February 24, 2009

Math Tutor


I had the opportunity to review some of the Math Tutor DVDs from MathTutorDVD.com. Jason Gibson teaches these videos to help students with all levels of math. There is a cute sign on the front of each DVD that says, “A+ CAUTION! The use of this DVD will cause increased understanding of Algebra 2 (or whatever level you happen to be studying) and will lead to higher grades.” I was given the Algebra 2 video and the Basic Math Word Problems video to review (both are 2-DVD sets).

The videos are the same in format. Basically, Mr. Gibson stands in front of a white board and teaches your child (or you) about math. He reminds me of my high school algebra teacher, except that he doesn't make annoying jokes and he actually makes sense! Mr. Gibson speaks clearly and seems to communicate the skills he is teaching to his audience. I think that any student watching these videos will gain a greater understanding of math. Of course, I couldn't try these out on my student, since we are definitely not doing algebra yet, and we're still working on just the basic operations of addition and subtraction (not so much word problems yet!). So, I don't know how Ella would respond to this format. It seems a tad bit dry to me. It really is just straight-forward lecture like you would get in a college class. Mr. Gibson explains how to do the problems and shows several examples on the white board. If this type of method works for your child, then you will love these DVDs!

The best thing about Mr. Gibson's approach to teaching math is that he breaks it down into very simple, easy-to-understand steps. I really like the fact that these lessons are on DVD, so you can go through them at your own pace. You can also watch sections over and over again until you "get" the concept. This gives you the feeling of having a real tutor in your living room, going over concepts until you are comfortable with them.

Please take the time to go to the Math Tutor website. There are many different DVDs offered. Most of the courses only cost $26.99 (including the 2 that I reviewed) and the average length of the videos is 8 hours. This is a great value, considering that you would most likely pay $30/hour for a personal tutor (adding up to a whopping $240 for 8 hours of instruction!). I highly recommend that you preview some of the sample videos at MathTutorDVD.com (links are on the left-hand column) so that you can see Mr. Gibson's teaching method for yourself!

If you would like to read some other reviews of this product, please go on over to the TOS Crew blog for the links!

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