David

Certified Tutor

Hello! My name is David and it is very nice to meet you. I have been tutoring since high school and recently decided to contract my tutoring services through 51�Թ���. Teaching and learning have always been huge parts of my life and upbringing. My mother has worked as a primary school classroom teacher and educator for my entire life; my twin brother worked as a classroom teacher as well and currently is studying to become a school psychologist; and my father, after retiring from the Air Force, has taught literature and rhetoric at a number of community colleges near his home in Ohio. Like my family, I am an extremely passionate and enthusiastic person who feels like their "best self" when they are in front of a classroom. I was a teaching assistant and tutor in the University of Nebraska - Omaha Department of Psychology for two years, while completing my graduate studies in psychology. As my professors and students will attest to, I consistently went above and beyond what was expected of me as an assistant, because I viewed the education of UNO's students as the most important part of my role as a graduate student. Statistics and research methods is one of my greatest passions, and I helped many students who had been previously struggling with these subjects developed an appreciation for them (even if it was a begrudging one!).

Prior to my decision to tutor on the 51�Թ��� platform, I had worked as a professional statistician/analyst at the Missouri Institute of Mental Health, which is a department of the University of Missouri in St. Louis (this is also the same university I went to for my undergraduate studies). During my time at this job, I greatly expanded my knowledge of statistical analysis and computer programming. I consider myself a "power user" of the R programming language, as well as Server Query Language (SQL), which was necessary for my job given that I was working with very large databases containing public health data from Missouri Medicaid patients. Working in this setting gave me a much bigger appreciation for what is commonly referred to as "the big data problem", that is, the tradeoff between specificity and volume of data and the special schools of analysis that are necessary to circumvent this (such as Bayesian methods). Although I consider data analysis to be both one of my personal passions in addition to a marketable job skill, I did recently decide to resign from this position in order to pursue a career in social work. I am planning on enrolling in a Master's of Social Work (MSW) program in the near future, although that will likely not affect my availability for tutoring.

In addition to my experiences as both a student of statistics and a professional statistician, I have a great number of hobbies and personal interests that I am also enthusiastic to share with my students. Music (specifically playing guitar) is my greatest passion, and although I am largely self-taught I am just as disciplined and rigorous in my musical studies as I am in my professional pursuits.

In my previous experiences with teachers, professors, and tutors, I have always found that I learn best when I am working with someone who I respect on both a personal and professional love. Empathy, support, understanding, engagement and open communication are, in my view, not only ideal but essential for a student to truly learn. I have seen and experienced a lot in both my personal life and professional career, having worked in areas as diverse as psychiatric nursing (as a nurse's aide in a psychiatric hospital), social services (at a group home for adults with developmental disabilities), preschool phonics and arithmetic (at a Kumon Reading and Math Center), and many more. I consider myself an open-minded person who strives to be honest and candid in all of my interactions, no matter what the race, age, sex, gender identity, sexuality, health status, etc., of the person I am speaking with. I believe that those differences are all ultimately superficial, and that we as human beings are at our best when we are celebrating the very best accomplishments our species has claimed: language, mathematics, music and arts, etc.