by Melody Hailstone | Feb 9, 2016 | Math
The old adage asks, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Here are some great ideas for making all those things you need to get done a lot more achievable.
Many thanks to author Maria Gracia for the basics of the list.
- GOALS– set realistic goals at the beginning of the school year (also semester, week, day, study period, etc). Write them down and keep them visible.
- AVOID THE RUSH– My dad always figures in “oops time” to every plan. If he thinks something will take 30 minutes, he’ll budget 45 minutes, in case something comes up unexpectedly. The same applies to time spent on homework and school projects. Plan for the unexpected.
- AVOID CLUTTER– At the beginning of the school year, there is no clutter yet. Don’t let it build up. Create separate folders for classes,for things that need to be signed,for tests and papers that have already been graded, etc. As things become outdated, move them to a separate file immediately. Avoid the paper build-up.
- MAKE TO-DO LISTS– Whether it’s a list of things to grab from your locker before you leave school, a list of what homework needs to be done that day, or a list of questions to ask your teacher about your math, lists help you to know exactly what you are doing and what’s still to do.
- EFFECTIVE STUDY AREA– Designate an area that is quiet and well-lit to do your schoolwork. If you can’t find a quiet place at home, go to the library. Study sitting at a table or desk, since getting too comfortable in a chair or on the bed may make you drowsy.
- AVOID OVERLOAD– While extra-curricular activities are a fun part of growing up, taking on too much may mean not having time to get everything done.
- USE A PLANNER OR CALENDAR– Write it down. Make sure that everything you need to do is on one calendar instead of separate social, school, and sports calendars to avoid the risk of scheduling conflicts and missed appointments. You may consider color-coding events such as marking all the tests in yellow, all the projects in blue and so forth.
- BREAK IT UP– Break up big assignments into smaller pieces that are more manageable. If you have 3 chapters to study, study one each day for 3 days instead of trying to do everything at once.
- EAT YOUR BROCCOLI FIRST– Eating your vegetables before dessert gives you something to look forward to. Likewise, doing the hard stuff first makes the rest of the work feel easier.
by Hanna Fleeman | Feb 1, 2016 | Math
MaTh TuTor. Sounds like a pretty straight forward job, right? Just reverse the words, and you get it: we tutor MaTh. But there is so much more. Not only do we tutor MaTh, we care, we create, we adapt, and most importantly we DO MaTh. But why do we do it all? Because we believe that a world where everyone understands MaTh is a wonderful place. So, how do we do it? Well that’s what I’m here to tell you!
Do you know how many students the average public high school teacher in Georgia has? The average class size is 25.4; if each teacher has 5 classes that makes a total of 127 students per teacher. This makes it fairly complicated for the teacher to ensure that each student gets the attention they need. This is where the MaTh tutor comes in! We care for the individual student. When they succeed, we succeed. We assess each and every student we have on an individual level. We look at their personality type and their learning style to determine what they need to succeed. It’s our job to care for and cater to every student to the best of our ability. It’s part of our job, and we love it because knowing and seeing a student’s progress is extremely gratifying.
Enrichment and practice are two things that are incredibly important to learning and succeeding in MaTh, and as MaTh tutors we are dedicated to both of these things. This is why we create. We create games, worksheets, instructional videos, interactive projects, reward systems, all in the pursuit of our student’s success. Not only are these things helpful to us, they benefit our students. MaTh games are a wonderful way to get the student involved and excited about MaTh. Instructional videos help students who need instant access to information on a specific MaTh topic. Interactive projects build teamwork and leadership skills. Our reward systems encourage our students to constantly improve, and to not only get the grade, but to reach another goal that may be more rewarding for them personally.
Every student is different. They learn at different paces, they are encouraged by different things, and they all have different interests. Being MaTh tutors we deal with almost all types of students, and sometimes we come against a challenge. But we adapt. If we have a problem, we have the time to step back and look at our student to see what we can do better. Why is this student struggling with a specific topic? What can we do to make it better? What can we do for this student to ensure that they succeed? These are the questions we ask ourselves when a problem arises. These are the questions that we take the time to answer to ensure the student’s success.
