What is your teaching philosophy?

All students can learn and become empowered when they are accepted for who and where they are in their educational journey.

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

I will set aside a few minutes to build rapport with my tutee (ask about life at school, hobbies, interests) and will also share with them some interesting things about me. I find it important to establish a level of comfortability between my tutee and I. For the subject at hand, I would have our first conversation be very general, pertaining to their problem areas and where they are comfortable. This will help identify concepts to go over.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

We may work through a set of specific problems together. However, I would quickly digress to discuss context and methodology. My main priority for the tutoring sessions isn't to get tonight's assignment done. My primary goal is to orient my students towards underlying concepts and the process involved. These foster independence, which is my ultimate responsibility.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

It is very helpful to apply challenging concepts to a practical scenario to make sense of the conceptual framework and guide the process of solving problems. Fine-tuning the challenge also proves to be beneficial. I believe we are more motivated to learn when any task is matched to our level of skill: have the tutee work at the edge of their own ability, and then gradually increase the level of difficulty as they improve.

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

I would identify where the lack of understanding lies and determine whether we simply need to review or take a fresh approach to the concept to be learned. Sometimes, you just have to go back to basics. I would also have the tutee analyze the challenge (concept or specific problem) in keywords; it can be vital to relate the challenge in the student's own terms which they can better understand.