What is your teaching philosophy?

First and foremost, I strive to determine effectively the current capacities of you, the student, and your comfort level with the material. From there, we collaborate to enhance your understanding and confidence with the skills or material you wish to improve.

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

Typically we start with some agenda setting: identifying what an ideal outcome or series of outcomes would be for you. From there, we determine where you currently are in terms of reaching these goals, and plan a course of action for attaining them. Once this preliminary work is complete, we get to work!

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

An important aspect of the tutoring relationship is that I try to enhance your capacity for using specific sets of techniques (in reading, writing, critical thinking, etc.). Together, we work to get you more comfortable with using these skills autonomously, and eventually, later in our professional relationship, with minimal interaction or guidance on my part. Once you can firmly utilize these techniques on your own, you'll find it becomes much easier to apply them to future scenarios.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Motivating students for me is largely a matter of emphasizing current strengths and improvements. It becomes easier to persist when one has a clear indication of the progress one has made towards a personal goal.

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

With learning difficulties such as these, it is often quite useful to provide several formulations of the concept or skill. This is something I frequently do in my classes, where there are about 30 students, not all of whom will understand an idea in the same way.

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

A common strategy I would utilize is working with them to grasp the meanings of difficult aspects of passages by context, and difficult words by analogy, rather than (for instance) consulting a dictionary.