What is your teaching philosophy?

If you didn't make any mistakes it means you didn't learn anything new.

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

A brief introduction in order to assess personality, and then I make teaching adjustments accordingly.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Emphasize a routine of learning a new concept every few days or week to where it becomes second nature.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Reminding them of the long-term goals and why they are doing this in the first place.

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

Break it down step by step, see which step or steps they are not comprehending, and work from there.

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

Suggest that they get in the habit of reading small articles daily. Small enough to maintain attention span, but large enough to where it might take a minute or two to summarize what was read.

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

Find out what kind of learner they are. What their work ethic is like. Then go from there.

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

Find some practical applications for the subject or concept that they might be familiar with or that may be interesting to them.

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

Ask it again later in the session, or ask a secondary question that might take a little more effort to answer to confirm comprehension.

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

Positive reinforcement when correct. Reminding them that, just because you don't comprehend something right off the bat, that doesn't mean you'll never understand it.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Letting them do a few problems on their own then grading them and seeing any trends in errors.

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

By assessing those needs when grading a few practice problems or maybe an assessment that they already have completed in order to find out exactly what they need to work on.

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

Just pencil and scratch paper. Dry erase board. A graphing calculator when needed-- I typically try to discourage the use of calculators for simple arithmetic.