Derek W - Online Math Tutor
I absolutely love helping people understand math better. I have been tutoring math since my sophomore year at Virginia Tech--eons ago. I have been a 'numbers person' all my life. I enjoyed math as a kid. I majored in electrical engineering in college. I enjoyed tutoring college math, engineering, and calculus during my days at Virginia Tech. After graduation, I worked as an engineer for a few years before returning to school. Some of my favorite moments were in helping high school students in math and adults prepping for the math portion of professional certification tests. In graduate school, I focused on innovation and product development in high tech industries, requiring a heavy dose of quantitative courses in business, engineering, and math. It was always a pleasure helping classmates figure out tough quantitative and analytical problems. Post MBA, I worked in product development in leading technology companies. While helping create industry-leading and award-winning products, I developed an interest in US student mathematics performance. I began tutoring math more frequently and eventually taught middle school math and high school math for a few years. Now, I am fully engaged in helping students develop richer understandings of math, particularly precalculus and calculus.
Experience
I tutor the university and college math courses Calculus III, Calculus II, Calculus, Brief Calculus, Business Calculus, Precalculus-Trigonometry, Precalculus-Algebra, and Precalculus. I tutor the high school math courses AP Calculus BC, AP Calculus AB, Honors Calculus, Calculus, Honors Precalculus, and Precalculus. In addition, I help students prepare for the math portions of the PSAT, SAT, ACT, CLEP, and GRE... I tutor nationally online via Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Wyzant. I have worked online and in person with many Virginia students from the Richmond and Williamsburg areas, as well as students from the DC/MD/VA region. I have helped a number of North Carolina students online from the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill and Charlotte areas. I tutor students in the Greensboro area online or in person. I use plain language to explain concepts. I supplement my explanations with pictures, diagrams, graphs, charts, and tables to help the concepts come to life for students. Students seem to really like my approach. They say that I'm patient, that I make learning fun, and that I make complex subjects easy to understand. Most important, they say that with my help they do very well in their classes and on standardized and placement tests. I have significant experience teaching and tutoring students with learning differences. I have helped many frustrated students diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyslexia, anxiety, and/or depression succeed at levels they had never before achieved. I have taught high school and middle school math in Virginia and North Carolina. The subjects included Introduction to Calculus, Precalculus, Trigonometry, Algebra 2, Geometry, Algebra 1, NC Math 3, NC Math 2, 8th Grade Math, 7th Grade Math, and 6th Grade Math. Currently, I work with private clients and I work at Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) in Jamestown, NC, as a professional tutor for the Center for Academic Engagement (CAE). With CAE I help GTCC students with math, physics, and engineering courses. I help a range of private clients with similar courses. My private clients and GTCC students all range from high schoolers to adult learners.
Education
University of Virginia
MBA, Business Administration, Concentration in Innovation and Technology Management
University of Virginia
ME (not completed), Electrical Engineering, Concentration in Thin Film Transistor Semiconductor Manufacturing
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
BSEE, Electrical Engineering, Concentration in Semiconductor Physics