Lucia

Certified Tutor

I used to teach and perform research but I'm now putting my three degrees (Ph.D. M.S and B.S.) in Mechanical Engineering to work helping students master science and math. I always enjoyed one on one tutoring sessions when teaching courses at University of Illinois and Iowa State University, and love to tutor in math and subjects used in mechanical engineering. These are all levels of algebra, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations, probability, statistics and physics.

My approach to teaching is to try to merge theory and practical application of the theory. Over time, I've found some students to best learning the "why" a method works before trying to apply a method; others do best seeing material in the opposite order preferring to see how a theory is applied before learning the general theory. When tutoring, I try to observe which method of learning best suits a particular student and adapt the lesson to their learning style.

No matter which type of student, I sometimes find connecting mathematical or physical concepts through hobbies or every day applications helps spark interest. Pattern drafting for sewing or knitting involves some algebra, grade school pre-algebra and trigonometry. In fact, I used mastery of math to create online knitting patterns to create custom hand knit sock patterns. To see simply applications of math to knitting visit my old hobby blog, http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/530 . While knitting is probably not your hobby, I can generally find applications that can help make a mathematical concept we are working on meaningful. Applications come from all sorts of places: geometric progressions relate to growth of money in a bank account, Newtons laws of mechanics can be related to baseball and combinations and permutations used in probability have applications in gambling, investing, and believe it or not, deriving the ideal gas law, used in chemistry, physics and thermodynamics.

I hope I can make learning enjoyable for you. Contact me if you need help in math or physics.