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

Do some practice problems to identify strengths and weaknesses; learn more about what the student is trying to accomplish with the tutoring; learn new strategies for how to better learn the material.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Give them strategies and ways of solving problems that they can apply to any situation or question, and make it into a game or puzzle that they enjoy solving. This way, they can go through the same steps and have the same enthusiasm alone that they would have with a tutor or during a session.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Keep looking towards the long term goal while using short term benchmarks to make it seem more attainable; for example, if the goal is a better SAT score, the short term goals are improving performance in the subject in school, grades at school, good practice test scores, etc.

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

Helping then look at the problem in a different way or going back to basics and thinking about what type of problem they have and how to solve it. For standardized tests, strategies for doing well on the test also usually prove very helpful.

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

Make it simple/easier to them and relate it to something they are good at or enjoy. For example, make a math problem into a puzzle or game to be solved, or turn it into a word problem with things the student can visualize if they are better at reading than math.

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

Practice problems and practice test assessments. Ultimately, the student needs to prove they can solve the problems under the conditions they will actually be evaluated under, whether that it a test or something else at school. Having them do problems by themselves and then explain how they got their answer demonstrates they understand the material without someone guiding them.

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

Start out with the aspects of the subject they understand and are good at, and slowly branch off of those into the areas they are struggling with. Constantly relating back to the problems they understand and showing how they are related, as well as reinforcing their success with additional problems they can solve, will help a student build confidence.