MaTh. It’s a unique subject that many students abhor. But why? It’s all around us. From the food that we eat to the technology we use, MaTh is the basis for most of the modern world. As MaTh tutors we are determined to encourage students to not only succeed in MaTh, but to enjoy it, explore it, and appreciate it. So not only do we tutor MaTh, we live it, love it, and make the world a better place with it.
by Amanda Fagan | Jan 26, 2016 | Math
K
eep Your Momentum!
By now, we are several weeks into the semester. This is about the time that people tend to start slipping from their goals. They lose stamina. Notebooks that began the semester neat and organized are now becoming messier and messier. Don’t fall into this trap! Here are some ways to keep going strong this semester:
1. Keep Practicing Every Day
Especially with math, it is extremely important that you keep practicing every day! Don’t think that because things seem easier in the beginning, it’s okay to not work as hard now. Even if you think you have a good grasp on the material, keep coming to MaThCliX. Working with other people helps you more than you realize.
2. Get Organized…Again
If you are starting to notice that you are becoming less and less organized as the semester is going on, take a break and organize everything again. Staying organized throughout the semester makes studying for finals much easier when you make it to the end of the semester. You also avoid unnecessary stress when everything is in order the way it should be.
3. Remember Your Goals
Remember the goals that you set in the beginning, and remember why you set them. Evaluate your progress so far. Are you still on the right track? Are you still doing what you need to in order to reach your goals? If not, that’s okay! You can still make the changes you need to in order to reach your goals. In fact, it is easier to make changes now than waiting until right before the final.
4. Remember to Rest
It’s okay to take a break sometimes. Don’t use this as an excuse to slack off, but if you are working diligently towards your goals, it is okay to take a break to regroup and refresh yourself. Taking time to rest will help you avoid becoming too overwhelmed and will help you avoid becoming burnt out from working so hard in the beginning.
Don’t lose heart! It may take work, and it may take stamina, but you can reach the goals you have set! Don’t get too comfortable. Just remember to keep on trying, and you will find that you will achieve your goals.
by Ty Hilton | Jan 11, 2016 | Math, Teaching and Learning
Off to a Good Start!
Having a break from school is a good thing. You have a chance to catch up with family and friends and to catch up on sleep. However, being away from school for multiple weeks can take you out of the right mindset and put you in an unproductive mood. It can be difficult to get back into the swing of things and if you don’t adjust fast enough, it can negatively affect your grades. If you mess up on the first couple of assignments or the first test, it definitely won’t be good for your overall average in the class. However, that is not all of the damage that it will do. It could also make you less confident in your ability to succeed in the class, which could discourage you and potentially lead to additional bad grades in the class. Also, if you fail your first test, you probably did not learn enough of the material. In subjects such as math and science, the new material builds off of previous material. Therefore this could hinder you on future assignments and tests. Plus, most finals are cumulative, so if you didn’t do so hot on the first test, then you might lose some points when you encounter the same material from the first test on the final. So, I’ve just ranted on to warn you about the terrors of slacking off at the start of school.
Now let me give you some advice on how to start this next semester and year off with a bang.
1. Goal setting: Having goals is important because it gives you something to work on and to aspire to. If setting goals isn’t your thing or you are having trouble developing some, that’s ok, because we got you covered. For the start of the semester, here at MaThCliX, we are working with students to develop three S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound) goals for the semester. So if you haven’t already, try to come by in the next week or so, and we’ll make sure to set you up with goals that will keep you focused and on track throughout the semester.
