Samuel: Sussex tutor

Certified Tutor

I believe that learning should be something that students want to do for themselves, and the teacher should give them material they are interested in to help them learn both facts and methods. As a history major, I know that there is more to history than simply facts and dates, and a teachers job is to help students learn skills like: analysis, writing, interpretation, debating, forming opinions, presenting, and discussion.

While growing up, I had many different experiences that helped me develop this student centered approach to learning, namely; Boy Scouts of America, Phi Kappa Sigma social fraternity, and Phi Alpha Theta honors fraternity. While a member of the Boy Scouts of America, I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. In order to achieve this rank, I was required to draft a proposal, get approval from the DNR, organize volunteers, and lead the project through to completion. Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout was something that I could not have done without intrinsically motivating myself, and helped teach me how to lead large groups of people, and projects. After heading to collage, and joining Phi Kappa Sigma, I was elected to the alumni relations chair, fundraising chair, and new member educator positions. Upon being elected into these positions, I did not have much guidance, due to years of the positions getting neglected, and I took up the task of revamping each role: our alumni relations are now among the best in the fraternity, internationally, we raised more money than the rest of my time as a member combined, and our new member process has been updated to acceptable under new institutional rules. Being a member of Phi Alpha Theta is also something that could not have been achieved without intrinsic motivation to do well in college.

Although students need to intrinsically motivate themselves, they will not be able to succeed without the help of the teacher, who's job is to differentiate the instruction to best suit their students. The teacher should differentiate the instruction in such a way to allow students multiple opportunities to access all of the information.