My philosophy is to build from the ground up. When there's a disconnect, it usually doesn't appear out of nowhere. It's very important to cover the basics and make sure that those are solid, then we can start to resolve issues.

My first session would try to get a baseline for the student’s abilities. Sometimes using problems to help identify strengths and weaknesses, but also communicating with the student, to make sure they know what their skills are and try to build confidence. Sometimes academic problems are an issue of confidence as much as ability.

The goal, especially in math and science courses, is to develop problem solving skills. So in addition to learning about theory, I would try to help the student come up with a plan to tackle problems. Once they know good strategies, they can implement them in many academic situations.

It's important for the student to stay positive. Everybody is good at something academically. When you think you're not good at something it's easy to become disinterested. That's why, for me, identifying strengths is as, if not more, important as identifying weaknesses.

I like to bring in real-life examples or visualizations. It's a lot easier to grasp a concept when you can picture what's supposed to happen.

The first step is to encourage the skills they already have and build off of that. If they're taking a class, even if it's just a requirement, they have already shown that they have some of the skills to be successful. It's important to make sure they're aware of that.