2. Enough sleep: Not getting enough sleep can cause problems with our mood and ability to function. Because of this, I would say sleep is a crucial factor when it comes to functioning at school. It’s not an easy task to go to bed early every night. Today in our modern society we have a lot of fancy devices that get our attention before bed. However, whether this coming week is your second week of high school or first week of college, try to put away your smartphone and go to bed at a decent hour. You will find yourself with more energy throughout the day which will hopefully take you out of denial that the holiday break has ended. Furthermore, by seeing the positive effects of going to bed earlier, you might find yourself more inclined to not stay up really late in the future, and going to bed early might formulate into a good habit.
3. Priorities: Setting your priorities straight is pretty important to say the least. What I would advise you to do is to make a list of activities that you do during your week (whether hobbies, school assignments, etc.) and rate them from 1-10, first on importance, then based on how urgent each activity is. For example, playing video games is not that important and isn’t urgent. So I would give it a 2 for importance and a 1 for urgency. However, having a test tomorrow is, so I would give it a 10 for importance and a 10 for urgency. If you do this for every activity you do in a week (or month, you can set whatever time interval you need), it will give you a pretty good idea what you should focus your attention on and what you can save for later.
In conclusion, if you set goals that you can pursue, get enough sleep, and set your priorities straight, then you will be setting yourself up to succeed.
by Adam Dodson | Dec 8, 2015 | Math, Teaching and Learning
Get Moving!
If someone asked me what I feel is most lacking in those that I tutor, my response would be one word: “Confidence.” I have not found a single person, ever, that I could honestly say was not smart enough to “get it.” What I usually find is smart people who have convinced themselves that they cannot do it. An occurrence far too common in tutoring, especially in math tutoring, is that students give up far too easily on themselves. They lack confidence in their capacity to solve their own problems. One of the most valued skills in business, so I’ve been told, is the capacity to assess and solve problems. A key component of this skill is acting and doing all we can before asking for help to do what we can’t do. In what follows I hope to suggest ideas that will improve our ability to act and do what we can for ourselves before we seek assistance.
What seems to happen with all of us is that if something looks hard we automatically assume that it is hard, panic and give up before we even begin. Instead of doing that we need to simply begin with confidence. We do this by first making sure what we are being asked to do. It seems rather obvious, but what we begin with is reading the question. When people ask me for help, usually I’ll ask them if they have read the question. Far too often the answer to that question is “No, I haven’t.” More than a few times, after we have read the question they’ll say “Oh, I do know how to do this.” Problem solved. So one thing that is a part of doing all you can is reading the question. Simple, but it works.
I have also found that many students, when they read, do not understand the question because they do not understand the words the question is using. I’ve personally had this problem more than I care to admit. I remember once when I was reading a physics article that used a certain word multiple times. Because I did not know the meaning of the word, I wasn’t really sure what they were talking about. After some time, I went back, learned what the word meant, then re-read the article. When I did that, it became clear to me what was being said. So if in reading the question you find words that you do not know, look up the definition. It doesn’t matter if you search for it in your notes, your textbook, and a dictionary or ask somebody, if you don’t know it, find out! That is one thing you can do.
After reading the question and making sure we know what it is asking, we may find, that we still do not know how to do the problem. Does that mean we have done all we can and can ask for help? No. Not yet anyway. When I first started tutoring there were quite a few math problems that I did not remember how to solve. What I’d usually do is ask the person to see their notes. I’d quickly look them over and more often than not, I’d discover how to solve the problem. I’d suggest doing likewise. If you have read the question and know what it is asking but still do not know how to do it, look in your notes! The answer is almost always there.
If we’ve reached this point and we still cannot understand then we need to ask for assistance. You may wonder why you need to expend so much effort if you’re probably going to ask for help anyway. Well I’ll answer that by saying it’s quite a bit easier to steer a moving car than it is a parked car. If you’re already moving in some direction, any direction, all that any tutor would ever need to do is help you steer. The same is true in any pursuit in life.
