Tutoring center uses images, humor

TRAVERSE CITY RECORD EAGLE
Published: April 13, 2009
By JODEE TAYLOR

TRAVERSE CITY -- A new tutoring center in Traverse City's Warehouse District uses images and icons to help students learn.

Icon Learning, founded by state-certified teachers Brian Lynch and Ryan Schrock, bases its lessons on Michigan curriculum, but adds a fun -- and often funny -- twist.

"We take words and turn them into pictures," Lynch said, "because images are burned into the brain a lot easier than words."

To that end, the Mexican American War becomes a tin can with a mixing bowl -- mixing can.

The mixing can and other "war images are put into a clock dial so you know which comes first," Lynch said.

"The power of images on a long-term basis is so amazing," Lynch said. He remembered one student who had used the method to learn the U.S. presidents in order several years ago. The streets in the city the student was visiting are named after presidents -- in order. The student shocked and impressed her friends by predicting which street would be next -- when they were traveling them in reverse, Lynch said.

Joe Esper, curriculum director for the Kingsley Area Schools, said visual learning is being used more and more.

"In the past 10 years, we've found more visual learners, more kinetic and more musical learners than literary learners," he said. "There are studies that show some kids learn better that way, but there's not any one way that every student learns. But visual learning is definitely one of the ones that will get more students engaged."

Therese LePage brought her son Ben from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., after she heard about Icon Learning from another home-schooling parent.

"He'd been trying to get through algebra for 2 1/2 years," Therese LePage said. "He's a really smart kid, but ... we don't realize how much we visualize things and some of us need a little boost."

She said Ben had 12 hours of tutoring that took him through a yearlong algebra curriculum.

"He mastered something that had taken 21/2 years," she said.

She said Icon teacher Schrock had the coursework all set up, with all the concepts worked out ahead of time. The visual learning clicked with Ben, she said.

"He was ripe, he was ready," she said. She said he was able to make the transition to full-time public school. He's now in 11th grade and learning analytical geometry, she said.

Lynch, who is still a full-time teacher, said he used the image method while teaching the same lesson to two classes. The class that learned with the images got overall higher test scores. He switched classes and taught with images to the other class and they, too, scored higher, he said.

Currently, Icon Learning tutors in math, science, reading and social studies. Foreign language may be added to the mix in the future, Lynch said. He said the students enjoy the lessons, and the high-tech way they're taught, which often involves a "voting cube" that resembles a television remote, so students can answer questions projected onto a screen.

Lynch suggests 12 sessions a month, or three each week, at a cost of $600 for the month. Hours are after school and Saturdays and during all school vacations. For more information, go to www.iconlearning.org or call 421-3888.

For more information about icon Learning or to enroll in a program, contact us.