What is your teaching philosophy?

Reflecting upon my years of educational experience, my philosophy of teaching is that our students are our main priority and should be able to demonstrate growth with intentional planning and essential steps that provide knowledge and focus on cognitive development, with active self-learning and engagement that promotes critical thinking and reasoning. This is best achieved when students are able to make connections to their current work, and build upon background knowledge that brings about change in student outcomes with appropriate levels of differentiation of instruction. Using data to inform next steps and noticeable gains in academic content, then providing students with ownership of their own learning and the process between the teacher and the learner becomes cohesive. Learning should be fun and engaging, with creative and yet challenging lessons that support the child and the leverage of student autonomy that contributes to academic growth.

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

The first objective is to build relationships and create a positive learning environment so that the student feels confident in the learning process and engagement is heightened.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

A student can become an independent learner when rigor is scaffolded from direct teacher instruction to independent learning that leads to higher cognitive complex tasks and achieves the learning target with student self-assessment and engagement within the learning process.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

After relationships are built, a teacher becomes familiar with how a student learns best, and using those factors to increase motivation while yet achieving the academic goal are the conditions of the learning process.

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

Scaffolding instruction is best when a student is having difficulty mastering a subject. The best method is to build upon previous knowledge and take smaller steps with increased practices, and being able to explain it in their language increases students' chances for success.

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

Providing students with reading strategies is the best method for reading comprehension. Students must also practice and become familiar with the strategies, because they are applicable in a variety of contexts.

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

Graphic organizers are the best way for a student to record and represent knowledge. This creates a concrete representation of learning that moves to higher level thinking skills and processes.

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

When students begin to take ownership of their learning and see the academic gains, then the learning becomes personal and students are able to be successful independently, and that is what helps with the excitement and engagement of a hard-to-learn subject.

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

Being a teacher at all levels, I have readily available resources to help students at all levels. Students enjoy being tactical learners, and using manipulatives and games to enhance the learning environment is best for younger students. For older students, being able to communicate and create digital products of learning is a technique that strengthens understanding of material.

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

As a teacher, intrinsic motivation is one of the best confidence boosters for a child. When a student masters or understands a concept, having the child find a possible method of celebration is important to the gains of the student.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Using data and formative assessment is the best way to evaluate a student needs. As students begin to work, making adjustments for student learning based on where the student is demonstrating growth is important for next learning steps.

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

Differentiation of instruction is the best method to meet the learner where they are; additionally, creating a challenging environment so that the student feels successful at the level they are at while yet being engaged in the present task.

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

I have a variety of resources from the classroom and learning materials since I am an educator. Technology is also a useful tool for learning.