Why PraxisMathGuru? And a little about me.
America is hurting for qualified and competent Math teachers. And students -- especially minority students, underprivileged students, at-risk students -- are hurting for qualified and competent Math teachers. And credential Exams like the Praxis 5161 aren't terribly easy.
Pass rates are low and there aren't even reliable study material and prep resources out there!
The Praxis 5161 Study Guide offers only marginal help: while it does provide a detailed syllabus and some practice Qs, for most of you that minimal practice isn't adequate. Far from it!
Quite a few Qs on the Praxis 5161 test are innovative, and demand a deeper grasp and comprehension of ideas. Conventional textbooks do little to prepare you for that. While my materials do test straightforward skills for the Exam, there are quite a lot of tricky Wait a minute, let me think about this! problems peppered throughout the Practice Tests and Q Banks.
We humans learn from patterns. Learning relies on recognizing patterns that examples afford. We observe similarities and differences from what we have learned before i.e. our prior knowledge -- and construct new knowledge based on that pattern recognition. How is problem A similar to problem B? How is it different? that kind of thing. Without enough examples and practice, deep learning doesn't occur.
What my Practice Tests and Question Banks seek to do is bridge that gap, and alleviate a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty you experience while preparing for the Praxis 5161: they provide you with a staggering variety of deeply insightful and penetrating questions, questions of a myriad style and difficulty-level and give you exposure to advanced mathematical concepts that you shall encounter while teaching High School math.
The thing is, there are plenty of you, prospective teachers otherwise passionate and committed to social justice and intending to bring about positive change in your communities, who would love to do some good...but passing the Praxis 5161 Exam seems an insurmountable obstacle. While passion and attitude are indispensable to teaching, skills and competence are critical, too. A passionate instructor lacking subject-matter knowledge wouldn't be terribly effective.
If the Praxis is the sole thing standing in your way, this endeavour is an earnest effort to get you closer to your educational goals. My goals are yours. Your success -- passing the Praxis 5161 Exam on your very next attempt on your way to being an exceptional caring teacher -- is my success.
And this site and my Q banks bear ambitious goals: to create stronger and better Math teachers through rigorous preparation.
Speaking about myself, I've been a High School Math teacher for over 16 years, and have taught all High School grades (9-12) and levels of Math: Algebra 1, 2, Geometry, Precalculus, AP Statistics and AP Calculus. And very successfully, throughout, I might add. [Find below my AP Statistics pass-rate over the last few years, for instance...and my AP Calculus, this past year!]
Additionally, I have won several teaching awards and have been nominated by students attending Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc. as their most inspirational teacher; I have also mentored numerous rookie teachers.
In my spare time, I read Math textbooks and, inspired, create interesting Math problems slightly beyond the precipice of the knowledge -- does that metaphor even make sense?! -- for candidates and students. [Indeed, I teach without notes of any kind and can contrive clever problems on the fly...]
All that said, I wish you well in your academic pursuits! Remember: hardwork is a sine qua non for success. The only way to get better at a skill is practice. As Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers: The Story of Success: “Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
Jay Ramaswamy.
Comments? Email me at [email protected]
AP Statistics
Pass rates are low and there aren't even reliable study material and prep resources out there!
The Praxis 5161 Study Guide offers only marginal help: while it does provide a detailed syllabus and some practice Qs, for most of you that minimal practice isn't adequate. Far from it!
Quite a few Qs on the Praxis 5161 test are innovative, and demand a deeper grasp and comprehension of ideas. Conventional textbooks do little to prepare you for that. While my materials do test straightforward skills for the Exam, there are quite a lot of tricky Wait a minute, let me think about this! problems peppered throughout the Practice Tests and Q Banks.
We humans learn from patterns. Learning relies on recognizing patterns that examples afford. We observe similarities and differences from what we have learned before i.e. our prior knowledge -- and construct new knowledge based on that pattern recognition. How is problem A similar to problem B? How is it different? that kind of thing. Without enough examples and practice, deep learning doesn't occur.
What my Practice Tests and Question Banks seek to do is bridge that gap, and alleviate a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty you experience while preparing for the Praxis 5161: they provide you with a staggering variety of deeply insightful and penetrating questions, questions of a myriad style and difficulty-level and give you exposure to advanced mathematical concepts that you shall encounter while teaching High School math.
The thing is, there are plenty of you, prospective teachers otherwise passionate and committed to social justice and intending to bring about positive change in your communities, who would love to do some good...but passing the Praxis 5161 Exam seems an insurmountable obstacle. While passion and attitude are indispensable to teaching, skills and competence are critical, too. A passionate instructor lacking subject-matter knowledge wouldn't be terribly effective.
If the Praxis is the sole thing standing in your way, this endeavour is an earnest effort to get you closer to your educational goals. My goals are yours. Your success -- passing the Praxis 5161 Exam on your very next attempt on your way to being an exceptional caring teacher -- is my success.
And this site and my Q banks bear ambitious goals: to create stronger and better Math teachers through rigorous preparation.
Speaking about myself, I've been a High School Math teacher for over 16 years, and have taught all High School grades (9-12) and levels of Math: Algebra 1, 2, Geometry, Precalculus, AP Statistics and AP Calculus. And very successfully, throughout, I might add. [Find below my AP Statistics pass-rate over the last few years, for instance...and my AP Calculus, this past year!]
Additionally, I have won several teaching awards and have been nominated by students attending Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc. as their most inspirational teacher; I have also mentored numerous rookie teachers.
In my spare time, I read Math textbooks and, inspired, create interesting Math problems slightly beyond the precipice of the knowledge -- does that metaphor even make sense?! -- for candidates and students. [Indeed, I teach without notes of any kind and can contrive clever problems on the fly...]
All that said, I wish you well in your academic pursuits! Remember: hardwork is a sine qua non for success. The only way to get better at a skill is practice. As Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers: The Story of Success: “Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
Jay Ramaswamy.
Comments? Email me at [email protected]
AP Statistics
AP Calculus
Comments? Email me at [email protected]