Award-Winning Test Prep Tutors in Tacoma, WA

...I am excited by seeing students "get it." I have tutored elementary instrumental music, taught environmental science lessons, and mentored undergraduate research assistants. As a strong student throughout my formal education, I bring clarity and knowledge of academic subjects. I learned how to succeed in the system of papers, projects, quizzes, and standardized tests, and I look forward helping other students achieve academic success, toousing patience, kindness, creativity, and a sense of humor. I am...

...favorite parts of teaching. I've also come to actually enjoy preparing for standardized tests, and hope to share some of that enjoyment with my students. Standardized tests are like puzzles, and predictable puzzles at that: once you learn to crack the code, you realize that they're not so scary after all! It's really important to me to find a teaching style that works for each individual student; one-size-fits-all teaching rarely works. So, I'll take the...

...open ended, hands-on experiences make for later successes. Outside of the academic world I enjoy hiking, swimming, painting, watching scary movies with my teenage daughter and cruising with my top off in the Jeep. Occasionally I go to the gym and don’t love it, but I do love Kevin Bacon! I look forward to working with you soon, it is my objective to empower you to develop your skills and reach your goals.... My teaching philosophy has evolved over the years. I like to think we are all lifelong learners. There is something to be said for data driven techniques, but I understand we all learn in our own unique ways and there will not be a cookie cutter type method for teaching individual people. I take a strength based, supportive and creative approach. I'm pretty laid back and accepting and it isn't on my agenda to hand out answers, but more to help a student learn a new skill and to retain that skill. Whether that means making materials, a trip to the library or rhyming and rapping some lyrics, I'm still traditional in believing learning should be and can be fun.

...experience one of my greatest advantages as a tutor. My other great advantage is flexibility. I believe that students and tutors are partners who make equal and mutual contributions to the learning process. Tutors have the responsibility to adapt materials to the learning styles, interests, and personalities of their students. Because of this, I always do my best to adapt my tutoring and any materials that I use to the needs of the individual student....

...Puget Sound: We Love You campaign. Encouraging and supporting young people's efforts to make the world a better place is very rewarding work, and I love getting to go to work each day. In my free time, I enjoy skiing in the winter, waterskiing and cycling in the summer, cooking all the time, and enjoying the company of my good friends and the great opportunities the Northwest has to offer. I love reading, especially books...

