About Us

  • What is NovaMath?
    • NovaMath is a tutoring service that looks to support students with distance and in-person learning from a variety of subjects and test prep to make sure their educational needs are met. Initially the company was created for online sessions to accommodate the pandemic concerns, but has adapted to also provide in-person sessions for the Northern Virginia area.
  • What students do you cater to for your services?
    • While the name NovaMath indicates Northern Virginia, the services offered by NovaMath transcend county/state/country borders to help students across the world. Doesn’t matter if you are in elementary, middle, high school, college, or an adult looking to refresh your knowledge.
  • Who am I?
    • My name is Douglas Gardiner.  I have been teaching/tutoring since August 2013 and have enjoyed helping students catch up, keep pace, or get ahead in their studies.
    • I have a BA in Environmental Studies with a minor in Mathematics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
    • I have a MA in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Energy and Sustainability from George Mason University (GMU) and a graduate certificate from GMU as of May 2022 in Geographic Information Sciences (GIS)
    • I have extensive coursework in areas such as Economics, Electrical Computer Engineering (ECE), Physics, and Public Policy
  • What sort of teaching background do you have?
    • From 2013 to 2015, I worked at Mathnasium of Arlington, a math learning center, where I would work with students at a 4-to-1 ratio for a given time slot.  This ranged from kindergarten students to high school seniors.  In 2014, I was promoted to being a lead instructor for my methodology and my ability to connect with students.
    • From 2015 to 2018 I exclusively worked for a company named Wyzant, a private tutoring company, where I worked with students more on a 1-to-1 level.  Students typically ranged from 7th grade up through high school, college, and occasionally working with adults who wanted to further their careers.  This enabled me to pursue my master’s degree which I finished in December 2018.
    • Starting in September 2019 I began working for a company named C2 Education where I work with students ranging from one to three students at a time.  The subject material is roughly half standardized testing and half schoolwork, helping students from prealgebra through college level math such as linear algebra.  I left C2 Education in 2022 to pursue a full-time job to apply my academic background.
  • Why start NovaMath?
    • Given the global pandemic, I felt that a number of students across the world would struggle with access to education services and felt that my talents could help students online since they would be utilizing remote learning for the 2020-2021 academic year.
    • I also wanted to utilize my vision of optional group learning to give better access to “pandemic pods” but also encourage students learning the same material to aid each other in a cooperative setting.
  • What are your career goals?
    • My primary goal is to solve some of the tougher real-world problems that exist in society today hence my interdisciplinary background.  I prefer to see problems from multiple angles to determine the best course of action for each situation.  I was offered a position at a NASA location in 2018 but the position was dissolved due to federal circumstances.
    • I could see myself as a teacher in the future but with all the uncertainty surrounding the profession, I plan to take one step at a time and seeing what makes the most sense for me given my circumstances.
  • What brought you to teaching/tutoring?
    • My mother was a preschool teacher as I was growing up, and my grandmother was a licensed high school teacher for many years within Virginia.
    • My grandfather taught at Virginia Tech while getting his degree under the GI Bill and then went on to work on various government projects like Minute Man and creating the sharing of interagency electronic data which we now refer to as the internet.
    • Growing up I was the oldest of three children and oldest of twelve cousins on my mother’s side who were all local so I would help my relatives with their math and science homework from time to time.
  • How many students have you worked with?
    • From Mathnasium: ~350 students
    • From Wyzant: ~90 students
    • From C2 Education: ~85 students
    • From NovaMath: ~25 students
  • What sort of projects have you worked on while in school?
    • Throughout my academic career I have worked with the following entities:
      • The National Park Service at Turkey Run Park in McLean, VA
        • “How many people use the Mount Vernon Trail each year?” – Using infrared trail counters across the walking/biking trail to gauge and calculate how many people use the trail each year.
      • The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs in Boston, MA
        • Working to install electric vehicle charging stations across the state of Massachusetts to help the introduction of EVs to the consumer population.
      • NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia
        • Observing and analyzing air quality over Shenandoah National Park over a 15-year period.
      • NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland
        • Creating a model to predict the emergence of mosquitoes in western Europe using environmental data.
  • What are some of your hobbies?
    • Sports.  I played three sports in high school: football, basketball, and baseball. I also played a number of sports outside of school including ultimate frisbee, golf, and bowling.  I made the practice squad for my college basketball team and was offered a roster spot for my college football team.  I follow various professional and college sports in my spare time and occasionally do activities such as fantasy football.
  • Video Games.  From 2005-2010 I played a fair number of video games that range in genre.  I have participated in roughly 30 tournaments across the east coast and even competed at PAX East for several events.  Currently I play with friends on occasion mainly to keep my problem-solving skills sharp and to destress.
    • Arcades.  Ever since 2005 I have enjoyed arcade games, specifically trying to maximize the number of tickets for the lowest cost.  In my gaming career I have won over 10 gaming consoles from Dave and Busters in which one cost more than the retail price.  I enjoy the challenge of the games and have given away a console to a friend in need when they were recovering in the hospital before.
  • What sort of math did you take in school?
    • In elementary school I quickly got ahead in math/science due to my passion for learning and my love of puzzles.  In 6th grade I had already learned the concepts for ‘Math 6’ so my teacher gave me a prealgebra book.  By the end of the school year I had mastered the concepts from the book and could FOIL/Factor polynomials.  This prompted my parents to seek education for me outside of the local school system since 7th graders were not allowed to take Algebra 1 at the time, before the Iowa Algebra Aptitude Test was created. 
    • As a 7th grader, the school had me ‘retake’ prealgebra, but my math teacher could sense I was not being challenged.  Taking Algebra 1 over the summer, I entered 8th grade taking Geometry.  I was one of two students to take high school math as an 8th grader and took Algebra 2/Trig in 9th grade.  After being informed that I would have to commute to and from a local university for my 11th grade math, my parents had me apply to several private schools to further my education. 
    • In 10th grade I took Precalculus honors where my teacher pushed me to see problems outside the box more often.  In 11th grade I took AP BC Calculus in which my teacher would encourage all of us to begin helping each other rather than focusing on simply learning the material for ourselves.  His big takeaway was “you have only mastered the material if you can teach it to someone else”.  In 12th grade I took both Multivariable Calculus and AP Statistics since I did not need to take a language my senior year. 
    • For my undergraduate studies I initially began as a math major so I took courses such as Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Mathematical Modeling, and Statistics. My concentration within my major was in statistics and probability. I ended up two classes shy of a math major but was not informed of this until my graduation day.