What is your teaching philosophy?

My philosophy of teaching is, students have to be motivated to learn in a nonthreatening environment. Teaching character proceeds academic instruction. My ultimate objective is to nurture and develop each and every child holistically to their absolute highest potential. The wise teacher will remember there is a difference between the beginner, one who is getting on, and the one who is fully accomplished. The awareness of the capabilities of my students will guide the deliverance of my instruction and methods of intervention. I am committed to strive to make a positive impact on each student that comes my way. This will be accomplished with an unrelenting effort to nurture and enrich their natural talents. Children are precious and will one day serve in the community I live in. Education will always have a need to be reformed to meet the needs of our ever-changing society. Some things will never change. All children deserve to learn.

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

Learn as much as I can about the student and share my qualifications, experiences and personal interest to open a pathway of a meaningful and productive relationship. In addition, I would gather information to determine the learning styles, knowledge and skills my students possess to guide the design of my instruction.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

By making them aware of their strengths and teaching task analogy strategies.

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

By teaching specific skills that include sequencing, identifying the main idea, supporting details, drawing conclusions, making predictions, using context clues and making inferences.

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

Activate and connect prior knowledge.

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

Connect with what motivates them and creatively make analogies.

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

Have the student to work a math problem backwards, create an illustration, write a summary, or generalize the skill using a different problem or passage.

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

Making them aware and tracking by graphing their progress.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Through previous work samples and observations of metacognitive processes.

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

I do, we do, you do approach

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

Basic inventory and diagnostic reading, writing, and math tools.