Courtney: East Chicago tutor

Certified Tutor

I began my career in healthcare, earning a Bachelor's Degree in Health Information Administration, and continuing to a Master's Degree in Strategic Leadership. While I loved my career in healthcare, I found that the demand of the job with 2 young children at home was difficult. To better balance my work and life, I accepted a job as a para-educator working with students in special education. I quickly fell in love with the job. After 6 years as a para- educator, I earned a Master's Degree in Special Education from Grand Canyon University. My experience working in the school, along with my experience as a parent of kids with special needs helped me to quickly find comfort in working with kids who had a variety of needs. I worked with students in the gifted program, special education program, and in the general education classrooms.
The majority of my teaching career has been working with middle school students, though I also worked in elementary for a short time and I currently teach in high school.

Because I spent several years teaching in a self-contained environment, I have taught all subjects. My favorite lessons to teach are the ones that allow me to help students understand how to apply what they learn into "real world" scenarios. For example, being able to show a student how understanding core math skills such as multiplication, division, fractions and percent are used in everyday life. When a student asks "why do I need to know this?" I love to be able to give them the real-life examples.
I have also spent a great deal of my teaching career working with students on Social Emotional Learning (SEL). This is another skill that I believe is vital to learning. I love to help students find ways to cope when they struggle, as well as teaching that's it's okay to not always have the answer, as long as you figure out how to find it!