Every year, I work with a handful of Ontario students who are aiming at U.S. universities and need the SAT as part of their application. Preparing for the SAT from the GTA comes with a few wrinkles that students in the U.S. don’t have to think about — different school curriculum, fewer nearby test centres,…
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Specialty programs across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have become increasingly popular among students who are eager to challenge themselves academically and explore enriched learning environments. Programs such as MaCS (Mathematics, Computer Science and Science), TOPS (Talented Offerings for Programs in the Sciences), and HMST (High Math-Science-Technology) are designed to support high-achieving students with strong…
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Over the past two years, I have been pursuing a Master of Professional Education (MPEd) in Mathematics Education at the University of Western Ontario. This summer, I completed the program, culminating in the development of a website, Square Spiral (https://squarespiral.ca), as my final capstone project. The website I created is more than just a collection…
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Do you offer consultations and assessments? Yes, I am a big proponent of using diagnostic assessments to identify a student’s areas of strength and weakness in a subject. During the first session, apart from starting to build a rapport with the student, I also administer a diagnostic assessment. I communicate my findings from the diagnostic…
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Most of the school boards in Ontario have decided to adopt a quadmester model for the school year initially proposed by the TDSB. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-back-to-school-final-plan-quadmesters-1.5673519. This model is meant to help minimize the spread of COVID-19, since students will only be taking two courses per semester, and will be in a class of no more than…
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Apart from one on one sessions, I will also be offering group sessions during the summer and during the school year. There are many advantages to group sessions over a 1-on-1 session. One of them being that there are more perspectives brought to each lesson. The more students there are in a class, the more…
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As I’m writing this blog post, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of education for elementary and secondary school students during the next several months. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the usual way in which students are taught in educational institutions. This disruption in learning can be especially detrimental to grade 11…
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In this blog post, I would like to share information about Onstudy Academy, an online school that I have founded with Eduardo Marentes, a science educator and former researcher. We currently offer three courses: Grade 12 Advanced Functions (MHF4U), Grade 12 Biology (SBI4U), and Grade 12 Chemistry (SCH4U). Our school is ministry-inspected and able to…
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The advantage of taking a credit course over the summer in school or online is that it lightens one’s course load during the school year. Students that plan on taking all three sciences in grade 11 or 12, as well as all three maths in grade 12 tend to take a course over the summer.…
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During my first few years of tutoring I was hesitant to try online tutoring because I felt that it would be less effective than having in-person tutoring sessions. I believed that it would be easier to teach someone in person because that was what I was accustomed to. There came a time when I started…
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