What Makes My Tutoring Approach Different from Others?
1. Experience: I’ve been teaching students from preschool to senior citizens for over twenty years in a variety of disciplines and classrooms. During that time, I've also been tutoring individual students one-on-one. Each individual, class, age group, and subject area add to my expertise because I learn from all of them and apply what I’ve learned to help myself and my students.
2. Education: As a life-long learner, my education is on-going. I have been either a student or a teacher in one type of classroom or another since I entered kindergarten, and I have invested much quality time, effort, and funding into my own education. I have degrees in both the arts and academics, a secondary teaching credential in math, as well as in child/adolescent development. I've also completed the teacher training course at the Princeton Review for the math and verbal portions of the SAT. I am a concept learner by nature, and I teach to the concept.
3. Philosophy: I believe in the limitless potential of all students. My belief, which is supported by my experience, is that one student may excel in many areas and learning modalities , but all students excel in some areas. Development is an individual process that is marked by specific ages and stages, yet individuals vary in their own, unique age/stage development.
4. Teaching Style: I have the ability to see the unique strengths in each student, and I strive to use all learning modalities to coach students in developing their strengths while working on their challenges. My approach is holistic in nature, and I take into account and am sensitive to the whole person and his/her family. I am friendly and responsive, authoritative vs. authoritarian. Because my teaching style and the setting in which I work are more informal, students under 18 yrs. address me as Miss Lando. I am on a 1st name basis with students/parents who are college age and older.
5. Curriculum: Unlike many tutoring organizations, during the regular school year (summer sessions are designed differently) and college semesters/quarters, I actually work with the material that the student has in his/her class. In other words, I don't demand that students do extra worksheets and homework that are not part of the student's math class, but rather, I coach the student in areas of his/her math class that may be difficult such as clarity and depth of comprehension, application of concepts, and test-taking strategies. All that I do is directly related to helping the student to better understand the material from the math class that she/he is taking, and to improve the grade in that class.
I do this type of work as a personal choice, and thoroughly enjoy getting to know each student as an individual and his/her family.