In all that I’ve said, I’d like to add a caution. Rarely does your best effort cover all that you will need to do in math, or in life. Do not hesitate, ever, to ask a question or seek help. If you need help, ask for it! Just make sure you’re doing your part!
by Karl Mattle | Dec 1, 2015 | Math
Mathematical Proof: What’s the Point?
The sum of two odd numbers is even. Two pictured triangles are similar. There are infinitely many prime numbers. Tell these facts to a student and the overwhelming response is “ok”; ask them to prove it, and the overwhelming response is “What’s the point?” In History class, my teacher doesn’t ask me to prove that Hannibal crossed the Alps. My literature teacher doesn’t ask me to prove that Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick. Even in Science, the subject most closely aligned with, and dependent upon Math, I’m not asked to prove Charles’ and Boyle’s laws. Why do I have to prove things in Math? Tell me what I need to learn, how to use it, and I’ll do it.
In a way, Mathematics has over-succeeded. It has been so successful in explaining, and, horror of horror, quantifying, so many natural, physical, economic, and yes, human relationships, that our modern Math and Science curriculum has become obsessed with conveying the many successes of Mathematics without conveying how those successes were achieved. Most students are well aware of the story of Isaac Newton observing an apple falling and being inspired to quantify gravity. But little or no time is devoted to how such a common observation could lead to the Law of Universal Gravitation, and its proof. Educators will lament, there is simply not enough time. We have to move on to the application. This argument is probably correct, reflecting the fact that we are trying to teach too little about too much. We should not be teaching, or trying to teach, our students every application of Mathematics. Rather, our Mathematics curriculum should emphasize the beauty of Mathematics with the emphasis on thinking, that is, proof.
Where in the busy Secondary Mathematical curriculum should proof be emphasized? The answer is in the first form of Mathematics in which rigorous proof was emphasized, Geometry. But the modern curricular movement is to teach practical application rather than proof. While Heron might be proud to know that modern High School students were being compelled to memorize his formula for the area of a triangle, in reality, few, if any, of the students are ever going to be required to calculate the area of a triangle using only the lengths of the sides. If they ever are confronted with such a problem, they will Google it, and get the procedure and formula from the internet. Heron would be far more proud if students were being instructed on the thought processes he employed to derive his formula and prove that it worked, every time.
Rare is the gainfully employed adult who is compelled to employ any of the Mathematical maneuvers, practical or otherwise, learned in High School. However, all productive citizens will, multiple times in their lives, find themselves having to make a point, or refute a point, using critical thinking and logic. In other words they will have to use proof!
by Rebecca Mayer | Nov 17, 2015 | Math, Teaching and Learning
Ther
e are many common math mistakes that I have noticed many students making. They are simple issues that are often overlooked, missed, or forgotten. For some of them, no matter how many times you mention them to a student, they seem to continue to be missed, usually out of bad habit. As a tutor, it is my job to continue to enforce correcting these mistakes through repetition. As a student, here are some of the most common mistakes that you may be able to look over, remember, and not make them in the future.
1. Overlooking or adding too many parentheses: parentheses are very important when solving any type of equation. They are, of course, part of our order of operations. Some students forget when to evaluate parentheses, don’t register their existence, or put too many in an equation when solving by steps, causing incorrect answers. For an equation such as 8=4(x+3), I have noticed some students attempt to put the parenthesis around the x, giving them 8=4(x)+(3), which would give the wrong answer.
2. Negatives: some students often make the mistake of not distributing a negative or forgetting that subtracting a negative number is actually just adding a number. For
5-(4+3), the negative can be distributed into the parenthesis giving 5-4-3. This is often rewritten by students as 5-4+3, in which they forget about the parenthesis and distribution.
3. Writing an equation incorrectly: some students like to rewrite equations on a separate piece of paper, and while there is nothing wrong with this, some students do not write it correctly and therefore result in an incorrect answer. Writing a fraction, such as x/2, as 2/x when rewriting would not be correct, because in the original expression, the x is in the numerator, .
