Math Help

Math Help


I am terrible, TERRIBLE at math and physics, and I don’t know where to get a good tutor for these subjects!!! I live in Bothell, Washington so does anyone know good tutoring companies around there? or ANY tutoring companies?

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Hi, I would like to ask an SI (Student Instructor) Math Tutor to give me private math tutoring lessons. He is also a student at my college, and a 19- going on 20- year old sophomore. (I am a freshman). He would be tutoring me in a Calculus level course. He did very well in his Calculus II class last year and has thus been certified to teach other students who need additional help in the Calculus course. His experience in College mathematics level tutoring, I believe, however is really only limited to one full year. I would like to pay him for private one-on-one tutoring sessions. What do you think would be a reasonable price to pay him for tutoring once a week, right here on campus?

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1.  Educational Background

An effective math tutor must have the ability to master concepts they are teaching to others.  Having a strong understanding of mathematical concepts will help the tutor and your child.  When teaching elementary and middle school students a high school diploma is the minimal expectation.  Math concepts on the high school and collegiate level may require a tutor with an undergraduate degree, preferably an individual with a major emphasizing mathematics engineering or science.

2.  Training or Past Experience

Communication skills are key a component needed when helping others learn.  Delivering materials to meet the individual’s needs is another important characteristic of an effective tutor.  Previous teaching or tutoring is a highly recommended quality when searching for an ideal tutor.  Experience at the grade level of your student is also something to look for when selecting an individual.  The education field is always changing therefore good tutors work for companies that provide ongoing professional development or seek continual training themselves.

3.  Location or Site and Schedule

Reducing the time and cost of traveling expenses is important and should be convenient for the customer.  Several bigger companies have multiple locations to provide customers with the ability to choose a site in their neighborhood.  Other companies provide telephone or online tutoring, either as their primary approach or as a supplement to classroom settings.

4.  Student to Teacher Ratio

Several case studies have proven that students learn best when instruction is delivered to meet their individual needs.  Also smaller class sizes and one-to-one learning, are emphasized so you can get the maximum assistance from math tutoring.  Usually, younger students benefit the most from smaller classroom sizes, although older students also improve academically from more individualized attention.

5. Teaching others, Practice and Testing

The best way to retain information that is taught is by teaching others; this method translates into a 90% retention rate.  This can be accomplished through probing questions used by the tutor.  Practicing is the next best retention method, which results in a 75% retention rate.  One way to accomplish this is by completing homework assignments or in-class problem discussions.  Ongoing testing will help to ensure that the concepts taught are being mastered.  Math tutoring companies often assist parents for preparation on standardized test such as the: ACT, SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, therefore having access to test in the same format as the standardized test can be beneficial.

6.  Prices

Individuals that tutor need to be compensated for their time and services, so it is not practical to think that you will receive good math tutoring for free.  In order to receive a small student to teacher ratio, it will more than likely cost a little extra.  To determine if the money invested is worth it, you will have to look at the individual needs of the student and how much they want to succeed in the subject of math.  Remember that educational expenses may be tax deductible at the end of the year, depending on the state you live in.  Therefore, it is imperative that you save your receipts and ask your accountant further questions.



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Math Help


nd a good math tutor?

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Frank Ho, Amanda Yang

Ho Math and Chess Learning Centre

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BC certified Teacher

Vancouver, BC, Canada

www.mathandchess.com

After teaching and tutoring math for over 15 years, my own experience shows that it is important to realize that after 4 hours of instruction and if the students show no sign of improvement then it is time to consider changing your tutor. With the above in mind, the most important ingredient to improve math is still that the child has to have a mind of wanting to be a good student. If this pre-condition does not exist then all tutoring efforts must be discounted.

A practical way to find if your math tutor is good is perhaps by comparison, have the child to go through a few tutors and then the child will know which is better one. This one of the reasons that Ho Math and Chess Learning Center offers free lesson.

A good tutor is not working just for money. He must be genuinely interested in teaching. Personally, I found out my enjoyment of teaching comes from the team efforts that is my students and I have actually formed a good team – not only my students learned math from me they also provided me with good feedback. Many of our workbooks were produced because I have discovered the gap in their understanding.

Many tutors taught fraction by firstly dividing pies and have students draw pie charts but where is fraction coming from? If we can get students to understand the source of fraction then students will understand better. It is also interesting for me to discover how Chinese look at fraction by saying it from bottom up and North America teaches fraction by naming fraction from top to down. Because of this discovery, I teach children by explaining fraction in 2 ways. For example, means one half but in Chinese, they say “taking one part out of 2 parts”.

A good tutor not only teaches well, but also interested in doing research. If the tutor is really interested in teaching math then most likely the interest will carry on to research this is the reason Ho Math and Chess has produced over 25 innovative workbooks – many of them are world’s first and one-of-a-kind.

A good tutor not only teaches but also knows what method or algorithm really can help children get high math marks. The following example was taught by one tutor and that tutor asked the student to convert all denominators to be the same and then add all numerators. Is there a better way to do it?

