My Approach
My immediate priority for a new student is to begin building trust and rapport. Many students who come to me have lost faith in their ability and have started to associate their assignments with frustration and inadequacy. A safe space to diagnose the gaps in their understanding without judgment is important to the rebuilding process. Students do their best work under patient and compassionate instruction, not when they are stressed or fearful of failure.
A strong and collaborative tutor-student relationship facilitates the ability of students to learn and grow; unfortunately, not every tutor is a good fit for every student. As such, I evaluate whether it is likely your student and I will work well together during our introductory session, and I encourage your student to do the same.
My teaching style is adaptive: if I’m finding large gaps in your student’s knowledge, I lean towards a lecture style to fill in the missing pieces, checking for understanding at each step and connecting new concepts to your student’s stronger areas of knowledge. When the student is more familiar with the basics, I shift to a more Socratic method, asking them about their thought processes and guiding them toward the solutions as well as correcting remaining inaccuracies or omissions in their understanding.
It is my fundamental view that learning and understanding should be joyous endeavors. Attaining greater mastery and building confidence in one’s own abilities are precursors to academic flourishing and should be celebrated as both valuable in their own right and also investments toward future successes. I hope my passion for your student’s growth comes across in my teaching, and I strive to make their session a positive experience every single time.