About Me/Qualifications
Hello! My name is Chris. I attended Purdue University graduating in 2014 with my degree in Math Education and I have been tutoring professionally for 12 years now as well as having taught multiple years in the classroom. I have taught in four different public schools, teaching classes from algebra 1 and honors geometry to precalculus and trigonometry. I moved to Colorado in 2015 and after teaching for a few years there, I worked as a full-time tutor at a college preparatory school for 5 years. I tutored everything there from pre-algebra to AP Calculus A/B, which is my personal favorite, if I had to pick :) Since moving back to Indiana, I have been tutoring math virtually ever since. I have held teaching licenses in both Indiana and Colorado for secondary math education.
My Approach
"Right Understanding" rather than "Right Answer": I have always been a math teacher at heart, even as a student I loved helping my fellow students out with "getting it" not just "the answer is 12". Over the last twelve years, I've gained many skills and strategies that help me help your student on their journey to knowing what's underneath the "12" so to speak. What even IS algebra? WHY are we doing derivatives and integrals in AP Calc A/B? What the heck is "slope-intercept form" anyway? These are all questions I frequently hear students ask and I love to answer! In no other subject do we leave so much unsaid, and my goal as a tutor is to bring the understanding back so that students don't feel lost.
Unique approach per-student: I always try to get to know what makes each student tick. What do they feel more vs. less confident about, what kinds of things make them smile, how do they prefer to tackle problems? All of these things inform my approach and how I help them master the material. For example, while many students are trying to learn the unit circle in trig/algebra 2, I'm going to help each student learn it in a slightly different approach, tailored to both their own learning style and also the teachers' source material.
Tutoring is not a replacement for the teacher: As your students' tutor, I am not their teacher. I do my best to emulate "the way they're doing in class" so as to not confuse your student with multiple approaches. I also encourage students to utilize their teachers' after-school or office hours, getting more information on how they can succeed directly from the source! My goal is to assist your student with the journey they are already on to improve their mastery in the classroom, not to supplant, replace, or redo it!
Meta-tutoring is important too: How we think about how we think is very important for math. For example many students will say they "studied for three hours" for a math test, but when I inquire further, it turns out they really just flipped through some notes for three hours with a TV show on in the background. While that may be good enough for some students, for most, this isn't effective. You can rest assured that I will work with your student to help them find effective and efficient strategies for how they can utilize their time the best, be that studying, homework, test taking, and more!