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Peter

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I am a lifelong teacher who is committed to helping people reach their potential and create positive impacts in their communities. I do this by helping students learn content, academic, and life skills that will allow them to be successful in various situations. I am grateful for opportunities to teach and do what I love, and I hope that my students will be able to learn as much from me as I inevitably will learn from them.

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Peter’s Qualifications

Education & Certification

Undergraduate Degree: University of St Thomas - Bachelors, Secondary Social Studies Education

Hobbies

I love sports of all sorts and all genres of music. I love to try different foods learn about different cultures - travel!

Tutoring Subjects

AP World History

Business

Conversational Spanish

Economics

High School Economics

High School Level American History

History

Languages

Social Studies

Spanish

Spanish 1

Spanish 2

Spanish 3

Q & A

What is your teaching philosophy?

My personal teaching philosophy is that all students have individual skills and abilities, and all students are capable. The most effective education experiences are those modified based on each individual; their personality, motivation, and learning styles. It is important to help students learn not only content matter, but study skills and life skills that will help them be successful in future experiences in and beyond school.

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

In a first session, it is most important to first build a rapport and an understanding of each other. I would first have a simple conversation, asking the student questions and having the student ask me questions ranging from questions about school and academics to those about personal interests and motivations.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

This is a crucial skill and mindset that needs to be practiced. If a student is struggling with a question, it is often helpful to frame the question in a different way, or ask the student building questions - questions with answers that will lead to the overarching question. By formatting questions in a different way, or asking smaller questions, it allows the students to build confidence that they can find their own answers, and helps them to understand how to breakdown a complex question in simpler steps. This skill also involves an understanding of resources and how to use them, ranging from textbooks, or videos, to Internet resources, and it is therefore important to help students practice identifying important information in these various formats.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

The best way to motivate a student is to build a relationship with them. Without trust, there can be no motivation. Once a relationship and trust has been established, it is easier to point to the student's individual interests and identify what truly motivates them. Another important aspect of motivation is confidence. If a student does not believe they can accomplish something, then they probably won't, and will not be motivated to continue trying. It is important to frame subject matter in a way that allows students to achieve small victories, building their confidence to accomplish things, and pushing them to try things that they previously didn't for fear of failure.

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

When a student has difficulty with a skill or concept, a teacher needs to format that skill or concept in a different way until the student grasps the learning target. It is imperative that a teacher be creative and patient in their presentation of content and academic skills, giving each student time and options in their education.

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

The best way to build a skill is to practice it. Again, it is important to break content and skills into "bite sized" chunks that build the student's confidence that they can be successful. It is also important to give students strategies to be successful. Text marking and note taking can be useful strategies commonly used in classrooms, and I personally feel graphic organizers can help students who struggle with larger reading sections. Giving students one sentence at a time and having them identify the "who, what, where, why, when, or how" of each sentence breaks down the text in small chunks and allows to students to see the small victories, and eventually helps them to gain understanding of the larger text.

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

This depends on the content and on the student, and is a difficult general question to answer. The first thing that comes to mind is differentiation; giving students different forms and levels of content to find out what each individual prefers. Once a given form or level of content is found to be best for the student, I can then form a more personalized instructional strategy for each student.

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

This is again based on the individual, but it boils down to showing the student the practical uses and real-life application of various content areas. Therefore, it is essential to develop a relationship with each student to understand what aspects of subject areas could grasp their attention.

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

A variety of techniques are best when assessing a student's understanding. If a student can present their knowledge in a variety of formats, it is an indication that they have grasped the material. These assessments can range from written responses (free response questions), to verbal responses, to quizzes, to graphic organizers, and even drawings of certain concepts. By making the student show knowledge in a variety of formats, it shows they understand the content, and not just the format in which it was presented.

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

Small steps, letting students see that they can achieve simple tasks, and that they have a base of knowledge. This can be done by asking small questions or by having students do small tasks. Then, with plenty of positive reinforcement, the student will start to believe that they can be successful in a given subject, and step by step practice with more and more difficult tasks will build the students confidence step by step as well.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Again, building a relationship and differentiation are key to evaluating a student's needs. If a student does not feel comfortable with someone, they will not open up and show their true selves and abilities. Once that trust is established, it is important to have students display their prior knowledge in a variety of formats to get a true understanding of their content knowledge and which skills they may struggle with most.

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

I adapt to a student's academic and personal needs. It is important to find out what instructional methods best reach individual students, and it is important to ask the student how they learn best, and test various methods to find out what the student has most success with. It is important to also adapt to different personalities. Some people need someone to push them and be tougher on them, and others needs a softer touch, and require much more positive reinforcement to build their confidence. It comes back to building that positive relationship, which will allow students to be comfortable enough to show you their true needs.

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

It depends on the content and the individual, but generally the physical materials would be a laptop, pen and a notebook. Those physical materials allow for differentiation in presentation of content (texts, audio, and visual use of the Internet) and in mastery of content (hard copies and digital copies of notes/graphic organization/assessments). These are in addition to physical resources the student may already have (books, articles, textbooks, etc.).

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