TUTORING
What I offer in brief:
I offer private, in person, 1-on-1 tutoring in high school mathematics or physics. Primarily this means tutoring New Zealand students working towards NCEA Levels 1 - 3. I live in Diamond Harbour, in Banks Peninsula, so usually conduct my tutoring from Diamond Harbour School Library, after school hours.
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I am particularly passionate about helping those students who have the perception they are not good at maths and science, since teacher expectations are an incredibly strong influencer and thus predictor of student success. The quote below reflects my sentiment, and is a foundation of the way I approach tutoring:
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"Nine-tenths of education is encouragement" - Anatole France.
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Expand the section below the image if you would like more details on my process. Or click the button below to see anonymous reviews from University of Canterbury students I previously tutored.
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Fees:
The first session is free and is $65 per hour thereafter. However, if the child is from a household where a parent or guardian is a community services card holder, or receives a benefit, please get in touch for a confidential conversation, as I don't want the fee to be a barrier to equitable access to education. ​
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​Click here for my Process in a bit more detail
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I do not use any generic or software based maths problems during tutoring, as is common in a corporate tutoring service. This is because generic problems are an effective way to practice maths, but ineffective in learning math.
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In other words, practice is less effective if students follow a memorised process without knowing why the process works. Students who rely on memorising a process they don't fully understand, often struggle when presented a contextualised problem. Furthermore, students who aren't taught the why in their early years of maths, often struggle when the concepts are built upon in later years.
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Thus, I use a student led approach: Students describe a topic or idea that confuses them. Next, watching the student attempt an example problem usually reveals the point at which they start to struggle with a particular problem type.
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Once I know the idea/concept a student gets stuck on, I can set about trying to help them connect the dots as to why a particular process is employed, and how it works. It is all about encouraging and helping the student move toward that lightbulb moment, where the concept 'clicks', and they can describe how to solve a particular problem and more importantly why the solution process works.
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Finally, students will need a copy of the AME study books for their particular NCEA level. The math versions are linked below for convenience:
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The books can be purchased via the links above, or from the likes of Whitcoulls, Paper Plus or OfficeMax. If the purchasing of the AME books presents a financial barrier, please get in touch.
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I highly recommend these books to any parent for their child to study for NCEA exams from, regardless of whether I were tutoring them and regardless of the subject. They provide excellent summary notes on all examination content and questions and answers which include working.
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If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.