It is easier if one would just use the special nature of dividing decimals by 10’s, 100’s or 1000’s without doing any division.

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Lots of parents feel that the math at grades 1, 2, or 3 is “nothing” in such a way that really nothing to be learned other than the basic computation. Personally I totally believe that it is important for children at young age to build a solid foundation for basic computation skills, but it is equally important to have built problem-solving skills or thinking skills at young age.

A good tutor is very patient to listen to children and watch how they react after a brief lecture, a parrot style teaching is not a good sign of teaching. I have noticed that some tutors will spend entire hour on non-stop talking. Instead, I rather teach for a short time and watch my students’ reaction. I am always interested in finding out why my students could not work out the solution.

To follow student’s thoughts and trace their problems is very important. How can one be a good teacher if he does not even know why students could not get the right answers? I am interested in going over student’s hand written notes to get into their thoughts and find out what are the problems.

A good tutor is interested in finding out what procedure is good and what is not. For example, there are many ways of getting factors for a trinomial but there is only one method the student needs to master and be good at, so the math teacher or tutor needs to be flexible to allow students to have their method to get the correct answer even if it means the methods is a bit slower.

A good tutor needs patience. What would you do if the tutored child is your own child and your are a math tutor? The same treatment must be applied to the tutor’s students as if the student were tutor’s own children. I was at shock when I discovered that one tutor would insist her own son to do some open problem solving questions but just ignore all those questions when teach other children since they are time consuming to mark and explain. A tutor without heart will not be a good tutor.



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Mathematics is a dreaded subject for most of the people and demands attention to even smallest of the details. No doubt, practice makes a man perfect, but it pays to hire the professional services of a tutor who can guide you through the endless maze of numbers and computations. This instills in one, a winning streak in the numerous competitive examinations. In New York, innumerable numbers of math tutors offer their services in bettering the subject which is considered difficult by any means. Taking the help of a competent teacher ensures a proper guidance while they tutor you on various aspects of the subject. A proper teaching module which fits in with the specific requirements of a student is designed by the math tutor New York helping them in solving the complex problems of Math.

Math tutor New York is highly qualified to guide students in every aspect of the subject, spanning from elementary math to graduate level. Apart from that assistance is provided in the business courses including the subjects of elementary math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, accounting, finance and economics. A math tutor New York is well equipped to tutor math students of all ages and academic levels. Online facilities are also provided to the students so that they are able to find solutions of many problems wherever they are. The pattern and the kind of questions appearing in examinations are well known by the math teachers and hence they are able to guide a student properly towards his destination.

A math tutor helps one to clarify many doubts regarding the subject and this reflects in the results following these examinations. Plus, the effectiveness with which maths tutor in New York works for the betterment of his students, is why they opt for his services. In New York, the dedication and commitment of a math tutor helps in a better understanding of the problems and subsequently in the betterment of career prospects. Selection of a tutor who works in tandem with you to understand your needs and capabilities is important towards the final destination of success in examination. This is because the experts are able to weigh the pros and cons while guiding the students quite correctly. Yellow pages and internet can provide you with the references about these tutors who are competent in delivering the results on time.

A math tutor in New York offers correct guidance with the help of certain techniques and rules. Once these are mastered, solving the problems becomes quite easy which further helps generating interest levels of the students in the subject. By hiring the services of these professionals, competence is assured and a right background is created for the students. Math tutor New York understands that for learning the subject, personalized attention has to be paid to explain the mathematical principles and concepts. The brilliance on their part ensures just that and more. Transparency between the students and the tutor is of paramount importance because this helps in clarifying many doubts and problems. Since the tutors are well versed with every aspect of the subject, they make every effort to make their students reach the perfection in it.

 

 



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How I Become a Better Math Tutor

 

Frank Ho

 

Canada certified math teacher and founder of Ho Math and Chess

 

www.mathandchess.com

 

After spending most of my life on consulting and teaching and tutoring for over 30 years, I felt a bit depressed last few months since I was puzzled on why some kids would not make progress despite I have tried so many different strategies and made efforts to teach them. As an educator, I have constantly remind myself not label children since their potential is perhaps unknown to us and just because they are not good at math it does not mean they are going to have the dead end in their life. But still I was at loss to try to find some solutions to the following of my observations.

 

1.     I was teaching a child how to convert from km to m and then to cm and mm. He just could not get it. I drew picture of stairs to remind him that to find lower unit is to time by 10 and divide by 10 when going higher unit but he could not get it. Finally I was totally stunned when I asked him this simple question “if 1 cm is 10 mm then how many cm is for 10 mm?” He gave me answers like 100 or even thousands. Then I changed the question to “If one dime is 10 cents then how many dimes is for 10 cents?” He immediately answered one dime so I told him the relationship between 1 cm to mm is just like 1 dime to 10 cents and he replied ”Oh! I get it”. He got this money question right but still could not do the conversion. It was 8 p.m. so we all had to go home.

