Nathan
Certified Tutor
Hi! You can usually find me in my classroom during the school year or somewhere outside during the summer. I'm excited about the ability to connect with students locally and also all around the country through Varsity.
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Undergraduate Degree: Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College - Bachelors, Biology, General
Running, hiking, cooking, watching movies
- Biology
- College Biology
- Ecology
- Environmental Science
- High School Biology
- Life Sciences
- Science
What is your teaching philosophy?
I enjoy inquiry-based learning because it provides students with the ability to take ownership of their knowledge.
What might you do in a typical first session with a student?
I'd like to learn what a student already understands, if they know what is expected of them to learn, and then begin to set up steps for them to achieve their goals.
How can you help a student become an independent learner?
Introducing different strategies (reading, writing, inquiry, organization) and showing the student how to apply these to any concept they are practicing.
How would you help a student stay motivated?
Setting up achievable, realistic, time-sensitive goals so the student feels empowered by success each step of the way.
If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?
Address the misconception head on. I'd like to diagnose what the student does understand and what they don't understand. Then provide feedback on how to correct the difficulty. Then finally, give an assessment of the student’s knowledge once they feel comfortable enough to demonstrate understanding.
How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?
Introducing reading techniques that are content specific such as marking the text, creating summaries, working with vocabulary definitions, creating outlines of specific texts, and making graphs or charts of the concept including knowledge about related topics.
What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?
Building a strong vocabulary, the ability to read and take sufficient notes, summarize paragraphs, and create concept maps.
How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?
Starting small with problems they feel confident in.
What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?
Formative assessments can include multiple-choice questions, summarizing the concept, drawing charts to demonstrate knowledge, and applying the content to a problem they have not seen before.
How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?
Creating small goals each lesson so that they don't feel overwhelmed.
How do you evaluate a student's needs?
Content pre-assessment, students' self-evaluation, notes from teachers or parents.
How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?
If the student is aware of what type of materials help them understand the most, I like to provide that type of structure to provide a solid learning foundation.
What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?
Videos, graphs, articles, text, and quizzes.