Lauren

What is your teaching philosophy?

All students have the potential to learn; they need only find the right method.

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

Discuss their interests, what motivates them, and their goals. What do they want to get out of tutoring?

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Guide them through questions without telling them the answer, gradually removing supports with each practice until they are able to complete the task on their own.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Seek out which concept the difficulty arises from, and fix the root of the issue before moving on to more complicated topics.

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

Determine their comfort level of reading and build their confidence with passages at that level before moving on to more difficult challenges.

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

Making sure the student is engaged with their own education, and making tutoring an enjoyable experience.

How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?

Connect the subject to something they do enjoy doing and, if the student is older, explain how the topic might be used in the job of their choosing or how it might help them be successful in college.

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

Depending on the student's personality and learning style, I would use lecture based, hands-on, visual, and auditory methods to provide first instruction with supplementary questions to make sure the topic is understood.

How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?

Start with easier questions that the student is capable of and gradually move up to harder questions once they have a handle on the basic material.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Speaking to a student about where they feel they are struggling and what goals they want to achieve is the most important part of understanding the student's perspective. I can also look at tests and diagnostic tests to understand which specific topics they are struggling with.

How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?

I use a variety of different styles, including hands-on, lecture, visual, and video styles to instruct my students.

What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?

Online questions, videos, charts, graphs, maps, and pen and paper questions are all used during various sessions according to the needs of the student.