Achieve With Ease Tutoring

Berkeley & Bay Area Tutor

Math, Science, Writing & SAT

Tutoring for Complete Comprehension and Complete Confidence

 relaxed, focused sessions with a Harvard-Educated Tutor

Chris Dingman, Berkeley & East Bay math, science & writing tutor 

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by Chris Dingman

Hi!

My name's Chris Dingman. I’m a Harvard-educated, Berkeley and East Bay tutor and writer, with over 20 years of experience as a teacher and tutor, available throughout the Bay Area. I have a relaxed, authentic, good-humored approach that puts students at ease and allows them to focus on and truly understand the material at hand. Though I have a broad range of interests and experience, I specialize in tutoring all levels of high school math through AP Calculus, all high school sciences, including biology, chemistry and physics, writing, and SAT preparation.

Subjects I tutor:

Read more about my tutoring rates, background and what I offer below. Click here to read a letter of reference from my last employer.

As a Tutor, I Help Motivated Students:
• Relax
• Get Organized
• Really understand a subject
• Increase their confidence
• Get more out of class
• Improve their grades

What I Offer

(One-on-One Tutoring vs Classroom Learning)
I’ve come to believe, over 20 years of experience in education in Berkeley and the Bay Area in general, that one-on-one tutoring is a much more relaxed and effective way to learn than classroom instruction. Over my 20 years of experience as a tutor, I’ve found that a lot of students decide they can’t succeed in a class when it’s really just that:

• the pace is too fast

• the teaching style doesn’t suit them

• they don’t have a context for the material that makes sense to them

• they can’t get their questions answered or

• they feel too self-conscious and anxious in the classroom to focus on learning

The most important thing I do as a tutor, may be to set a relaxed tone in which students feel free to be themselves, make mistakes, ask questions and therefore learn! I do this by having a sense of humor, being authentic, listening and generally just being my charming self. (There’s a little sample of the humor for you, free of charge!)

From that as a starting point, I can then:

• Exactly tailor my explanation for that student

• Go at the student's individual pace, as slow—or as fast—as needed

• Place the material in the big picture, allowing the student to make sense of it and answer the question “Why am I learning this?”

• Answer all the student’s questions.

Approaching a topic this way can be vital to a student’s self-confidence, attitude towards a subject, and grades. Tutoring is so much more effective than classroom learning.
 

Location & Frequency of Tutoring
I tutor students both at my home in Berkeley and also at students' homes  in the East Bay and Bay Area in general. Please contact me to discuss what would work best for you. Often, twice-a-week tutor sessions are optimal, but once a week may work as well depending on individual needs.

Tutoring Rates

My specific tutor rates depend on several factors including where and how frequently we tutor and individual circumstance.  Please e-mail or call to discuss rates and your particular situation and needs. 

I can say that I'm on the higher end of the rate scale because of

• my effectiveness from my natural teaching ability combined with 20 years of experience as a tutor

• my expertise in and ability to tutor a broad range of subjects

• and perhaps most of all my ability to make students feel relaxed and confident in themselves.

There's a big difference between knowing a subject and knowing how to teach it. I've always been able to make math and science accessible to students. Years of experience has honed this ability. It's taught me when to supply an answer and when to prod the student to think of it themselves; how to give examples and hints that gradually build a student's confidence; and most of all it's taught me that 80 to 90% of good tutoring is helping students feel relaxed, confident and good about themselves.

From my years observing teachers and hearing about students' experiences with tutors, I know that many well-meaning instructors don't teach as well as they could. I've heard about tutors doing problems for students instead of supporting a student in figuring things out themselves. Many teachers and tutors, through ignorance, make students feel bad about themselves and therefore shut down and remain closed to the material. A good tutor helps a student feel good about themselves, not by artificial praise, but by a natural respect for the student and an authentic belief in his or her ability.

Please read the letter of reference from my last employer for an assessment of my teaching abilities and feel free to ask me for more tutoring references.

My Background
In 1987 I graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Biology from Harvard University, where I was also a course assistant in calculus and math tutor. Now located in the East Bay, in Berkeley, I’ve been teaching and tutoring in the Bay Area for the most of the years since, in a private tutoring practice and in both middle and high schools. These schools include Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, The Freeman School, The Hebrew Academy, East Bay School of the Arts, Arrowsmith Academy, Urban High School, and also several summer schools, including Drew Academy. I’ve taught--and now tutor--math from the fifth grade through all levels of high school math, including calculus, as well as high school biology, physics and chemistry.

At Harvard, I wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and thus began the other thread in my adult life—in the arts. I optioned a comedy screenplay to Warner Bros. in 1989 and have since written several more screenplays.  As a freelance writer and editor, I've also written magazine articles and various educational materials. Over the past few years, another passion has made life even more confusing: music! I’m the singer, songwriter and founder of the folk/country/pop band Crooked Roads. If you‘d like to catch us live, check out the “Live Shows” link at www.crookedroadsband.com, or listen to samples of songs from my newest CD, Heartbreak Sampler, at www.heartbreaksampler.com.
 

Again, let me know if you have any questions!

All the best,
Chris Dingman
Achievewithease@gmail.com

510-644-9790 (h)
510-301-8190 (c)

Berkeley, CA

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