About Me

My experience with Breakthrough Collaborative and the Thompson Writing Program (TWP), as a teacher and tutor respectively, lets me borrow tactics from both grade school and university styles of instruction. I've completed both coursework and research/publication on small-group (1:1) instructional methodologies at Duke University as a training course. In the TWP, I consistently applied and formally reviewed the effectiveness of these techniques in blogs and panels. Long-term engagement with evolving philosophies of education helped me establish a conceptual foundation of contemporary ideologies and approaches. This ground-up familiarity with modern tutoring methods/resources enables me to cater my approach for each session, especially in the small-group instructional environment. As a counterpoint, my work with Breakthrough gave me the opportunity to scale my mentorship skills to a larger audience, as well as adapt my approaches to a new demographic (public/charter students in an under-performing district). While work with the TWP necessitated self- and program-wide evaluation, Breakthrough instituted an especially strong culture of administrative and intra-departmental evaluation. The ability to respond well to and implement feedback was crucial to our team's success; my work with both programs has helped me commit to an atmosphere of persistent evaluation and improvement. My performance studies including the opportunities I've had to artistically direct the work of other actors have granted me tools to adapt my interpersonal strategies and create a rich, varied instructional style. As in the classroom, it is of utmost importance in the rehearsal space to unconditionally validate the contributions of students. Through my work on- and off-stage, I have facilitated the unrestricted generation of ideas by establishing clear rehearsal and communication standards to create an intellectually and emotionally safe space for all crewmembers. As well, my study of body language and gesture grants me control over non-verbal communication in service of an ideal instructional mode. Using an awareness of physicality, I've adopted a dynamic interpersonal and intellectual relationship with both tutees (in my Thompson Writing Program work) and larger groups (12) of students (in Breakthrough Collaborative). My vocabulary of narrative techniques has been consistently applicable: I use a range of media styles to instruct and engage an audience. And an intimate understanding of narrative structures allows me to deconstruct the "arc" of and "tell the story of" course material, in order to effectively communicate to students. I have just returned from a stay abroad in Beijing, China. There, I taught two independently designed courses to different sets of middle school students in Beijing, China. In the span of five weeks, I enjoyed a whirlwind introduction to the language (with daily class) and life in both heavily developed and poorer, migrant worker regions of the city. The educational norms and approaches are in many ways in sharp contrast to American tactics of education. But parents and students in both countries share similar anxieties about getting a high-value education. I was happy to find that many of the student engagement strategies I've acquired in the U.S. were just as effective at creating a positive learning environment. Adapting to these new cultural standards has been a gratifying challenge, and I have a new appreciation for the unique resources and challenges that American students deal with every day.

Education & Certifications

Q&A with Thomas

Tutoring Subjects