2.     I was preparing a girl for grade 10 final exam and despite I have taught her how to factor trinomials she looked at me as if I had never taught her the method and her day school had never taught her any method, what happened to her?  After some reviews and also showed her two ways of factoring, she told me that she simply forgot. She saw me once a week so what can I do as a tutor if she just forgets what she had learned?

3.     I was so surprised when one of my day school students told me that his day school math teacher told the whole class that 6 minus 1 and 2/3, the answer should be 6 minus 1 and then add 2/3. This is a grade 7 teacher who is teaching kids at a public school. More amazing is the boy told me that some kids actually got the right answers but was told it is wrong when in fact the teacher is wrong! Equally shocking is some math tutors perhaps should not be math tutors, I list the following examples used by some math tutors who were trying to tech children how to convert a fraction to % and how to solve an equation.

Convert 40/3 to a percent. The tutor told the student to get decimal 13.33 and then it is converted back to fraction as 13  33/100 = 1333/100 and then the answer is 13.33 after 1333 is divided by 100.  The second example is to find x of 4 x^2 – 19 = 45, 4x^2=64, 4x^2 – 64= 0, (2x + (2x – = 0, so x = + or – 4. The tutor has completely forgot the equation can be reduced as x^2 = 16 and from here an answer is very easily got by using perfect square.

 

Facing these problems, how do I educate myself to be a better tutor? I started to research the relationship between math IQ and students’ math performance and the results is very educational for me and this has led me to produce an integrated worksheets of math, IQ puzzles, chess puzzles and word problems all combined as one worksheet.

 

I observe that just by helping students’ school work; for some students it will not be enough to bring up their real math strength. I also discovered this type of integrated worksheets is most effective to use when the child is young. By continuing stress the importance of thinking skills and by continuing giving students the high-order thinking problems the students are able to make progress in improving their problem solving ability.

 

I also discovered that how wrong it is to think elementary math has 2 parts that is one part is for computation and does not train problem solving skills and the part has word problems which train problem solving or thinking skills. This kind of thinking is perhaps a mistake in making or producing math worksheets for kids and this has made kids feel the computation practice is boring and not satisfying. By producing math worksheets in a different and “out-of-box” approach, I was able to use my own students to conduct the experiment to see the difference and I was so moved when I witness the results were so much different and see the children were much happier.

 

My worksheets are developed from the “mention sensor” angles instead of “spot light” direct angle approach in that students see the relation between operations in wide different angles. For example, a student will not just practice 3 + 2, 6 + 1, 8 + 4. 7 + 4, instead they are asked to do exercises so that they see how 3 + 2 is the same as 2 + 3. They learn orientation, spatial relation, logic, and learn how to gather information and analyze it and how to do information retrieval. There are all kinds of visual stimuli built into worksheets so that they can reinforce what students learned and also to find the answers after going through a few steps just like going through the same thinking process as they would work on a word problem. I feel to develop the computation worksheets in such a way that they require students to “think” is a very innovative idea and is very different from conventional wisdom that computation is just from top to down or from left to right and aligned with numbers or sometimes with miss numbers.

 

By observing how others teach, by producing new and innovative worksheets, and by observing how children learn, I feel that I have become a better tutor on how to teach children math.



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A tutor who tutors the flute, tried to tutor two tutees the flute. Said the two to the tutor, “It is harder to toot or to tutor two tutees the flute?

-Tongue twister

Math tutors toot no flutes but they do have to know how to tutor tutees in a variety of areas. The work involves diagnosing and understanding the nature of a student’s strengths and weaknesses as well as explication of sometimes complex concepts and procedures in mathematics.

Math homework made easy? There is no better way to demystify math homework than to use tutoring services. Expert tutors work with you or your child to make short work of math homework. With the personal and private assistance of professional tutors, students have all the math homework help they need to reinforce concepts learned earlier in class and to forge ahead for the next day’s work.

Tutors should be selected for their ability to do these difficult tasks with ease and with understanding. To accomplish this, they must be able to work with students in a compassionate and caring way in order to nurture both a love for math and self-confidence in the student. Look for tutors with backgrounds in formal education and a substantial background in mathematics as a discipline.

Homework is no longer a chore when math homework help is available. Highly trained math tutors can work with students to establish a personal relationship in the privacy of the student’s home. Internet technology even makes it possible for online tutoring using a sophisticated yet easy-to-use computer-based method designed to give the best instructional help with the personal touch.

Eliminating the fuss and the fear of math homework by getting appropriate help with tutors gives the student the necessary confidence to face the following day’s work without concern. Math homework help may be enlisted to accommodate even the most busy of schedules.

Students must be comfortable with their math tutor to assure that the student will embrace his or her learning experience. Each student needs to find the right math tutor, one who makes the student feel confident learning math.

Math tutors are capable of working in areas ranging from arithmetic to multivariable calculus to probability and statistics to solving complex problems involving several areas of math.

So even if tutors toots no flutes, they can toot their our own horn about the quality of their efforts.



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