I offer tutoring in Computer Science and Math for students in high school or college.
Below is a description of my general tutoring approach, and what I charge for this service.
My Teaching Experience and Philosophy
While obtaining my B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering, I spent 2 semesters as a Teaching Assistant (TA), which is essentially a course-specific tutor employed by the university and selected from talented students by faculty. The first was in my freshman year, where I taught the U of M’s standard introductory programming course using the Python programming language. The second was in my junior year, where I taught Formal Languages and Automata Theory under Professor Gopalan Nadathur, which is an upper-division course focusing on the foundational theory of computation itself, which naturally underlies the entire discipline of Computer Science. Through my experience teaching these classes, I learned how to connect with students who were at all levels of understanding and background knowledge, and tailor my explanations to best fill the gaps in their understanding. These experiences also gave me time to shed assumptions I had made about how to teach effectively, primarily the assumption that the students I was helping would learn in the same way that I had when I was in their position.
In my tutoring practice, I aim to apply the refined teaching style I developed as a college-level instructor in ways that are useful and relatable to students of all ages and all levels of aptitude and background knowledge. I place a particular focus on helping students understand the conceptual foundations of the subject matter at hand, because these bedrock layers are where the most enriching learning takes place; they’re also, unfortunately, the layers that most high-school courses (in my experience) either glace over or ignore completely.
My goal with my students is to use the depth of understanding I gained through my intensive collegiate studies in Computer Science and Math to explain concepts and answer questions in a way that makes difficult things feel easy. CS and Math are lucky subjects for this approach, because they’re so structural and conceptual that they relate very naturally to things that we already understand from our everyday lives as humans. Things that might initially seem too abstract to grasp, like functions, data structures, loops, and so on, are actually very similar to things we already understand: to use kitchen items as analogies, recipes are like functions, cupboards holding ingredients are like data structures, and an oven running on a timer is like a loop with an exit condition. Explaining such concepts from these kinds of angles helps students internalize them faster and more comfortably than if the same concepts were explained in a dry, textbook-style way.
Rates
I charge $100 per hour for tutoring sessions. If, however, this rate would be financially straining for a potential client, I am willing to be flexible down to a price that would be more comfortable, as my goal in tutoring is not to put financial pressure on families.
I offer free consultations over Zoom or any other conferencing platform. Send me an email at ericfrederickson68@gmail.com to get in touch!