What is your teaching philosophy?

I do, so I am: teaching is providing learning experiences as doing -- not reading or listening.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Find their learning preferences and modes, and teach them how to overcome their learning obstacles.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

Give confidence-building questions when the show they need it, and demand only as much as they can take. Give praise based on their ability and progress.

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

I'd see if I can teach them directly, or provide bypasses, shortcuts or analogies to learning the subject.

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

Tell them with a choice of words that is theirs so they get it, or make analogies to things they know.

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

First, determine where they are at mentally in their stage of understanding the subject. Then, build a positive rapport by creating repeated successes and building on them. If failure occurs, return to the last success and build from there.

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

Create a success for them by giving them my knowledge as fast as possible, so they are up to date, and then teaching them from there with incremental successes.

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

I ask them about the material or test them, and I use the same test so I know where they are at compared to where most students are.

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

Give them the grander framework - which is usually what struggling students miss: a frame of reference to affix all new knowledge to. Then, give them the building blocks and take it from there.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

Ask them the question on their current stage of knowledge, teach what I can, check if they know, fill in the missing blanks and so on.

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

Know your customer: determine what the student knows, what he/she struggles with and what is easy for him/her, then fill in the missing blanks with assignments of how to do the question at hand, and check again if the lesson is learned. Often students know themselves how they best learn an issue, so I ask for that.

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

Assignments, interactive talk, drawing, writing, reading, and having the student teach me to see if he/she understands.

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

Get to know the student and his/her current level of knowledge compared to what he/she ought to know, determine his/her learning style, what he/she likes and dislikes and take it from there.