Rick K.

Concept Comprehension Not Recipe Regurgitation

Concept Comprehension Not Recipe Regurgitation

My name is Richard K. I hold a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. I retired from Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories in 2001. For the past ten years I have spent two afternoons a week tutoring mathematics at the Joliet Job Corps Center. I have worked with students doing GED (high school equivalency exam), ASVAB (military aptitude test), several versions of high school online and all levels of TABE (Test for Adult Basic Education). The students were between the ages of 16 and 24 with the vast majority being high school dropouts.

I have encountered many students who absolutely gave up on math. Almost invariably they have experienced a "hurdle" in their efforts to gain math proficiency. Some encountered it very early and others experienced it much later. The important thing was that the hurdle was not mounted, but meanwhile the rest of their class moved rapidly onward leaving them floundering in the lurch. Many of these students never caught on or up. They were left feeling incompetent and hating math, the cause of their "failure" and the source of their feelings. The reason I tutor is to try to serve as an assist over such hurdles that block these student's path forward.

My path to a Master's degree in engineering has included 3 semesters of the Calculus, 1 semester of Differential Equations, 1 semester of Vector Calculus, 2 quarters of Linear Algebra, 1 quarter of Linear Systems, 1 quarter of Probability and Statistics and 1 quarter of Fourier Transforms. I have combined this academic knowledge with 10 years of learning through tutoring as discussed above.

I have found that I often learn as much from my students as they from me. Above all, I really enjoy the opportunity to pay back through tutoring what I have been fortunate enough to gain through serendipity.