Luke

Certified Tutor

I am a Molecular biology PhD student about to be a Doctor. I possess a Master's in Zoology and have substantial knowledge on Molecular biology, Microbiology, Genetics, Neurobiology, Animal behaviour, Bioinformatics, Ecology, and Plant biology.

I have previously had a role as a demonstrator at Queen's University Belfast where I taught undergraduate university students in a laboratory environment. This included pastoral and teaching elements, demonstrating key biological techniques and discussing the background. I also was responsible for guiding third year university students with their dissertations, providing background knowledge, creating protocols, and assisting with any questions they had with background or laboratory work.

I am chatty and actively engage in questions and answers during my teaching as my philosophy is that I do not believe there are any stupid questions. I believe in engaging students using fun scenarios and interactive tools, focusing on real-world examples and improving student engagement by making presentations fun yet informative. Including interactive tools to ensure students are listening, especially for topics which are conceptually difficult. I use revision guides to assist understanding of key concepts and help identify the core components required for examination. I promote a supportive and inclusive environment, with all students happy to discuss how they best learn and incorporate these into the tutoring sessions. Over time I would hope to learn student's strengths and weakness to help better guide these sessions. Student participation is key and the interactive focus is something I am keen on. Active engagement is crucial for effective learning and interactive tools allow participation and application of knowledge, with online resources improving this further. My main aim is to allow students to become independent learners and critical thinkers, and understand the important parts of their curriculum and how to answer the questions alongside knowing the knowledge.