MATH GEEK
- BA in secondary math education at Clemson University
- Taught middle school, high school, and college math
- National Board Certification in Math
- Master’s of Statistics at University of South Carolina
- AP Stats teacher with 80% passing rate
- Trainer for math teacher candidates in South Carolina and Connecticut
DECEMBER 18, 2008
My son, Gabriel, was diagnosed with autism. This was a profound life changing even for my family. I dropped out of a curriculum and instruction doctoral program at UCONN and entered a special education program with a focus on autism at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, CT.
MAKING MATH ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL STUDENTS
After earning my master’s in special education, my professor, Dr. Lydia Conca, asked me to create and teach a course for math instruction for students with special needs.
The course had a practicum component in which I paired each graduate student with a k-12 student with special needs. This was in effect an apprenticeship model. A parent brought the student to campus for an hour of instruction each week. I worked with each candidate to create and implement instruction.
For example, a grad student reported to me that her student with ADHD was rushing through multiplication problems which resulted in mistakes. We came up with a plan that required the student to use highlighters to trace each pair of numbers to multiply. This required the student to repeatedly alternate between using a pencil and a highlighter, which slowed down the process and reduced mistakes.
This was my entry point into providing special education math services.
Quotes from Parents of Students Served
“Randy Ewart is a consummate professional dedicated to helping children with special needs learn and truly understand mathematics for continued progression and success. He is one of the most dedicated teachers our daughter has ever worked with. He has been fully committed to finding the best approach and methodology to present math to our daughter to build an appropriate foundation for her to learn. We are fortunate to work with him again and highly recommend him to any family seeking a math teacher who understands how to teach special needs students.”
“Working with Randy has been life changing for my daughter.
Math was her biggest source of frustration and no matter how hard she worked it never made sense. Teachers would tell me she was ‘doing awesome’ but she was really just following steps without understanding any of it. I thought she was going to go through life unable to even buy a candy bar without being taken advantage of.
Randy changed all that. He is able to break math down in a way that makes sense. He is able to identify what is confusing her and find different ways to explain it. He makes it meaningful for her.
After her second session with Randy my daughter called me giddy with excitement. ‘I CAN DO MATH!’ A few weeks later ‘Can you believe it? I’m turning into a math kid!’
She now leaps out of bed on the days she is scheduled to meet with him saying “Yes! It’s Randy Math Tuesday!” She can now do basic operations and has moved beyond ‘consumer math’ and is doing great with algebra. All because of Randy’s unique combination of skills to guide, instruct and get math to make sense.
My daughter is a true success story. I don’t believe any of this progress would have been possible if Randy hadn’t come into her life. Neither she nor I can wait to see how far she can go.”