What is your teaching philosophy?

I feel that if one has the drive to learn new things, that they can learn anything.

What might you do in a typical first session with a student?

Spend time gauging their current skills and what they are truly struggling to comprehend.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

By teaching they how to use their resources that they are provided: notes, books, handouts, or even the internet. If their notes don't help as much as they should, I will give them pointers and tips to help them make more complete notes for the future.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Find out what motivated them before, and try to set new and more interesting goals and rewards for them to strive for.

If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?

Use different forms of explanation; by using stuff that they can see and touch helps some people grasp on to new more difficult concepts by materializing and solidifying what’s in their mind.

How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?

By teaching them how to pick out and underline/highlight important material in the reading, and then different ways of formulating that information below so they can try to see patterns to solve with.

What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?

The one that works most frequently is using concepts they understand in real life, and tying the difficult concepts to the more solid reality that they already understand.

How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?

Find new goals and rewards that they can set for themselves that they will be motivated for, and then make the requirement for those rewards be learning new features of the subject. You don't want them to only strive for a good grade; that will make the student feel like it is a job, and more than likely it will not make them feel excited for it. So you base the stepping stones around information learning and comprehending so they can more frequently see progress in their development.

What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?

If they can explain the information to me as if I were the student. If they are able to use their own words to explain/solve a problem, then they have a firm grasp of the content.

How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?

Break down the learning materials into smaller portions, so they can conquer content more frequently and see their progress more steadily. This helps them gain the confidence that they are able to tackle and understand the concepts.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

I have them first try to explain specifically what they need help with. If they cannot do this, then we work a few problems with me helping them in a minimalist fashion. This will allow me to judge where they are getting stumped, and I can tailor how I teach them from there.

How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?

It all depends on what that student needs. Some students have troubles with fundamentals that need to be worked out before they can tackle the more complex content; while others just have a hard time of forming all the information in their heads, so they need a more solid foundation to grasp onto.

What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?

Notebooks, pencil, and calculator. Most concepts can be explained through these items. But I have used Play Doh, candy, and cutouts before.