What is your teaching philosophy?

My teaching philosophy is "Everyone can and should learn." We humans are learning from birth to the end of life, and teachers are fortunate to be part of that path.

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

It is important to know the student: their goals, their needs, their motivation, their learning style... Building the lesson for the student begins with the knowledge of what the student has and what they want to become.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Opportunities should be given for the students to become independent. Support is important, but the best support is the one which becomes unnecessary because the student has developed the skill on their own. First modeling and then exercising are ways in which the confidence to work independently is built.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

It is necessary to know what motivates a student, what are their interests, and based on that, build the sessions so they match the student's motivations as much as their academic needs.

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

There are many ways in which a concept could be explained. Specifically, hands-on exercises and links to real life and student experiences are helpful ways to ensure understanding.

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

Reading is an important skill to succeed in school. Reading for fun, as well as reading for meaning, is necessary to start building the reading skills. Then, finding the main idea, sequencing information and drawing conclusions are skills to be built step by step as milestones of reading comprehension.

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

Each student is a new challenge. What has been the most successful is finding what is it engaging for that particular student, and trying to find ways in which the content taught is meaningful for them.

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

Every race begins with a step. Starting with activities in which the students are succeeding, and gradually helping them move out of their comfort zone, are ways of building self confidence and motivation in students who have struggled, and therefore sometimes reject a subject.

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

Reviewing, posing questions, and going back to the content in different ways (for example, introducing an exercise in which they have to apply what was learned) are techniques to ensure content was understood.

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

Confidence is built with success. The students will start applying the new knowledge and see for themselves the improvement in their academic life. This is the first step to being self-confident.