeks of hard research and focused writing, she presented her fully bilingual slide and oral presentation to a group of immigration lawyers at the Stern and Curray Global Immigration Law Office in Cherry Creek. Not bad for a 15-year-old who was struggling to write an organized paragraph just 2 months previously.