Mark B. - Tutor in Leonia, NJ (07605)

I am a professional mathematics tutor with a master's degree in teaching and a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics, with focus in astrophysics and economics. I completed my student teaching in a 7th grade pre-algebra classroom in East Orange, and my New Jersey teacher's certification (with advanced standing) is pending.

Unlike many tutors, I have special expertise in the more advanced and theoretical areas of mathematics. I still love to tutor Calculus, but I'm just as qualified to help you in Linear Algebra, Group Theory, or Real Analysis (sometimes called 'Advanced Calculus'). On the other hand, having had some good experience with middle school students, I'm flexible enough to teach material at the basic Algebra level.

If you want a tutor, you should understand what it is that a tutor is intended to do. Individual instruction like I am offering is intended to remove the instruction from the limitations of a set curriculum so that if a student is having problems understanding some topic, the instructor can go back to the root cause of this misunderstanding. If you hire me to tutor you in Advanced Calculus, and I find that your problem is back with fractions, then we will spend the time to fix the underlying problem so that you can learn the advanced subject well *on your own*. Of course, the tutor also exists to help catch up with the subject matter that has been missed due to some basic issue.

I especially support long-term tutoring. When I'm helping to support a student over the course of an entire semester or even a whole school year, I have much more ability to go back and make sure the student's preliminary knowledge is solid before catching them up with the subject matter in the classroom.

discrete math

With a degree in mathematics comes a great deal of knowledge of Discrete Mathematics. Most courses in Discrete Math deal with a variety of topics that actually form the basis for much mathematical theory. It is the typical student's official introduction to such matters as logic, set theory, relations, and especially proofs. At the time of learning, these topics seem to be without use and unrelated to one another. The entire experience of a degree in mathematics shows a student that these topics are very relevant to the way math is studied beyond Calculus. I can offer tutoring in discrete mathematics, including propositional logic and syllogisms, Boolean Algebra, sets, relations, functions, proofs, matrices, vectors, transfinite numbers, basic topology, and if I'm not listing it, then ask because I probably have experience with it.

linear algebra

Linear Algebra is typically the first experience that a student has with any sort of generalization of space. In this subject, a student learns that dimension is simply a number (in fact, the order of a set), and receives his or her first exposure to the *necessity* of proofs and the methodology therein (although logic and proofs themselves are usually done in a discrete mathematics class). Personally, I have the experience of someone who initially struggled with Linear Algebra because of a distrust of matrices. It was only through effort that I have come to understand and grasp the underlying concepts of linear algebra; now, it is as intuitive to me as the rest of mathematics. This background offers me an excellent perspective onto the needs of a struggling student in the class. I have certainly seen matrices enough to be an expert with their basic methods by now (having been officially taught Gaussian Elimination in EACH of the following college classes: Discrete Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics 2, Matrix Algebra, Linear Algebra, Matrices and Boundary Value Problems, Vector Calculus, Graduate Differential Equations, Numerical Linear Algebra [twice]). I have a rock-solid background in Linear Algebra and I am ready and able to help any student in this subject.