Barbara's Tutoring Blog

... no, I didn't begin on PI Day (3/14). I got onto www.pidaychallenge.com on the following day conquered the challenge by 1 am on 3/16. The last puzzle was actually a series of 5 puzzles that, if you didn't solve them all in one sitting, you would have to do the work over again. Some of the games are based upon algebra, geometry, and calculus (yes, 1 of the puzzles' second part was easily done w/calculus or uneasily done through algebraic approximation). Five of the puzzles were loosely based on chemistry principles, but masked as a game. Remember electrons binding with other atoms?

There...

I heard back from the one of my students that I tutored last year. He needed to pass his EOC (end of course) algebra 1 assessment prior to the 2012-2013 school start so that he could continue with the next in the math series, geometry. I found out that he passed (6 months after the fact)! My only question is, why did it take so long to find out? I find this is typical. Even though I ask for feedback, students reaching their goals have a tendency to quickly move on to their next "mountain" to overcome. That's OK. I still rejoice at each success!

I was asked by a student for a list of collective nouns. I went through my English books and compiled this list, along with rules. There are other, more complete lists of groups of animals (e.g. team, herd) on the Internet, but there is not a compilation of collective words for groups of people that might be used on standardized tests (e.g. the SAT, GED). As I find other collective nouns, I will update the list.

The following rules govern the form of verb to be used with a collective noun. (A collective noun is a word that represents a group of persons, animals, or things; for example, album,...

I was on LinkedIn today and this headliner article was interesting reading.

http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/listening-to-complainers-is-bad-for-your-brain.html

Here is one excerpt I have empirically found true through my math tutoring career:
Even worse, being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity--including viewing such material on TV--actually peels away neurons in the brain's hippocampus. "That's the part of your brain you need for problem solving," he says. "Basically, it turns your brain to mush."

I...

I try to assign my students higher level high school or college level reading materials. One of my students reads the New York Times, but I didn't know its reading level, so I did some investigating. It seems that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today all meet my criteria for reading. I have attached two of the more pertinent links from other researchers who have performed research using Microsoft’s readability statistics option.

I do not approve of the two local newspapers Tampa Tribune and Tampa Bay times. Even though I occasionally find excellent articles in them,...

I spent much of July on vacation. Going away or doing different activities ... or learning new skills is a wonderful way to recharge your brain. I typically do the puzzles in the newspapers each day. After vacation, I found that I did the puzzles much faster than usual. They were SOOOO easy. What was I doing differently? I was getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep. I was away from my computer for multiple days in a row. I was outside more. I was meeting new and different people. I was reading more, and with much more variety. I was teaching crafts, not math, to kids from pre-K through 5th...

When taking an online test recently, I had a question which had 84cm^2 as one of the answers. Going quickly, I read this as 84^2 cm.

This is an easy error which can be be corrected by reviewing the answers ... and rewriting each answer (that needs it) manually with annotation.

=======
84 cm^2
=======

Fortunately, ACT, SAT, and ASVAB tests support annotation.

I am a career IT professional, so why am I listed as a tutor?

I have been teaching others all my life. I have helped friends from elementary school through college. I could pick up anybody's textbook, assimilate the cogent information, and help my friends correctly work their assignments. I learned how to research and verify my work from my grandfather who was the Mathematics department head at Florida Southern College.

I didn't teach or tutor others while in my 20s.

In my 30s, I became my daughter's Brownie (and then Junior) Girl Scout co-leader who "taught" science and outdoor try-its (and...