I believe in getting to know each student as a full person. The first time I meet with a student, I will take the time to hear about his or her current level of performance in class or on a standardized test, their goal, and the amount of time and energy he or she can dedicate to that goal. I also like to learn his or her own ideas on how he or she might improve and the challenges he or she has identified—concepts he or she needs clarification to understand, skills he or she needs to gain.
I also like to learn about his or her activities and interests outside the material with which I’m helping him or her—other commitments, hobbies, what he or she want to be when he or she grows up if he or she has an idea. I do this because it’s important to know what other priorities he or she has in her life and because I like to tie in the subject I’m tutoring to applications that my student might see in his or her life. Just as I believe that a doctor who gets to know his or her patient as a full person will be rewarded with insights into his or patient’s health and sicknesses and a more satisfying relationship for both him or her and the patient, so I believe that taking the time to get my student will make for more satifying experience for both me and my student.
I think that different people learn best in different ways such as reading, discussion, looking at and drawing pictures, and doing problems. I try to respect my students’ unique learning preferences while also respecting the fact that some learning strategies are more effective for certain subjects. It’s a hard balance sometimes, but I believe that making the effort to respect both concerns is worth it.
Let me describe how I help my students develop study skills before I describe why it’s an effective approach and why I implement it well. I believe in integrating work on subject-specific content (that is, the specific subject like algebra or biology or English I’m tutoring) with planning together with my student to choose study strategies (like doing practice problems or breaking down the writing process into multiple drafts) and make study study schedules. I think there are general study skills that are somewhat transferable between subjects. But I also think that for each subject each student needs a personalized set of study strategies, and that it’s my job to help the student identify those strategies and become more capable of identifying similar strategies for future subjects and classes.
Some of the study skills I try to develop in my students include time management and planning, pre-reading for class, being willing to ask questions in class, making notes for active review (e.g., flashcards), analyzing test results to identify knowledge and technique gaps and to devise test-taking strategies, and strategically approaching a composition, focusing on the main ideas before grammar and style.
I think my approach to developing study skils is effective because it allows students to see that study skils are not merely things that a tutor can discuss with them but are really tools that can greatly improve learning. I think I implement well my approach to developing study skills because I’ve a good general knowledge of study skills, as discussed above, and for two more reasons. First, I have studied and mastered the specific subjects I tutor, so I have figured out study techniques that worked for me for these subjects. Second, I have tutored most of the subjects multiple times by now, so I have experience sharing my techniquess with students and have learned techniques that work for students with different personalities as learners from me.