What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe the best asset a person can have for learning is the desire to learn for its own sake. Yes, you are trying to improve a grade or do well on a test, but focusing on the outcomes will only hinder your progress. Getting into the right mindset is as important as anything else for your success.

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

I would start by reviewing previous classwork or, for standardized tests, taking a look at the section breakdown in the score. The benefit of one on one tutoring is the ability to drill down to the root of whatever the student's misunderstanding is, so I want to start that process in the first session.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

I can encourage engagement with the material for its own sake. I can point out one counter-intuitive fact about motivation-- motivation follows action, not vice-versa.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Excitement is contagious. By being excited by the material myself, I can hopefully inspire the same feeling in my students.

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

All of our skills and concepts are based on simpler skills and concepts. Therefore, there are only two places for understanding to breakdown. Either the student has trouble with the skills or concepts that come before or they are having difficulty bringing it together. Either way, the benefit of tutoring is that we can figure out exactly what the problem is for that individual student, and then apply ourselves to alleviating the issue, wherever it lies.