1^st lesson free

Jonathan

Rate $35
Response 1h

$35/h

1^st lesson free

Maths
Physics
Statistics
Algorithms
STEM

Physics Grad and Data Science Master's Student Teaches Math, Physics and Statistics: Pre-algebra through Differential Equations and Linear Algebra

Maths
Physics
Statistics
Algorithms
STEM

Lesson location

- online

About Jonathan

I have a B.S. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and I'm finishing an M.S. in Data Science at CU Boulder. Between the two, I spent two years teaching math and science at a private school built entirely around one-to-one instruction.

The physics degree is why I can teach the top of that subject list and not just the bottom of it. Linear algebra and differential equations weren't courses I passed and filed away; they were the working tools of the major, used every week in mechanics, in electricity and magnetism, in quantum. That is the difference between a tutor who can walk you through the procedure and one who can tell you what the eigenvector is doing there, why you separate variables, and what the equation is a model of. Students remember the second kind of explanation and forget the first.

Statistics comes at it from the other direction. My graduate work is applied data science. I use regression, probability, and hypothesis testing daily, and answer the hard question of whether a result is real or an artifact of the tools used. I teach statistics as instruments you will actually pick up and use, not as a chapter you will be tested on.

Teaching high school was not where I started. I tutored geometry, pre-calculus and statistics while I was still in high school, and spent four winters as a ski instructor. At RPI I was a course facilitator for Intro to Quantum Mechanics, which is where you find out how much of a subject you only thought you understood. The skiing years may be the most useful of the three: nothing teaches you to break a skill into honest steps like standing on a mountain next to someone who is cold, frightened, and certain they can't do it.

The last thing isn't a credential. I've taught students who were embarrassed by how far back their gaps went: seniors in pre-calculus who were quietly unsure about fractions, and chemistry students who weren't quite sure what a dimension is or how dimensional analysis works. It is the most common situation in the world and it is not a character flaw. Nobody is judged in my sessions for not knowing something. We find it, we fix it, we move on.

About the lesson

For years I taught at a private school with a unique educational model: every single class is one teacher and one student. No lectures, no group of thirty, no student in the back row quietly falling behind. The experience changed how I teach: I don't move on until my students can prove to me that they didn't just absorb the material but grasped it at a fundamental level.

The first session is always diagnostic. It's about getting to know the whole student. What are your interests and passions? How can I connect my lesson plans to topics that engage you and design problems that have real applications beyond test day? The critical second step is enumerating your goals for our tutoring sessions. What are you struggling with in your current classes, what are your long term education and career goals, and how can we design a roadmap that navigates the hurdles we can't see yet? The final step is finding the fundamental building blocks that you as a student are missing. The hardest part of Calculus 1 is rarely the calculus itself; forgotten trig identities and algebra errors are far more common than product and chain rule mistakes. Pinning down precisely which tools in your belt are rusty or missing is the first step to repairing a crumbling foundation.

Once we have a plan, the pattern is simple: you hold the pencil. I can work a problem on a whiteboard and you will follow every step, understand all of it, and still not be able to do the next one alone. Unless you make the common mistakes yourself, you will never learn to avoid them. So I set the problem up, ask you what comes next, and stay quiet. When you get stuck I won't give you the next step, but I will help you navigate the resources already at your disposal, interpret the information we find there, and synthesize that into a strategy to solve the problem.

Physics fails in its own particular way, and it's rarely the physics. Students arrive having memorized twenty equations and try to pattern-match each new problem onto one of them. That works until a problem is phrased a little differently, and then it collapses all at once. What's actually happening here? What's pushing on what, and which way is it going? Draw it. Once the picture is right the equation is usually obvious, and the few you genuinely need to know you can rebuild rather than recall. The same diagnosis applies as in math: a great deal of physics struggles are algebra or trigonometry struggles wearing a costume. A student who can't cleanly isolate a variable will look like they don't understand momentum. I teach both, so when that turns out to be the problem we fix it directly instead of building around it.

I teach all levels of math from pre-algebra to advanced calculus, including geometry, probability, statistics, differential equations (ordinary and partial), and linear algebra. In physics I cover high school and honors courses, AP-level material, and calculus-based intro sequences: mechanics, optics, thermodynamics, E&M and modern physics. I also guide you through lab write-ups and error analysis, which are the parts nobody teaches you and everybody grades you on.

I teach in person around College Park, including on and near the University of Maryland campus if that's easier for you, and by webcam anywhere else. If you think I might be a good fit for you, please schedule a session. The first one is always free.

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This first lesson offered with Jonathan will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

30mins

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$35/h

Physics Grad and Data Science Master's Student Teaches Math, Physics and Statistics: Pre-algebra through Differential Equations and Linear Algebra

Lesson location

About Jonathan

About the lesson

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Rate

Pack rates

Travel

free lessons

online

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Physics Grad and Data Science Master's Student Teaches Math, Physics and Statistics: Pre-algebra through Differential Equations and Linear Algebra

Lesson location

About Jonathan

About the lesson

Rates

Rate

Pack rates

Travel

free lessons

online

Other tutors in Maths

Poonam

Alireza

Chris

Riccardo

Hamid

Houssem

Mounir

Romain

Ptashanna

Gianni

Gaël

Davayne

Anis

Paolo

Gregor

Nicolas

Sofia

Filippo

Francesco

Laurent

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