What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe that all students have the right to a quality education that enables them to pursue and achieve their personal goals. I also believe that all students can learn, and will often surpass expectations, when provided with the supports that they need. Driven by these beliefs, I teach in order to provide my students with: the skills they need to be successful in academia and beyond, a learning environment in which they feel seen and heard, and the opportunity to discover the topics and ideas that excite them. I also believe that learning is a lifelong endeavor that provides meaning and inspiration to our lives. I strive to start my students on this path by making my teaching engaging and accessible. I provide academic support that is based on a student's individual needs, strengths, learning style, and goals. All students need to learn certain skills, but we must consider how individual students will best learn these skills -- the level of complexity at which they start, the pace at which they progress, and the teaching and motivational strategies that should be used. I measure our success by the student's ability to independently demonstrate mastery of the material; my effectiveness is not measured by how much I can explain to the student but by how much the student can ultimately explain or demonstrate to me. I have seen firsthand, and believe strongly in, the power of students discovering within themselves previously unknown abilities, from the student who perfectly sounds out a multisyllabic word with that tricky vowel sound to the student who finally sees the hidden pattern in a certain type of SAT Math problem. Contributing to and sharing in these accomplishments are part of what I love about teaching, and I am committed to working with students and their families to achieve those personal moments of growth and success.