PrepNow Tutor - Jonathan C.
An active and inquisitive tutor, Jon is always seeking opportunities for self-improvement and service opportunities. He holds a BS in mathematics education from North Carolina State University and an MS in information systems from Naval Postgraduate School. Following college, Jonathan spent twenty years in the Marine Corps and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. After leaving the service, he taught high school mathematics for ten years, serving as the school's mathematics department head. He has since transitioned to tutoring middle school and high school mathematics. Jon received the Joint Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, and Navy Commendation Medal, and he has been selected as Teacher of the Year multiple times by students.
“I knew early in life I loved to teach and had a knack for explaining things,” Jon says. His father was a computer science college professor and he spent his teen summers as a counselor at a resident summer camp, which is where he first experienced working as a mentor. “My college degree prepared me to be a teacher and, while in the Marines, I continually found myself in education assignments, either as an instructor or an administrator at formal military schools and training facilities,” Jon says. “Following my twenty-year military career, I immediately began my second career as an educator.” Whatever the teaching assignment or role, Jon gets great satisfaction in connecting with students and with helping students learn and develop new skills. “Education has been a life-long calling and one that I am very proud of," he says. Throughout his career, Jon has taught algebra, geometry, pre-calculus, AP calculus AC/BC, AP computer science, and SAT/ACT preparation courses, which he developed himself. Since 2014, he has also privately tutored algebra through to calculus.
As a tutor, Jon provides a welcoming and motivating environment in which students feel safe, empowered, and confident in their ability to learn and grow. "My teaching style consists of student exploration of specific topics before instruction, followed by lecture, demonstration, questions, and student practice,” Jon says, adding that he works to identify each student's learning style to provide effective instruction. “I try to understand each student's unique personal schedule and situation (sports, family, work, goals) and form a plan that best supports their individual situation,” he adds. “I also believe frequent assessment is necessary to gauge comprehension. I move at the student's pace and enjoy focusing on areas a student is struggling with and identifying the concept, defining the problem, and working toward comprehension using alternative methods until mastery.”
In high school, Jonathan ran cross country and track. In college, he was in the College Navy ROTC and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
He currently enjoys camping, hunting, endurance sports, bicycle touring, sailing, woodworking, classic car restoration, and playing the guitar. Jonathan is an FAA-licensed instrumented-rated airplane private pilot with over 500 hours of flight time and he has three children. “I enjoy being challenged intellectually by students,” Jonathan says. “Student inquiry of the unexpected has often made me explore beyond the subject matter and has made me a better teacher and mathematician.”
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