Duke Student Recognized Nationally for Creative Tutoring, Mentoring

Ask the fourth-graders Patrick Tenbrink tutors to calculate how many pretzels Sally has left after giving some to Jane and Bob, and their eyes glaze over.

But replace those stale math characters with names like "Bozley" and "Doofus," and math is suddenly interesting to students at E.K. Powe Elementary School in Durham. "It was so hard for me to even teach this ‘Sally bought a pretzel stuff,'" said Tenbrink, a Duke junior majoring in biological anthropology. "I was just in a funny mood one day, ‘Bilbo Baggins wants to buy Frodo something.' I knew the students would be into that. It was just so easy to work with, I just thought everybody did that."

Apparently, they don't. That's why America Learns, a provider of tutoring and mentoring resources, has chosen Tenbrink's "Math Humor Word Problems" as October's National Strategy of the Month. The Cincinnati native's approach is featured in America Learns' monthly newsletter, released Thursday, which reached more than 10,000 people worldwide. He'll also be featured on America Learns' website throughout most of November.

"It isn't easy for a strategy to receive this recognition," Gary Kosman, founder and CEO of America Learns, wrote to Tenbrink. "With thousands of tutors and mentors now using the America Learns Network, we have a number of strategies to review and vote on every month. Yours is a clear standout. We believe that a ton of people will benefit from your creativity."

Tenbrink's strategy is simple: Take a normal word problem with several characters, give them funny names and put them in real life/real fourth-grade situations. The result looks like this: "Bozley wants to buy 14 rubber snakes, three packages of chocolate chip cookies, and 27 tiny cowboy hats. He has $12.35. Each snake is 93 cents, a package of cookies is $1.98, one tiny cowboy hat is $3.47." The next step, he said, is to insert situations that would capture the fourth-grader's imagination and help the student create a mental image of what's happening, such as: "How much money will Bozley need to borrow from his friend Doofus in order to buy all the items he wishes to buy?"

Tenbrink, 20, has used America Learns' resources to help him with his one-on-one and small group tutoring and mentoring. This includes filing a weekly "reflection" narrative about his experience, which is what caught the eye of the group and led to his recognition.

Tenbrink's twice-weekly tutoring started this semester as part of a service-learning component in the education psychology course he is taking with David Malone, an associate professor of the practice of education.

"In our educational psychology course, Patrick has spoken passionately about the tutoring experience," Malone said. "He recognizes clearly that our role is more than just helping kids complete their homework; we need to equip the kids with critical thinking strategies and tools for learning. In our class, Patrick has argued persuasively that schools can't do the job alone; it will take parents, businesses, universities and the whole community to educate children."

Making math interesting probably comes natural for Tenbrink, who said he has always done well in math and whose parents were both teachers during his childhood. He has no plans to become a teacher, but he'd like to find a way to combine his pre-med interests with teaching.

Tenbrink, also a member of Duke's pole vault team, would like to continue tutoring next semester, either through a Duke service-learning program or "on my own."

For now, he'll enjoy the recognition of his work.

"It's just a great feeling," Tenbrink said, "to feel I've given something back and the effort not been pushed aside and taken for granted."