...to go over material as much as a student wants. In terms of qualifications I'm well educated, I've used the things I've learned so understand their context very well, I've had experience teaching in classrooms, at high school and university level, and also in 1-1 contexts from a young age, so I've met a range of different student types, and know how to adapt a teaching style to the student.... I have a specific example from a high school which gives insight into my teaching philosophy. When I began teaching mathematics I started by teaching at the board--working through examples which were as clear as possible, giving students plenty of opportunities to ask questions. My explanations were clear and concise, and I could break a problem down into steps. However, the classrooms I found myself in rarely had the type of student I imagined I would be teaching, interruptions, distractions, and a lack of questions, all made me consider how exactly I could be effective in a classroom and how students were learning. When I was reading student quizzes, I was amazed at the difference between what I had emphasized and what they had absorbed. But I taught that; they were there (in the classroom, at least), I would think. To be effective, I needed to consider how my students and I spent my time in a given class; there is the time spent at the board, there is time spent observing students, time spent solving individual questions, or checking what students have understood, and so on. There is the question of what students are focusing on during those minutes in class, as well as the minutes at home. At some point, I realized that everybody in the classroom doesn't need to be doing the same thing at the same time, in fact, it was unproductive to work off this assumption, which creates dead-time where students are learning nothing. I had to accept that students will and must get distracted. Students shouldn't be doing the same thing at the same time. That way of teaching (and thinking) is ideal for one-on-one teaching or tutoring but ineffective for a group of students with different levels and interests. I changed my focus about what I was teaching, because I realized here that a greater part of my role was to raise students' awareness about their own learning, how they learn, whose responsibility it should be, about what their aims were. These were longer-term life skills that they needed. By strengthening self-reflection skills, and aiming for greater critical thinking, I hoped to increase their independence, particularly of the stronger students, so that I freed up time in my class to solve the problems of those who were really stuck and needed one-to-one assistance. It is a question of helping them develop productive learning habits. By talking about their own pace, their own goals, what the purpose of writing notes is, I also wanted to build this idea of their own learning, to stop them thinking of homework as a chore done for the teacher; things like this. There are students who naturally learn; if they are given a book, the page numbers, and the exercises they should be doing, they will sit down and work through it themselves. (No incentive is needed). However, they are a small minority in my experience. Apart from the weakest students, the majority need some sort of assistance from students around them or encouragement from the teacher. You show a student you care when you are talking to them one on one (and sometimes it shouldn't be about mathematics). The question is always how to find the time to do this with students, to build rapport which is so important--how to split myself into different people, working through an example with one student while talking to another student who needs to be engaged, or really has questions. In the school in which I currently work, iPads have been introduced into the classroom as a learning tool, and I looked for ways to incorporate it about the same time, and I was thinking about these challenges in my classroom, so I found my answer here, though I'm sure other solutions exist. I was conscious that iPads shouldn't replace traditional learning methods; they should add something new. When I looked at the material I was going to be teaching, or the worksheets the students would be attempting, I made the decision to make videos of all the examples, and all the problems in advance (as much as possible). I also created resource documents, which gathered other useful online material, such as websites with more depth, videos, etc., because students don't have time to research a lot. I also had to teach students for whom English was a second language, and who are used to my ways of explanation. I also needed some way to deliver this material to my students quickly. In the end, to create a system which was as flexible as possible and could be quickly implemented, I chose to record videos without sound, adding everything as notes on the flipchart, aiming at visual learners who comprise the bulk of learners. I created pdfs of the flipcharts, so students could skip the videos if they wished, and scan the pdf instead. All the students have Google Drive accounts (given by the school), so I created a folder structure of units to store all this material, which they access anywhere at any time. They can watch my explanations as many times as they want. They can read the solutions firstly and then attempt the problems, or they can check solutions after they are done, the idea being that everyone is on the path to becoming that last kind of learner. In this framework, there is scope for students to take a break from learning too, and can be negotiated on an individual basis. All these ideas are readily applicable to a college setting. Class time focuses on students working through problems, watching videos and attempting basic questions for homework. I allow them to solve the problems in any order they choose. One student can be up at the board showing that they can solve a problem, and some will watch while others continue working on the problems they are interested in. The same problem can be solved on the smart board two or three times during one week by different people if need be. Testing and spot quizzes can still be applied easily to measure what people are learning. In the case of broad problems, it is easy to return to the top of the classroom to make clear the concept or the points they've missed, to repeat a particular point. As a group it is conceptual or debatable questions where we interact, or the examples of real-life applications, or in smaller groups when group work activities have been planned.

...minor in Architecture. Since graduation I worked for an online learning company, helping produce and edit their high school math curriculum. Additionally, I taught SAT Prep for a private tutoring company and a student success center in Brooklyn. Those experiences complemented my previous work for other companies in Math, Reading, and an academic journal. As a professional editor, I enjoy reading student writing and making concrete recommendations for improvement in grammar, logical flow, tone, and...

...preparing to begin my studies in Library and Information Sciences. I have worked with high school students on developing reading and writing skills for high school completion and college prep for more than 4 years. Many of the students I've worked with are learning English as their second (or third) language. My favorite subjects to tutor for are AP English and the SAT writing section. I also enjoy helping students prepare for the HSPE reading...

...lessons engaging and relevant for all my students. I graduated from Saint Martin's University in 2012 with my degree in Political Science and minor in US History. While at SMU, I was able to participate in an internship with Jay Inslee and at the Washington State Legislature. I was also a college cheerleader and worked as part of the intramural program. After receiving my undergraduate degree, I attended the University of Southern California for a...

...to work with students who are motivated and engaged. My strengths are in reading, writing, and English. I love stories and I love explaining concepts in an accessible way. I believe in holding students to the highest reasonable standards - I don't expect students to perform beyond their current capacity or understanding, but I do expect students to try and to produce their best work-effort. I also believe that learning can and should be fun,...