What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe in identifying a student's current ability level and working from there. Every person has a different set of gifts and proficiencies, and I will try to identify those areas and gear our lessons accordingly. If a student is more visual or analytical, arranging information in charts and graphs could be helpful. For more auditory learners, I will explain the information out loud, as often as the student’s needs. I will tailor my teaching to what fits the student best, and I will continue trying new tactics if old ones do not work. My foremost goal is to see the student excel.

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

For a first session, I would talk with the student and see where they are at, what they need help with, and what they want to achieve with my assistance. I would tailor my input to what they want from me; if a student just needs a sounding board (for instance, in translating a text or solving a math problem) I would offer input only when they seemed to struggle. If a student needed more active tutoring, I would walk through several examples before giving them practice questions to gauge what they learned. If, after the first session it seemed the student needed remediation, I would create a comprehensive diagnostic exam. The exam would ramp up to the material we attempted in the first lesson, to see how far back we would need to go in our review efforts, and then start there.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Often, the greatest challenge to learning comes with confidence. As students learn new concepts, they may become overwhelmed, forgetting older material or feeling as though they never grasped it in the first place. In order to build confidence, I will occasionally return to older topics. This will let students build/reinforce older material, as well as remind them of how far they have come and how much they already know. By teaching them confidence-building exercises, they will learn how to overcome the greatest obstacle to learning and be able to apply the lesson to subsequent studies.