Susan
Certified Tutor
I am fortunate; I get to do the best job in the world. While teaching is my second career, it was always what I wanted to do.
When I graduated from college, I was offered a position with my college's admissions and marketing office, where I had been working to put myself through school. It was a tremendous opportunity, and launched an eighteen-year career helping high school students make important decisions about their futures, and navigate an often complex admissions and financial aid system. I loved working with students, being around bright, engaging people, and doing work that made a difference. But each time I walked through a high school to present a workshop on writing college essays or preparing for college interviews, I was reminded of how deeply I still wanted to be in a classroom.
So I took the plunge, and now spend my days teaching social studies to great students at a great school. I have taught world history, American history, sociology, psychology, economics, and even developed a high school course in teaching for students seeking a career in education. I am passionate about understanding how the past has shaped the present, and helping students recognize their critical role in protecting and preserving democracy.
In addition to teaching course curricula, I work with students on writing skills, standardized test preparation, and college essays, because all of these skills will help them reach their academic goals. As a teacher, I believe that it is critical to help students develop the ability to regulate their own learning, and implement meta-cognitive strategies that will serve them in college and beyond.
When I'm not teaching, I am a mom to a high school sophomore, a long-distance mom to two college students, a gardener who grows lots of organic vegetables, and an avid reader of anything historical.
If I can help you in a specific subject area, or with essays, test preparation, or homework support, either face-to-face or on-line, let me know!
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Undergraduate Degree:Florida Institute of Technology- Bachelors, Psychology
Graduate Degree:University of Central Florida- Masters, Applied Learning and Instruction
Politics, history, gardening, reading
- 10th Grade Writing
- 11th Grade Writing
- 12th Grade Writing
- 7th Grade Writing
- 8年级
- 8年级Writing
- 9th Grade Writing
- AP Comparative Government and Politics
- AP Human Geography
- AP U.S. Government & Politics
- AP US Government
- AP US History
- Business
- Civics
- CLEP American Government
- CLEP Introduction to Educational Psychology
- CLEP Introductory Psychology
- CLEP Social Sciences and History
- College Application Essays
- College English
- College Essays
- College Level American History
- Economics
- English
- English Grammar and Syntax
- Essay Editing
- GMAT Verbal
- Government
- Graduate Test Prep
- GRE Verbal
- High School Business
- High School Economics
- High School English
- High School Government
- High School Level American History
- High School Political Science
- High School Writing
- History
- Homework Support
- HSPT Prep
- ISEE Prep
- ISEE- Middle Level
- ISEE- Upper Level
- Middle School Reading
- Middle School Writing
- Other
- Political Science
- PSAT Critical Reading
- PSAT写作技巧
- Psychology
- Reading
- SAT Prep
- SAT Math
- SAT Reading
- SAT Writing and Language
- Social Sciences
- Social Studies
- Sociologies
- Sociology
- SSAT Prep
- SSAT- Upper Level
- Study Skills
- Study Skills and Organization
- Summer
- Test Prep
- US Constitutional History
- US History
- Writing
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe that all students can learn, and that the job of a teacher is to help students overcome two common barriers to success: their beliefs about their own ability, and their motivation to make the effort required to achieve.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
It is critical to develop a good working relationship, so our first session would be designed to help us get to know each other on a personal level, develop a level of comfort and trust, establish student goals and timelines, and develop a plan of action.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
The key to becoming an independent learner is to discover and practice the regulatory and meta-cognitive strategies that are automatic in successful, self-directed learners. Anyone can learn them, just like any other skill. Once they are automated, learning becomes much more efficient - and far less frustrating! And, helping students to focus on the process, rather than the product, is equally important. In a system that relies on grades as the measure of learning, students are too often focused on what they produce, rather than on developing and celebrating the learning that occurs through the process of meeting an academic challenge.