4. Remembering formulas: when a teacher gives you formulas, they are important, use them! Some students ask for help over something they can’t solve, because they haven’t glanced down at the formula sheet that their teacher provided them. The problems aren’t solvable without them! Make sure to take a good look at your formula sheet, especially if one won’t be given to you on your test.
5. Not writing down all steps: Many very intelligent students are fully capable of solving equations in their head and just writing down the answer. A lot of times this is effective, but no matter how good the mathematician, they will most likely make mistakes if trying to solve equations all in their head. It is important to write down all steps when answering questions, first to be able to solve it mistake free, and second, in the event that a mistake was made or the correct answer was not found, to be able to look back at work to find the mistake. If you do the whole problem in your head and end up with the wrong answer, you won’t have any idea where the mistake was made.
by Nicole Dowling | Nov 2, 2015 | Math
Derivatives and Curviness
How to use Derivatives when Describing “
Curvy-ness” of Functions
Most students when they first learn about derivatives in Calculus are not exposed to the many uses of this important topic. However, students have heard the term “derivative” disguised as words like SLOPE and RATE OF CHANGE! So how do we use derivatives when describing how curvy a function is? Well, since derivative is just a fancy word for slope, how about finding the slope at select points to see if we change from a positive value to a negative value, or vice-versa, or if we even change signs at all!
For example, I was tutoring a student who had to find the maximum and minimum of various functions on some closed interval. Well we know that if we have a closed window we are looking into, then at some point the curve we are analyzing will have a highest peak and lowest trough somewhere, even if those points are the endpoints of the specified closed interval. Think about a linear function: the derivative of any linear function will be constant. What does that mean when describing the “curvy-ness” of linear functions? It means the slopes at each point in some closed interval is fixed, i.e. if the derivative is negative, then the slope is negative, then the maximum will be the leftmost end-point and the minimum will the rightmost endpoint. *Note the max is the rightmost endpoint and the min is the leftmost endpoint when the derivative is positive* Now what if we have an exponential or logarithmic function. Well, the same argument applies: if the derivative of either function is positive, then the rightmost point will be higher than the leftmost point; if the derivative of either function is negative, then the opposite is true. Why is this true? Think if someone pulled a linear function with some slope (other than 0) straight in either the x direction or the y direction; now we have a bend in our curve, yet we will still have a positive or negative slope AT EVERY POINT!
Now let’s talk about some more interesting functions. What about wiggly and curvy functions??? A wiggly function, like sin(x) or cos(x), will oscillate between some y-axis interval. Meaning we have a maximum y-value and a minimum y-value between some closed x-axis interval. The question is WHERE? We can no longer assume the max/min will be at the endpoints. Remember a term called “critical values”? I can almost hear the moans and groans bringing this term up again, but do not fret. Basically, we need to know when the signs of our slope changes. The method? You guessed it! Take the derivative, and this time set that derivative equal to zero. Why? We want to find out when our function has zero slope. Think about that moment at the very peak of your favorite roller coaster: there is a very brief moment when the machine no longer has to trek your car up a very steep slope, and you are motionless as you look upon the horizon straight in front of you. Or when your car starts its trudge down the other side of this steep slope, down the pits of gravity when all weight is thrusted perpendicular on top of your shoulders into the seat of your car. This is the very most bottom of the hill, at least for that section of the roller coaster, i.e. some interval of this curvy coaster! So the same argument applies for polynomials of some high degree, where the function wiggles many times in some interval. Just find the places where we have zero slope and calculate whether we have positive or negative slopes BETWEEN our critical values and voila! We know where our peaks and troughs are, and therefore we know the “curvy-ness” of any function.
