Kyle Denny-Radzinski

I was born and raised in Oregon, a little outside of Portland. When I turned 18, I moved south and went to the University of Oregon where I earned my BA in Mathematics with minors in Chemistry, French, and Religious Studies. I studied many different fields during my undergrad experience, and I learned the value of having a well-rounded education. Following my bachelor’s degree, I moved even further south to San Diego where I received my MA in Mathematics at UCSD. While in the program, I experienced for the first time what it was like to not understand a math subject immediately. This shaped how I viewed the way people learn math and then how to teach it to others.

If you understand a subject, you need to be able to explain it to others in your own words. My first experience with this was when I was in high school calculus, and my teacher gave me the honor of teaching the class while he was gone for the day. To my amazement, my peers not only understood what I was telling them, but they also liked the way I presented the material. With this initial confidence boost, I figured I could do even more through tutoring and teaching.

My first official experience with a teaching job was when I worked as a tutor for three years during my time at the University of Oregon. I did both drop-in and individual tutoring. This experience gave me insight into how students learn and sometimes struggle with math. Next, I worked as a teacher’s assistant at UCSD for a year leading discussion sections and holding office hours. My time spent teaching students showed me the near impossibility of finding a teaching method that works for everyone. I found that I needed to adapt and implement multiple methods at different times. Sometimes my students would just want the answer to the question at hand without a real explanation. Therefore, I have found that a guiding method to tutoring is the most beneficial.

Though I have two degrees in math now, I have not always found it intriguing. In middle school, I wanted to be a commercial pilot, then in my first year of high school I wanted to pursue religious studies. It was in my second year of high school that I started to develop an appreciation and knack for math. Using that as momentum, I said to myself, “Let’s ride this wave as far as it goes.” It is hard to nail down exactly what has drawn me to math, but in short, I would say that the elegant and interesting way things just seem to work in math has kept me fascinated.

My tutoring approach is to initially let the student express what they are struggling with or what they would like to focus on. After that, we can proceed with more in-depth focus such as test prep, practice problems, or content review. One problem that some students run into is not knowing how to properly address the question at hand. What I like to do is to state what we know or are given, figure out the goal, and then outline the way to get there so that the question becomes much more manageable.

During my free time, I like to sit down with a good book, crochet fun projects, and learn languages — Parles-tu français ? Sprichst du Deutsch?