What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe that every student learns in their own unique way, therefore; they should be given specialized and tailored support to ensure that full comprehension is reached.

What might you do in a typical first session with a student?

I would have a brief "get to know you" warm up to establish a foundation and build a rapport.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Allowing a student to guide you through their thought process to find an answer is an excellent way to build independence and stretch their thinking. Also, giving them independent "check for understanding" problems is another method.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Words of encouragement throughout the session and giving them a visual of a finish line is an approach I would take.

If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?

I would have us take a quick breather and then retrace our steps to the beginning to figure out where the breakdown is happening. I would also use multiple intelligence to figure out how the student best learns and teach from that perspective.

How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?

I find that outlining a passage helps with comprehension. I label each section and paragraph with terms such as main idea, supporting sentences, conclusion, etc.

What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?

KWL, Frayer Model, Think Aloud, Graphic Organizer, Venn Diagram, Plot Diagram, and Say-Ask-Check.

How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?

By incorporating their interests in the tutoring session. For example, if a student loves basketball but dislikes math, I would come up with a math game that involved shooting a ball into a container every time they got a math problem right.

What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?

Check for understandings, exit tickets, independent practice problems, and have them teach it back to me.

How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?

By sharing my own personal journey with learning a subject and letting them know that with practice comes results.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

By observing their method of approach to various subjects and then seeing how they respond to certain teaching techniques. I would also look for trends in past coursework and communicate with their parents to gauge what special attention they may need.

How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?

By tailoring my lessons to their learning style and incorporating multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences is a theory that states that students learn the best in particular manners. For example: students who rank high in the musical intelligence department, prefer to learn with rhythm and melody incorporated.

What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?

Dry erase whiteboard with markers, pencils, notebook paper, highlighters, stress balls, calculator, and manipulatives.