What is your teaching philosophy?

I like to help students find ways to build skills and knowledge, while also increasing independence and confidence.

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

Get to know him/her and find out what their current knowledge and skills are.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

By teaching and modeling strategies that are universal across all subjects, such as organization and study methods.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

I would help him/her internalize the concept of a growth mindset. To stay motivated, he or she can achieve specific benchmarks and view the progress that he or she is making.

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

I would try a few different strategies to help him/her figure out which one is going to work best to learn this skill or concept. I would be creative in my approaches and reaffirm for him/her that there will be a strategy that will work for this problem, because there is always a way to learn something.

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

I teach active reading strategies, such as highlighting, underlining, making margin notes, and using other note-taking strategies.

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

I work on building a relationship with my students and figuring out what will work best when working with each individual student. Learning what motivates each student is paramount to helping him/her achieve.

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

Having the student answer deep questions that involve applying knowledge and skills to a novel problem.