Best wishes, Fellow Learners!
Since 1987, what young minds have taught me in my thousands of sessions with them (both one-on-one and in the classroom) is that they appreciate things that are simple, fun, and useful. They respond well to pictures, stories, games-like "what if?" experiments, and real-world examples. They prefer handiwork over paperwork. Most important, students love to personalize -- really understand -- what they are learning rather than merely to read books or to memorize things. An effective teaching style can take advantage of these elements.
We can use my interdisciplinary background in energy, electronics, human physiology, music, investments, and sports that has favored me with a treasure trove of "true-to-life" examples that can engage a diverse clientele.
Like most, I enjoy and trust things that are direct, fascinating, and practical. Our sessions will avoid viewpoints that are complex, boring, or unusable (i.e. "academic"). I look forward to working with you!
Our tutoring lessons can take one of three shapes:
Early in a course, as soon as it gets confusing, we can clarify things so that the rest of the course will make sense. Or we can have a test-prep session, much like a "warm-up" with a coach on the driving range or putting green before the golf match. Lastly, an end-of-course "sorting-out of matters" may be needed to recover the course and its grade. Since tutoring is expensive, you may Email me outlining one of the preceding scenes along with 3 or 4 specific matters to address. Then we can craft a targeted, purposeful session that will "fill in the gaps" for you.
You may open the "Answers" tab on my Profile page to see how I answer students' questions. You will notice that many of the problems have math as "the sticking point." Math answers are typically cast in the abstract language of symbol manipulation with formal rules to memorize. Although this academic approach works for some students, even these students who can recall and use this process have no idea what the equations MEAN. Rather, our way of problem-solving features reason instead of formulas, comprehension before computation. We can sketch diagrams; we can try out and measure "test points" in a "roll-up-the-sleeve," workbench fashion. When a certain complication troubles us, we learn to remove it to get a simpler answer first. Little by little, we factor back in the bothersome element, asking: "will this make my initial guess bigger or smaller, and by how much?" Students will find this style relaxing and uncluttered. The anxiety of "I don't know what to do here?!?!" melts away, replaced by a confident "at least I can always start with this ..."
Introductory physics can be boiled down to about two dozen concepts. We will use word-pictures (eating, driving a car, spending money, TV shows & movies, sports) and sketch lots of diagrams to “see” the physics. We will see how the numbers work by “tweaking the knobs” of the formulas.
We can draw from the “hands-on” mechanical engineering experience I've been favored with: including 2000 hours in power plants testing equipment, plus 2000 hours in laboratories teaching electronics, vibrations, water-air-heat flow, and building a low-hemolysis, pulsatile blood pump for cardiopulmonary-bypass use.
Trigonometry is all about "triangles simplified." Would you like to be able to “see” the three sides and three angles of any triangle without using a calculator or table of values? This can be done mentally under a minute. Given two sides and an angle, or two angles and a side, we can specify the three remaining unknowns within +/- 5%. No calculator or tables are needed! We will use two simple, overlooked approximations.
Geometry areas and volumes can be estimated with no formulas to remember! By knowing the area of a square, we can approximate any measure for cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones, spheres. Learn today!
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