All this can be analyzed WITHOUT graphing these functions at all! Pretty cool right?
by MaThCliX | Oct 20, 2015 | Math
I come across students daily who struggle in their academics, particularly in mathematics. For the students who are not trying or do not care, this message isn’t for you. Unfortunately, there is not much anyone can do to help someone who simply will not try or does not care. For all others, I see many students quietly failing their class as time continues to pass by. One bad grade after another accumulating. At some point, it may possibly be too late to undo! As I begin to understand and discover why this continues to happen to students who are “doing all the homework and still failing the tests”, what I have learned is the simple fact, you can do it, not always alone.
So, students, here are a few tips for you to win your math struggle…
- Do ALL of your homework. And furthermore, write it out on paper, step by step, even if that means you have to kill trees. Learning math means doing math and the paper is worth your learning!
- ALWAYS use answer keys while doing your homework. First, do the problem, then check your solution. Instant feedback is essential to correcting mistakes.
- After doing your homework, if there were types of problems that you didn’t understand or missed a lot of, ask for more practice problems from your teacher or find some on the internet or textbook.
- Okay, so you can do all of your homework? Does that really mean you are ready for that quiz or test? Not necessarily! Create a similar pre-quiz or test and TIME yourself and GRADE yourself. If you are going to make mistakes, make them on your practice quiz/test, not on the real one!
- Build a good working relationship with you teacher/professor. Visit tutorials and office hours. Let them know who you are and show them you are trying. If you are a college student, see if your university offers tutoring or a math lab.
- Create study groups with other students who care and are willing to work hard and want to succeed. Work problems together and check each other as you go.
- Write note cards with important notes/formulas as you go to keep everything in one place.
- And if you still need support, that’s okay! There’s MaThCliX!
You don’t “study” math, you DO it! Bottom line. Know your resources and use them. Others have gone before you and no one becomes a huge success all alone.
by Amanda Fagan | Oct 13, 2015 | Math
Change Your Mind, Change Your Grades
The other day, I was speaking to a friend who recently graduated from college with an Engineering degree. He worked full time during his whole time in school and still managed to graduate with exceptional grades. When I asked him how he did it, he said, “All of those people failed because they told themselves it was hard.” This made me think of all of the difficult classes I have taken over the years—and my attitude while I took them! I confess, I often did tell myself the work was difficult. I would find myself thinking, “This is too hard. I don’t feel like studying right now,” when in reality, those were the times when I needed to work even harder. How much better would my grades have been in those classes if, instead of feeling discouraged, I approached my work with feelings of excitement about the opportunity to learn so many new things? However, sometimes being positive is difficult. Here are some ways to make it a little bit easier:
- Set small goals.
Learning is a process. Sometimes the end goal seems completely unattainable. Try to take it one step at a time. Setting smaller, more attainable goals will give you the confidence boost you need to keep going. As you move towards each goal, you will find yourself improving more than you ever thought you could!
- Gain some perspective.
Try transforming all of your negative thoughts into positive ones. Instead of thinking, “This is too hard!” or “I just can’t do it,” try thinking about all of the progress you have made. Think of your mistakes as opportunities to learn even more. We learn far more from mistakes and failure than we do from doing everything perfectly the first time. Difficulty is simply another opportunity to practice. Try thinking about your homework as an exciting opportunity to learn and practice instead of a trial you must suffer through. Don’t ever think that you cannot do something. Instead try thinking something like, “I can do this, but it might take a little bit of work.”
- Never give up!
The most important thing to remember is to never give up. As long as you keep trying and keep working, eventually you will realize you learned something! Even if the steps you are taking are small, you will eventually have big results. Remember that every bit of practicing gets you a little closer to where you need to be. If you keep trying, you always have the possibility of someday reaching your goals. If you quit now, you have the certainty that you will not.
Remember that your thoughts and attitude have an enormous effect on your studies! Learning becomes much easier and much enjoyable when you treat it as something that can be fun instead of as a chore. It may be difficult at first to have a completely positive outlook. Start small. If you don’t honestly believe what you’re doing is fun, try at least pretending it is. You’ll be amazed what a difference your thoughts make!
