
Elijah: New Lenox tutor
Certified Tutor
Undergraduate Degree: Antioch College - Bachelors, Self-Designed Major: Political Economy of Public Discourse
Film and photography, creative writing, soccer, space exploration, science fiction.
College English
Conversational Spanish
High School English
Spanish 1
Technical Writing
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe that every human being has a natural drive to learn, develop a deep understanding, and communicate that understanding to others. I work with people to become more effective self-educators and communicators.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
The first thing is just talking about the subject matter, what specifically the student wants to improve on, and what parts they feel the most confident in. Then I try to get an idea of what the student's learning style is when they have a strong internal motivation to learn. The goal is to develop learning strategies based on how the student absorbs information they care about.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
Everyone is already an independent learner, whether it's about an academic subject, a sport they care about, or their friends' lives. As soon as you realize you're already learning all the time, applying that drive to academic subjects is just a matter of finding the right learning strategies for yourself and getting into a good routine where you feel like you're making progress.
If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?
I try to figure out exactly what the problem is by asking questions.
How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?
Reading a sentence out loud and rephrasing it are both strategies that have worked for me.