How We Tutor

If you think our approach to tutoring as described below might be a good fit for you, you can arrange a free consultation, by clicking the banner above, to learn about tutoring in more detail, discuss the specifics of your situation, and get answers to any questions you may have about tutoring.

Our Educational Philosophy and its Implementation

The guiding principle at iMathTutor^® is the same whether we are tutoring a mathematics course or a statistics course: Understanding comes from doing. In these fields, in broad terms, doing means solving problems. Hence our guiding principle is put into action by working with our clients to hone their problem-solving skills by, in some instances, giving feedback on the client's work on problems, and in other instances working through problems together.

Our Tutoring Style

Our tutoring sessions are conversations, not lectures. This is an outgrowth of our time in grad school. One of our favorite and most valuable experiences during that time was dropping in a professor's office to discuss a paper we read recently, or to get feedback on a research problem we were working on. This sort of informal, collegial one-on-one time with a professor is not something that most undergraduates at a large university such as Penn State get to experience. We want to give that experience to our clients in their tutoring sessions.

What We Expect of a Client

A prepared mind is essential to learning. Hence we expect a client to have made a good faith effort to solve the problems they will bring to their session in advance of our meeting.

We also expect a client to respect our mission to educate them by not asking us to help them cheat. Examples of cheating, as we define it, are using us to simply get answers to plug in to WebAssign, or to solve problems on a take-home exam.

The Logistics of Tutoring

Although no two clients needs are identical and there is wide latitude in how we work with a client toward their goals, we typically meet a client once a week for each course that we are working with them in. Additional sessions are often scheduled at exam times.

Further, we are also available via email, at no extra charge, to address small problems that may develop between standing sessions.

Finally, we strongly recommend online sessions over in-person sessions. To learn why visit

The Why & How of Online Tutoring

Visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for additional information on how we tutor.

FAQ