Math Tutoring By Kafka

I have over 43 years of teaching and tutoring experience. I have a B.S. degree (1969) from the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater in mathematics and a M.S. degree (1972), also in Mathematics, from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). I was a TA at UIC from 1969 – 1972. I then taught full time at UIC from 1973 until I retired in 2013.

I have been the recipient of the “Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching” five times. It is an award given at the commencement ceremony by vote of the students in the UIC graduating class. Additionally I have on numerous occasions received the “Extra Mile Award” awarded by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities for going the extra mile in helping students with

disabilities.

I enjoy working with students one-on-one. That way there is immediate feedback and a lot of progress can be made. At UIC, I especially liked teaching Algebra, Precalculus, Trigonometry, and Probability. Many of the students in these classes had bad experiences in high school and lacked confidence. It was extremely satisfying to see them realize that they could be successful. Over the years I have fine tuned the way I approach concepts. I know exactly what examples I want to do and in what order they need to be done. I believe in starting off with a simple example to explain the concept and working from there so that by the end the student is doing more difficult problems.