Piano Teaching Experience (2007 - present):
Described here


Education in NYC - Working inside and outside of the DOE:
Unlike many teachers and tutors, I have experience not only teaching students from a host of different K-12 schools (public, private, charter, and home), but I have also taught within several schools as well. Having witnessed first-hand and second-hand (from the perspectives of students and parents), many different learning environments, I have seen what works (and what doesn't!) for numerous students.

I have worked with students from:
~ Stuyvesant
~ Bronx Science
~ NYC LAB School
~ NEST+m
~ LaGuardia High School
~ Leman Manhattan Preparatory School
~ Saint Ann's School
~ Packer Collegiate Institute
~ Institute of Collaborative Education (ICE)
These are a few names from a host of other public and private schools whose students I have tutored.


NEST+m (2011 - present):
Since December 2011, I have been teaching Technology to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at NEST+m. I custom-designed the course that educates children in computer use, covering topics such as: typing, web navigation, using programs in the Microsoft Office suite, computer animation, and elementary computer programming. The biggest hit with students of the class is MIT's Scratch, a computer programming environment designed for kids to easily make (and SHARE) movies and games.

I have also participated in NEST's after-school program as a group piano instructor. I Instructed the group of 8 lower school students with Faber & Faber's My First Piano Adventures series, and supplemented it with fun songs such as theme songs from video games and movies, holiday songs, and pop music.


Past Teaching Experience:
Math Teaching at UAMA (2007-2008)
During the 2007-2008 school year, I worked full-time teaching math to 9th, 10th, and 11th graders at the Urban Assembly School of Music and Art (UAMA for short). As a math teacher at UAMA, I was given the creative freedom to make learning math more about exploration and discovery than about doing exercises. I custom- designed the curriculum for every course I taught to best fit the needs of my students. For my 11th grade class, I designed a college-prep/applied math course. This course began with a conceptual look at  Ratio and Percent and then moved into an overview of each of  the following topics: Banking with a glimpse at Monetary Theory, Elementary Physics, Elementary Logic, Probability, and extensive preparation for the SATs. I tied the diverse themes in this course together with the thread of problem solving, the idea being that math provides us with a powerful toolbox with which we can construct many models and solutions to life's many problems. I also relied heavily on the use of puzzles in this class to help develop crucial problem solving skills.

As I was teaching math at a music and art school, I took several opportunities to incorporate my musical and artistic knowledge into daily instruction. Aside from teaching math during the school day, however, I also taught a semester-long extracurricular music class to about 8 of my freshman students. This class covered music fundamentals such as reading music, beginning keyboard skills, elementary music theory, and ear training. Most students entered the class with little to no formal music knowledge and left with at least a familiarity of fundamental concepts.

In addition to teaching classes of students, I acquired plenty of tutoring experience during my time at UAMA. I frequently made myself available to my students during lunch and before and after school to help them work through any confusion that arose from the material in class. Some of my more gifted math students used this time to pick my brain for interesting math or logic puzzles, with which I was more than happy to oblige them.


After School Programs at PS 188 and MS 447 (2008-2010)
I've been able to continue working with the Department of Education by teaching in occasional after-school programs despite leaving the classroom fulltime. In 2008/9 lent my services to PS 188's Scholars Lab, an exciting program made possible by a city grant. Located in the Lower East Side, PS 188 offers its students the unique opportunity to have a space for studying equipped with computers and professional teachers. In the fall of 2010, I helped prepare M.S. 447's 8th graders for the SHSAT through a course offered by Antoine Education.