FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
1. Hourly rates vary somewhat by subject, depending upon difficulty, preparation, etc. 2. In some cases, there is an additional fee for travel. 3. Rates may be discounted for regularly-scheduled lessons on a extended basis.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
See my website "Tutoring Profile" and "Teaching Resume". 30+ years college teaching, plus private tutoring in academic subjects and "test-prep" techniques. Also taught and/or managed many employee-training programs. Developed curricula for training programs, civil-service exam preparation courses, etc. as well as for after-school science clubs and summer camps. My professional career was primarily in software development and management, at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL), Grumman, Robotic Vision, American Science, and other Long Island companies, and as a software consultant and website developer. I am also a professional writer, with thousands of pages published, and I currently host two weekly radio shows on a local radio station.
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
For over thirty years, teaching was always a sideline, and I enjoyed moonlighting as an Adjunct Professor at several nearby colleges. However, I also realized that, while it has never been my main "job", teaching has always been a vital part of my work (whether in scientific research, software development in industry, or in management) -- including mentoring, employee training programs, leading project teams, code reviews, etc. More-recently, I discovered that I also had a "knack" for helping individual students who were having difficulty with academic subjects (math, science, writing, etc.). Too often, their public school teachers were not able to "get through" to them (and many of these students began to lose confidence in themselves.) I realized that many of their teachers had focused so much on memorizing formulas, reciting definitions, and "teaching to the test" and rarely dwelt on understanding of the underlying concepts. Consequently, many bright students viewed these subjects as an insurmountable mass of unrelated factoids, with no coherence (and no motivation to learn, other than threat of failing grades). So often I found that, as soon as the student focused on actually learning and understanding the concepts 'e was able to solve problems with little or no reliance on formulae or rote. I have had such great success with the concept-based approach that I developed in tutoring, that I have, in turn, also begun to apply it to my college teaching -- especially when teaching "remedial courses" in the Community College.