What is your teaching philosophy?

Every child can learn, every child must learn, and the greatest indicator of learning is a change in behavior.

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

Get to know and understand as much as possible about what they would like to gain from our sessions, and set our objectives to meet our goals.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Learning independence is acquired when one is motivated and given opportunity to learn at their own pace to build confidence.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

I would help by listening to the student, allowing them to voice their concerns or opinion. Once they realize that there is value in their contribution, they will be motivated to learn to have more to share.

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

Find the core interest of the student and incorporate that in the skill or concept that students have difficulty with. This will make decoding the information more interesting to students.

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

Reading comprehension struggles can be caused by a number of things: attention span, difficulties reading or inferring. I would first find the reason for the struggle and tailor my approach based on the findings.

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

Let them take the lead by sharing what they know.

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

Give insight, and paint the bigger picture of the subject area outside of the school -- why the subject is "cool" to learn.

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

Proof of understanding can be done with assessment. Formative assessment during sessions, including short answer questions, open-ended question and demonstration and summative assessment to test knowledge, skills and attitudes at the end.

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

I will build student confidence by getting students to practice the subject area more. Confidence is achieved when one becomes sure of what they are doing, and practice helps us to be sure of what we are doing.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

A student's needs are evaluated by pretesting; this will give feedback on the needs of the students.

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

During sessions, materials are based on the subject and level of the student, which may include but are not limited to books, Internet learning sites, demonstration and manipulatives.

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

After assessing the student's needs, I prepare for sessions based on their needs by researching to ensure that my approach will be best fit.