My name is Michael and I am a native of Atlanta, Georgia. Math has always been a passion in my life whether I recognized it or not.
I initially came into recognition that mathematics is a passion in my life at age 13 when I excelled beyond everyone else in 8th grade Algebra (solving equations). We would solve equations & it may have taken me a few minutes to solve the same equation it took most other students the remainder of the class period to solve. This is when I initially started helping (tutoring individuals) in math. I was selected to Sammey E. Coans 8th grade math team & was the top math student in my 8th grade class. I did well in 9th grade Geometry & I did very well in 10th grade Algebra II, but it was my Junior & Senior year inside of Frederick Douglass Center for Engineering & Applied Technology Magnet Program that my gift for mathematics became obviously clear.
As a Football Player in Pre-Calculus & Calculus with some of the top academic students in our school my gift for mathematics really came into the light & my passion for assisting &/or tutoring individuals in math was born. Scoring the highest score on almost every single test got me noticed since Mrs. Mills called out the highest score the following class after each test. Mrs. Mills was a great teacher and got chosen Star Teacher of the year my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school by the Valedictorian. Mrs. Mills also taught me in Algebra II, Pre-Calculus & Calculus. Yes, she taught me my sophomore, junior & senior years of high school.
This gift for tutoring my peers in math got polished even more at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff where, as a football player, I was required to attend 3 hours a week of Athletic Peer Tutoring. In the spring of my sophomore year, I received a number of requests from one of my fellow math majors while in tutoring to explain how to work out some math problems, which caused me to ask the Tutoring Director if I could be a Athletic Peer Tutor since I was always assisting students. Our director of the Athletic Peer Tutoring Program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff asked me what was taking me so long and insisted I come by her office to fill out the application. I went on to become a Math teacher and Football Coach (North Western High School), Girls Basketball Coach (Nicholas Orem Middle School) & Girls Soccer Coach (Nicholas Orem Middle School) for Prince George County School System and have been passionate about educating individuals in math ever since.
I have been tutoring or educating individuals in math for 10 years now. I truly believe in helping students to understand math versus just teaching them how to do the math. Determining their thought process or how they are viewing the particular mathematical subject is the key to getting an individual to understand; then guiding them towards the correct thought process has been my most effective approach because it gives them a thought process to follow. Also I believe in making math as interesting as possible (like it isn’t already interesting enough) by making real world connections & applications. For example, I directed a Math Fitness Program at Gullatt Elementary School for a company called Energy Fitness. I designed fitness workouts around using math concepts that dictated the nature of the fitness workout. We counted by multiple numbers for our warm up every day. For example we will do a hundred jumping jacks counting by 2s or a hundred pushups counting by 5s. We would also shoot layups, free throws & jump shots, but we had to count each made or missed shot by the number made over the number taken verbally out loud, like 3 for 5 or 6 for 10 and then calculate our shot percentage like they do for NBA players. Just using some word problems and breaking them down for a quality understanding has worked well for college and high school students.
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