Gary
Certified Tutor
Undergraduate Degree: Rhodes College - Bachelor in Arts, Mathematics
Graduate Degree: University of Memphis - Master of Arts, Spanish
commercial aviation; travel
Conversational Spanish
Spanish 1
What is your teaching philosophy?
Teaching should be based upon the belief that all students can learn and that failure is not an option. A teacher must take responsibility for a student's growth and must continue to try new approaches in teaching the content when a student does not grasp it. A teacher should build strong relationships with their students as well so that they will achieve at a maximum level.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
Do a quick assessment on the particular problem area. This will enable the tutor to focus on those problems that are giving the student difficulty in order to maximize the tutoring time.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
As a tutor, I would point out reference passages or rules governing the problems, letting the student talk the problem through with me acting only as the guide and offering suggestions.
How would you help a student stay motivated?
I allow them to experience success in finding the right answers to a series of problems by making each successive problem a slight bit more difficult than the previous one, and making sure the student gets all answers correct on their own.
If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?
You reteach the concept by using a different rule or algorithm or by showing some short cuts to guarantee success in solving.
How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?
Administer a brief cloze test that will reveal the difficulties the student is having in comprehending what he is reading. Also, make sure any difficult math-oriented words are pronounceable and their definitions are understood.
What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?
By administering a very brief diagnostic test covering the tutored material at the very beginning of the tutoring session.
How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?
Try to show relevance of the subject or topic to everyday problems encountered in the real world.
What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?
Give a brief five question summary quiz at the end of the tutoring session, allowing no more than two mistakes. If a student makes more than 2 mistakes, further tutoring sessions may be necessitated.
How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?
By allowing the student to do most of the talking and all of the work unassisted toward the end of the tutoring session.
How do you evaluate a student's needs?
As stated previously, a tutor should administer some sort of diagnostic or readiness quiz at the beginning of the session to determine the student's needs.
How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?
In the case of mathematics, I would scale down a problem by offering simpler numbers (whole numbers) in lieu of fractions, decimals, and integers or possibly selecting problems whose answers are whole numbers. For those students needing more of a challenge, I would include problems without perfect square roots, integers, fractions, and decimals. Also, I would include more estimating skills as well. These type of students should also be taught the proper procedures when checking problems.