What is your teaching philosophy?

There is always more than one way to learn a concept or approach a problem; it's just a matter of figuring out what works for you.

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

I'd find out more about the material covered in the classroom for the subject, ask the student about what has or hasn't worked so far, and determine what goals they want to reach. Then, we'd start planning a way to reach those goals by a certain point.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Rather than telling a student how to study, I would show them, by leading them through a few examples.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

I would point out the progress we've made so far and remind them that learning always takes time. In the future when they look back on the same material, they'll think it's easy.

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

I would try to figure out with them what the reason is for the mental block. If a person is a visual learner, there are different charts or diagrams we could draw instead. If they're an audio learner, maybe they could listen to a detailed explanation on YouTube. If they feel there's too much information to process, we could break it down into smaller bits.

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

Looking back at something we've just read, I ask them to underline the parts that they understand and explain them to me. Afterwards, we use context clues from the understandable sections to help decode the unclear sections.

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

I always wait for a student to show me techniques they already use to learn. That way, I can explain concepts in more familiar ways to them later.

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

I'd relate the subject to real life in a way that applies to the student's personal life. For example, I once had a student design a video game and the game's narrative as a prompt-writing exercise.

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

After leading them through an example, I'd ask them to solve a new example on their own. Once they reached the answer, I'd ask them to teach me how to solve the problem as if I'd just started learning the material.

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

I'm a bit of a dork about it, but I'm always a huge cheerleader for my students. I believe a person should be proud of themselves for having accomplished a goal, because it's a huge motivator for tackling other challenges.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

First, I just ask. Very often students already know what they need help with in a specific subject. After that, I may go over recently returned classwork to figure out what concepts needs brushing up. Or, we can just start off with one question they have that's really been bugging them about a subject, and we can move on from there.

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

I always try to go at the student's pace. At the same time, I try to focus on the areas in a subject they find more challenging. We will go over the 'easy' parts, but mostly at the beginning to use as initial building blocks for the harder material.

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

I'm a big fan of visuals (as a visual learner myself). Highlighters, diagrams, sketches, graphs, charts, and underlining are a huge part of the way I teach.