Johanna Agius

Biography

I discovered my passion for teaching while I was still in high school. At fifteen, I was a peer math tutor at Mercy Burlingame. Helping a classmate understand difficult material was immensely satisfying. I enjoyed going up to the chalkboard and explaining a geometry proof to the class. Being a peer tutor, along with having warm and wonderful teachers who made math fun, sparked my interest in becoming a math teacher. I graduated from the University of San Francisco with a double major in Math and Spanish and a minor in Computer Science. I continued on at USF to earn my secondary math credential and Master’s in Math Education. At USF, I was a teacher’s assistant for Calculus I Mathematica labs and volunteered to help tutor math at elementary schools in San Francisco. I found volunteering to help out in special education high school classes during the summers extremely rewarding.

In addition to earning my teaching credentials, I completed my BCLAD — Bilingual Cross-cultural Language and Development — certificate. I taught math to students in their native Spanish language at Newcomer High School in San Francisco.

I taught Geometry and Algebra 2/Trig at Mercy High School, Burlingame for 14 years. My favorite aspect of teaching was working one-on-one with my students after class. I got to know these students better, both personally and academically. I discovered new ways of teaching material depending on their individual learning styles.

I decided to go into private tutoring full-time in 2012. I have worked with numerous students from Pre-Algebra through Pre-Calculus and Spanish. In learning math, I found that I am better able to understand, memorize, and apply a formula or theorem if I know how it was derived. I try to show my students where a concept comes from so that it doesn’t seem foreign to them. I like to use songs, acronyms, and pictures to help students remember the material. Students can be successful in math through patience, practice, and developing their problem-solving skill set.

I am a big animal lover, especially cats! In my spare time, I enjoy swimming, going to the movies, spending time with my family and friends, and just relaxing at home watching television. I love to travel, and over the years I have been very fortunate to visit many beautiful countries, my favorite one being Malta, my father’s country.