Role: Math Mentor
Reports to: Math Mentor Coach
Salary: $50/hour for sessions and planning/notes time
Status: Part-time
Location: Remote
Who We Are: National Math Stars ensures mathematically extraordinary students from all communities have the resources they need to reach the frontiers of math and science. Once a student becomes a National Math Star, we work closely with them and their families over a 10-year journey, from elementary through high school, to provide them with extraordinary scholarships, individualized guidance, and mentoring to achieve exceptional outcomes. Our Stars range in age 7-12 and will continue in our program through their K-12 education journey.
Role Overview: A core part of our program experience for our Stars is individual or small group weekly math mentoring sessions with their math mentors. Math mentors are individuals who deeply appreciate mathematics, enjoy spending time with challenging problems, and see the beauty in patterns, proofs, and mathematical concepts. These virtual sessions foster deep problem-solving, exploration of mathematical concepts, and creative thinking through posing mathematical questions and playing mathematical games.
You are someone who is passionate about working with mathematically extraordinary children and believes that young children are deeply capable of understanding complex mathematical concepts. You are excited to work alongside a team of talented mathematicians to design and conduct virtual math mentoring sessions that challenge and engage our Stars and provide them with opportunities to be mathematicians themselves.
Training will begin in late August and mentoring groups will be assigned and begin over September and early October. We would prefer for mentors to commit to working with at least two groups (between 1-3 Stars each) weekly which would be approximately 4-6 hours worth of planning time, live sessions, and email communications per week. Additional work time is required (3-4 hours per Star) in December through March for recommendations for programs or camps, course progress recommendations, and a math progress survey. We may consider highly qualified applicants who are only able to commit to one group if you have limited time.
Key Responsibilities:
The math mentor’s key responsibilities fall under the following categories:
1. Designing and Facilitating Virtual Math Mentoring Sessions
- Design math mentoring sessions aligned with your group’s interests and background knowledge in mathematics
- As needed, collaborate with the math mentor coach on the design and approach to future sessions
- Conduct 45-60 minute weekly, virtual math mentoring sessions with small groups of 1-3 Stars
- Collect and document each Star’s growth in these sessions with weekly notes after sessions
- Contribute to National Math Stars’ database of ideas and resources for math mentoring sessions
2. Math Development Progress for our Stars
- Communicate each Star’s progress in their math mentoring sessions with the Star’s Family Advisor
- Support Family Advisors in identifying STEM enrichment and summer opportunities for our Stars based on their strengths and interests
- Support Family Advisors in evaluating math course progress and recommending next courses
- Support Stars in applications and filling out letters of recommendation for enrichment and summer opportunities
- Complete a mid-year and end-year math progress survey for each Star
3. Training and Development
- Participate in onboarding and training with the Math Mentor Coach
- Meet with the Math Mentor Coach monthly to discuss areas of growth and success
- Attend quarterly professional development seminars with the math mentor community
Skills and Experience:
- At minimum a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics or a related STEM field such as computer science; advanced degrees are preferred
- Experience in mentoring or teaching mathematics to children of all ages
- Passion for and experience with working with mathematically extraordinary children
- A strong belief that young children are deeply capable of learning
- Ability to work evenings and/or weekends
- An understanding of the depth and breadth of the field of mathematics, including knowledge of advanced mathematical concepts and their applications
- Strong communication skills
- Professionalism and responsiveness through emails in communication with parents and staff
- Excitement for our mission and goals
- Experience supporting students with learning differences (e.g. dyslexia, ADHD, etc.) is preferred but not required
- Experience contributing to the field of mathematics (e.g. published papers, contributions to mathematical databases, etc.) is preferred but not required
- Experience teaching and coaching in virtual formats is preferred but not required
- Knowledge of and experience teaching computer science is preferred but not required
We value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.