1. Our favorite “aha!” moment with a student.
A: Teaching percents are one of our most frequent aha moments with students. Many of our students are tripped up and confused by the complicated ways they are taught at school and in the end, don't really understand what they mean. When we show them a simple, straightforward way, they say "Now I get it! I wish my teacher taught it like this!"
2. A time when a student earned a reward.
A: We had two brothers save up their punch cards to earn a Nintendo Switch. It took them about a year but they were incredibly proud of their efforts and to finally get what they had worked so hard for. Now they save for games to play on their Switch! Their mother was so proud of them!
3. Positive parent experience.
A: Parents often tell us how surprised they are that their child WANTS to go to Mathnasium! They say that their student was never too excited about math, but loves coming to Mathnasium. They love their enthusiasm and new found confidence.
4. Favorite ways to teach concepts.
A: We use a lot of manipulatives at Mathnasium! One of the best uses is to use counters to demonstrate and help children understand reasoning in groups. We might be teaching that 3 tickets cost $5. How many tickets can you get for $25? This can be abstract for students, so we get counters and group them in green stacks of 5 and another color in stacks of 3. Children are then able to easily see what the problems are asking. The visual and tactile exploration really helps to cement the concept.
5. A time when a student scored well on a test.
A: We recently had a middle school girl join us. She is very bright but was struggling to fully understand some of the concepts in her math class. She was not getting the grades she wanted on her tests. Within a month, she was getting A's and her teacher emailed one day to let us know that she had scored 100% on her test with proportions and ratios.
