I saw something posted about calendar math. I would like to find out more about it, so can anyone tell me who the publisher is or what the URL for the web site is?
Can you find somebody who isn't a math professor?
Short term memory shouldn’t be a huge burden on math (but I’ve also never met a textbook that really helped… not sure why…)
Can you deal with numbers in everyday life? What do you know about numbers and algebra?
Re: Can you find somebody who isn't a math professor?
I have serious problems remembering formulas and procedures for math.
I don’t understand your question, “what do you know about numbers and algebra?”
I am not learning algebra at the moment. I just learned sets and now we are on logic. There is a geometry component also. I haven’t had geometry. This course is all that stand in my way for an A.A.S. Gerontology degree this December!
Tutors have been very hard for me to find. The math professor also tutors a classmate. That is how I found her. She is not the professor for our class.
The college provides 2 hours a week student tutors. So far this semester they haven’t been very good. I seem to need about 8 hours a week or more! Money to pay tutors is a serious problem!
None of the tutors I have found have the time I need to tutor me. The professor tutor is very reasonable—$15 an hour, but she has very little time. About 2 hours a week.
Re: Can you find somebody who isn't a math professor?
Your experience with student tutors is common — they often don’t really understand the subject themselves, but have memorized a few quick tricks and manipulations, and if that doesn’t work for you, they have nothing else. The more I see of it, the less I like peer teaching. So don’t get discouraged by your experiences — it’s often the sign of an enquiring mind to have questions that rote memorizers can’t answer.
You say reading the math text doesn’t help. Maybe not; an awful lot of these texts are truly dreadful . On the other hand, most people don’t read math texts in the way they read other texts, and they wonder why they don’t get anything out of the kind of exercise mining they do.
Try really reading your text: go to the introduction and preface, and read them through to see what the text and author are all about. Read through the chapters, spending some time on the boxes with historical notes and other such things. Stop at each graph or illustration and spend some time trying to verbalize to yourself what the message is. Read through the examples line by line; use an index card to cover the part you haven’t read yet, and try to predict what the next step should be. This is a very good technique in math in general; in class it is good to try to predict what the professor will do next. Take an *active* role. A major problem in math class is mental passivity; the information just rolls off the brain like water off a duck’s back. (People who spend the entire time reciting the “I hate math” mantra, oddly enough learn absolutely nothing from their class time.) Try to put yourself in the problem — when doing the things about maximum profit, put yourself in the position of the store owner; when doing the things about floor area, try to put yourself in the position of a person trying to buy carpet; and so on Again, there are some truly horrendous texts out there, and if your author has you wanting to throw the book and him against the wall after half an hour, OK. But you may get something out of it — it’s worth a try.
Try using your good tutor’s time most productively. Read as much of the chapter as you can before you go there. Do as many of the probelms as you can before you go, and try to make a start on as many as possible even if you can’t finish them. If your tutor can start on your exact problems instead of re-teaching the whole thing, you can make more progress.
If all else fails, remember you can always re-register part-time next semester and concentrate on just passing the math. You can continue with the good tutor and get further ahead.
One thing to remember; I saw this in an article many years ago and remembered it because it seemed a good point at the time, and now it applies to the changes in my life too: a woman says “If I start college now when I’m fifty, by the time I graduate in five years I’ll be fifty-five!” Her friend answers “And if you don’t start college now, how old will you be in five years?”
I’m also a math tutor, although presently in the process of moving as the result of the divorce settlement. I can’t promise to be immediately available, but you can email me personally with specific questions and I’ll do what I can to help.
Victoria
I am a 54 year old woman with LD. Specific weakness in math and short term memory. I am having an awful time getting through college math. I had to take Elementary algebra twice, failed intermediate algebra, and now I am in liberal arts math.
I use tutors whenever I can get them. I also have a math professor who tutors me.
Reading the text book doesn’t help!
Suggestions please!