I believe that all students can be good at math; they just need a push in the right direction. I believe students learn better when they find the approach that works best for them, even if it might not be exactly how the curriculum wants them to approach it. By gaining a basic understanding, I believe that students can more easily adapt and learn the patterns that the curriculum wants them to adapt to and understand.

During a first session, I like to figure out what areas the student in struggling in and figure out their baseline of understanding. Ideally, I want to learn if there's a misunderstanding further back in their learning that we need to repair before we move forward onto new material.

While resources such as Wolfram Alpha allow students to get the answer without the solution, my goal is to help students learn how to use these independent resources in order to find a solution. If a student is stuck on a problem and given the answer, are they able to work backwards to a solution? That's how I hope to help students become independent learners.