Samuel K.
Private tutor in Teaneck, NJ
Education
Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Pure Math Concentration) with Comp Sci Minor at City College of New York, CUNY
Experience
I scored 800s on SAT I Math, and math subject tests, and I scored 195/200 on PRAXIS (Standardized test for teachers) advanced math section. I also scored 2nd place at CUNY math competition. While these scores prove my comprehension of the subject, it was my tutoring experiences that taught me how to teach math. Through these experiences, I learned that math is best learned through an inductive method rather than the traditional lecture/problem-solving. I tutored at various places and learned much about different approaches of teaching math to students. At College-Now Program at CCNY, I worked as a Teaching Assistant for Calculus courses. The professor that taught the course gave many different types of problems which required nuanced application of a single technique. I observed the importance of developing mathematical intuition through solving problems instead of simply learning the theories requires. At Mathnasium, I learned the importance of developing mathematical sense through thinking about problems in a way that is natural yet unconventional. For example, students often have difficulty understanding what it means to divide by fractions. At Mathnasium, you are taught to think about division as how many of A goes into B? 3 divided by 1/2 is equivalent to saying how many 1/2s go into 3? And we proceed to drawing 3 pies, and students often understand immediately what it means. I applied this concept at a private tutoring session with an 8th grade student who was preparing for ISEE. When we were studying factoring quadratic expressions with a > 1, I came up with a new technique which improved upon the existing method. The student appreciated it very much, and he stayed enthusiastic about learning math because he learned that you can discover things in math, i.e. math can be learned through an inductive study rather than a strictly dogmatic, deductive learning. (The student scored very high on the exam and received full scholarship to Choate Rosemary Hall.) Inductive Study is not just a technique of studying, but it is how you actually learn math. You ask questions, make your own observations, and try to solve it differently, etc. Once you take an ownership of learning in this way, you can then truly wean from being tutored in the traditional sense, and the student will really learn to learn and enjoy doing it.
Availability
Monday after 3PM, Tuesday after 6PM, Wednesday after 6PM, Thursday after 3PM, Friday after 3PM, Saturday after 1PM, Sunday after 5PM
Can Meet
Up to 15 minutes away for no additional charge
Hobbies
I grew up playing soccer, and I enjoy playing guitar and piano. My lifelong goal is to understand the nature of the universe, and I am currently preparing to enter a Physics Graduate Program.
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