What is your teaching philosophy?

As a special educator, I aspire to go above and beyond the traditional definition of "teacher" by working as a mentor, motivator, caregiver, and confidant to my students. It is highly important that my students are comfortable in the classroom environment to ensure they are able to work to the best of their potential. By providing each student with individual attention, I am able to get a better understanding of their personal learning styles and preferences. As an avid supporter of Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, I firmly believe that children are just as unique in their learning styles as they are as individuals. All children fall on different levels of the learning spectrum and may require additional accommodations to help reach their highest level of ability. In my classroom, I see the importance of keeping all significant people in a student.

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

The most important part to a first session is getting to know your student best! In order to create the best tutoring environment possible, I would conduct a brief assessment to find out where students are strongest academically, and where they feel they require the most help in. After I have a better understanding of the student's learning style, I can then select a teaching approach to use that best matches that child's preference (i.e., conducting a "read-aloud" for an auditory learner vs. drawing a diagram with a visual learner).

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Students become independent learners when they are equipped with a variety of learning strategies, and know how to apply those strategies to different kinds of material in an appropriate way.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Positive reinforcement is key! It just as important to acknowledge and support successful learning moments as it is to correct students when they are wrong. When students feel comfortable communicating openly with their tutor, it is much more likely that they will be excited about learning and motivated towards success.

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

It is important to make sure a child fully understands a difficult concept before moving on to another, possibly more difficult topic. If a student were struggling with a skill or concept, I would work with that student to try to figure out what it was about that concept that was giving them a difficult time. Then, once the problem is identified, it would be more simple for a teacher to start at the beginning and re-teach the material with a different approach, and with that child's learning style in mind.

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

There are several different strategies that students can use when attempting to work on their reading comprehension skills. One of my favorite strategies is the use of "chunking" while reading the text. Basically, this strategy asks readers to find the main idea of every paragraph (or group of paragraphs) in a text, and write it down next to each one of those paragraphs. Then, at the end, the student will have a much more concise summary of what happened to follow. Another important thing is to constantly ASK QUESTIONS! to check for understanding.