Claire

Certified Tutor

I graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle, with a Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and a Minor in Environmental Health. I have lived in Seattle for the past seven years, working as a full-time Research Associate (II-Senior) at the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences. But I recently moved back to Chicago to be near family. My cat, Ingrid, and I took a long, fun 4-day road trip!

My experience and training are primarily focused on biology and chemistry. I have extensive knowledge in dissecting biological research papers and data, having been published myself (Kelly et al., 2023). Additionally, I have a strong background in teaching languages, including English and Spanish. I took Spanish all 4 years of high school and also participated in a short-term language learning program at La Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

My favorite teaching style is using Bloom's taxonomy levels of understanding, where we start with foundational recall and move up 5 levels of critical thinking to ultimately apply the logic or what we've learned to another situation. It also allows the student and me to backtrack easily if something isn't clicking. It invigorates me to finally hear that "Oh!" of clarity from the students; it makes me feel like I made a difference for them! My love for learning is boundless, and I love to share my passions with others! I enjoy watching documentaries in my free time on a myriad of subjects and am also known amongst my friends and family for having an endless supply of random fun facts.

In the past, I have had many tutoring positions, with most focusing on STEM subjects, but also on language. I used to mentor a high school student when I worked at the Kaeberlein Lab at the University of Washington, where I taught her how to set up an experiment and analyze the data in the context of animal models and aging. I also used to tutor a family of four children with varying ages from 7 to 15 on a weekly basis through the Coalition for Refugees from Burma. I would help them with their science, math, and English homework and frequently supplement their work with extra activities. My favorite activity to prepare for them was writing short paragraphs about historical figures and asking the students to answer questions about the content. Then, the students would try to analyze the person and reflect on their own experiences in the same context (i.e., "If you were in their shoes, what would you have done?", "Why did they choose to do this?", "Do you think they were justified?", etc.). Furthermore, I also used to tutor a high school student in Spanish, teaching him basic grammar and pronunciation, but also introducing tense and conjugation.

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope to meet you soon!