What is your teaching philosophy?

I allow whoever I am working with to teach me! The best way to check comprehension of a subject or concept is by being able to convey it to others with ease and clarity. I do my very best every encounter to make the student feel as though they can walk away teaching the concept they just tackled to their peers, parents, and siblings!

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

I ask a student to teach me something in their life that interests them. By watching how a student conveys and formulates their examples and explanation, I can gain a concrete understanding of how they articulate information. This provides insight and allows me to construct lessons that revolve around how they process and detail information. A lot can be learned about how someone learns by watching them teach!

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

The best way to foster independence is to incite confidence! I will do my very best every meeting to ensure that the student is confident in the methodology, as well as the final answer. In my view, the approach to the problem is as important as the answer to the problem, so I go out of my way to make sure the student is confident in establishing foundations. A firm foundation will allow the student to stand-alone and tackle the issue(s) at hand.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

I find motivation can be directly tied with connection to a subject. Therefore, when I meet with a student, I take great care in learning about their life and interests aside from school. I then use this information to draw connections to what they are learning so that each lesson feels real and relevant. The more connections a student can find between their daily life or interests and what they are learning, the easier it will be to have deeper investigations because it will seem like fun and less like learning.

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

Simple! We move onto a skill or concept they excel at. Once they are in a positive frame of mind, we will reexamine the difficult skill or concept. We will also review how the skill or concept was initially conveyed so that a different, more targeted approach can be taken the second time around. We will repeat this process until the difficult skill or concept has become second nature.