August 24, 2019

In-Home Math Tutoring

What is in-home math tutoring?

In-home math tutoring is one of the most common and popular types of tutoring for several reasons. In-home tutoring is incredibly popular because families love the convenience and lack of stress that comes with having a tutor come out directly to your home at a time of your choosing. Families have busy schedules these days! We get it. Everyone is packed full and overloaded. You simply don’t have time to drive all over town. That’s why in-home math tutors come to you! Another reason this type of tutoring is so popular is that math is one of the most difficult subjects for students to learn. Time and time again we see students struggling in courses such as geometry and algebra and trigonometry.

How does in-home math tutoring work?

In-home math tutoring is really pretty simple. The first step is scheduling your free session. That’s right, every first time Tutor Portland member gets access to a free tutoring session. You will have an initial phone call with our founder, Eric. In this quick free introductory call, we will cover all the details prior to the session. We will ask about your child and your learning goals. We will ask some initial discovery questions to assess where exactly your student is at, and what skills and tools will benefit them the most. Then we will pick a tutor who we believe to be the best match. And we will set a time for your initial free session. 99% of the time this first session is a good fit. And nearly everyone who receives the session signs up to become a paying member.

What is an in-home math tutoring membership?

An in-home math tutoring membership is something that we offer at Tutor Portland. Our memberships are designed to be incredibly customer-focused. Our mission is to be the most customer-focused company in the world. We believe in the customer. Our founder was tired of brands not treating customers right. He wanted his brand, Tutor Portland, to stand for something. And we chose to stand for the customer. That’s why our tutoring membership is flexible. You can cancel anytime. The sessions are yours to keep, they never expire. And the first session is always free. We also have a better grades guarantee. This means that for our top two membership tiers we guarantee that your child’s grades will improve.

We set up our membership this way because we realized that customers are the most important thing in the world. Your satisfaction means everything to us. The only reason that we are here in business is to serve you. Please consider letting us do just that.

Why learn mathematics?

There are countless reasons why it’s important to learn mathematics. Many students complain about learning math. They say: “when will I ever need to learn this?” I get it! I used to be one of those students. But there are so many jobs that require math. Here are just a few positions which are generally filled by mathematicians or which math majors are normally hired for:

• Accountant
• Biostatistician
• Computer Programmer
• Computer Systems Analyst
• Doctor
• Financial Analyst
• Financial Manager
• Information Systems Analyst
• Insurance Underwriter
• Inventory Control Specialist
• Investment Manager
• Market Research Analyst
• Professor
• Risk Manager
• Securities Analyst
• Statistician

These are some of the most common jobs you can get from learning math.

Two of the most common responses for why it’s important to learn math is because A) it can prepare you for STEM-related jobs and positions and B) because math is inherently beautiful. Some mathematicians have called these the classical reasons. These classical reasons are indeed very strong reasons to learn mathematics. But there are also other reasons why someone might want to learn mathematics. Learning mathematics can add to the diversity of your knowledge. Mathematics—especially ideas such as ratios, rate of change, and simple algebra concepts—can be used to think about our world in unique and compelling ways. Mathematics can make you a better person by giving you a mental framework to think about the philosophical problems of fairness and equity. In addition, learning mathematics will make you more rational and reasonable. It will help you see that most of life is statistics, it comes down to odds and chances.

What are Tutor Portland’s beliefs about math education?

Tutor Portland believes that mathematics tutors and teachers should take an active approach. Most students don’t do well at math because they aren’t interested and they are not engaged in the course. This is usually because the course is lecture-based and they fall behind in the course. However, small & active group work allows students to engage with others. Working with others allows students to attempt to put their mathematical thinking into coherent sentences. Normally, when doing this, students will begin to see the holes and gaps in their own learning and reasoning. They can then ask questions and try to dive deeper.

Therefore, at Tutor Portland, we take an active learning approach. We don’t believe in bland memorization of facts or rules. We want students to understand the rules. We want them to feel what a derivative is. To experience it. To know what it is before they are taught the formula. This type of learning is sticky. But it also takes more time to plan and more skill to execute. That is why most teachers stick to lectures and most tutors simply do low-level homework help. Creating a good active learning environment is really hard.

We also follow what is known as the peer-assisted learning approach. This approach is built upon research showing that students make the largest learning gains when they actively teach another individual how to complete or solve a problem. We, therefore, implement that into our tutoring. Once we have sufficiently taught a skill to one of our students through active learning strategies. We then employ peer-assisted strategies and have our students teach *us* the material. This does a number of things. First, it challenges the student because they have to become the teacher for a few minutes. Second, it shows us how much the student truly understands and where they might be falling short. And lastly, this strategy leads to the biggest learning gains.

What is active learning?

Most teachers and tutors believe that their learning environment is inherently an “active” one. But that is far from always being true. Active learning environments do not generally arise spontaneously or from chance. They need to be built, crafted, composed. Essentially, courses or tutoring sessions in which students only listen are the worst teaching methods possible. These lead to the lowest learning gains. Research shows that students need to think, discuss, write, and engage. They need to perform higher-level thinking: synthesis and analysis. Interestingly, students actually prefer to be more engaged—and they learn more when they are. That’s why we take an active learning approach with our in-home math tutoring.