Kimberly

I have 8 years of classroom experience at the middle and high school level, including one year teaching in England. I have a bachelor’s degree in pure and applied mathematics from the Stevens Institute of Technology and I tutor grades 6-College.

My tutoring style:

I believe the most important part of tutoring is building a student’s confidence. When conducting a tutoring session, I begin by finding out what a student knows about the problem at hand so that I can meet them where they are. It’s important for students to have a chance to reflect on what their strengths are as much as it is to be aware of where they are struggling. Through knowing a student’s strengths, I can draw on their prerequisite knowledge to build new connections, as well as give them a chance early on to earn some praise for the skills they’ve mastered. I also make sure that the student is an active participant in the problem solving process, even if they are taking a different direction than I might have myself.

Success story:

As a Geometry tutor, most of the students I encounter struggle with writing proofs. One particular student I tutored was frustrated with the topic to the point where she had become completely disengaged from her math class. When I began working with her, we approached proofs as puzzles to be solved where all of the theorems, postulates and definitions she was given were the pieces. Once she realized the challenge was to work out how to put all of the pieces together rather than to memorize an endless series of proofs, her attitude towards the topic completely turned around. For the remainder of our sessions, proof writing became the part of assignments that she was most eager to take on.