LaDonna

Certified Tutor

I have 29 years of experience teaching students who are ages 0 - 40. I have a proven track record of motivating students to want to learn more and enjoy the process.
I have always enjoyed teaching children. When I was in fourth grade, I tutored the kids in my neighborhood with their homework. Everyone's grades improved. When I was in the fifth grade, I began assisting the teachers in my school during my free time. While others attended recess, Physical Education, and lunch; I would assist the kindergarten teacher.
At the age of 19, I opened a home daycare. I used a curriculum which educated the children two-grade levels above their current grades. This caused a problem when the children went to school. They were bored during class, because they had already learned the material. Therefore, they started misbehaving in school. This situation encouraged me to go back to school and pursue a degree in teaching. My goal was to start my own home-school program.
After I received an Associate's Degree in Early Childhood Education, I decided I did not want to work from home anymore. So, I worked as the Youth Services Coordinator at Boys and Girls Club of Middle Tennessee. The Boys and Girls Club was a unique non-profit organization which provided a safe place for underserved youth to go after school and during the summer months. This rewarding experience encouraged me to go back to school in order to be the director of a Boys and Girls Club.
I worked as a substitute teacher for grades pre-k through 12th grade while completing my degree. After completing my Bachelor's Degree in Management and Human Relations, I was presented with an opportunity to raise student achievement in Nashville's highest need subject areas and schools. This highly selective program was called Nashville Teaching Fellows (NTF). NTF taught me how to teach material to children using unconventional techniques that are fun, interactive, and rigorous. I also learned how to effectively teach students with behavior problems.
I taught English as a Second Language (ELL) to 6th and 7th graders for one school-year. During that year, I learned that the English Language Learners (ELL Students) took more test than the other students. Also, all of the students took many mandatory-standardized test and practice test. It is because of these many tests, teachers were not given enough time to effectively teach the learning material to the students during the academic school-year.
The following year, I worked as a site director for the afterschool program at the same school in which I taught ELL. I was able to help the students learn and help them to improve their self-esteem. I enjoyed this experience so much that I started my own non-profit organization which educates under-served students by using a holistic approach while developing social and emotional well-being.
My views on learning styles have been influenced by the work of Howard Gardner. He believes that we all have multiple intelligence and that every child has the potential to be gifted, but that this can present itself in many different ways. Therefore, all children have their own preferred learning style, which best suits their intelligence. As a teacher, I feel I can best meet children's learning needs once I am aware of the learning style suited to them. I am able to teach the children who have difficulty learning and the students who test below grade-level.