Teaching Experience
Whilst at 6th form I was part of an after school scheme to tutor year 7,8 and 9 students which helped me develop vital skills needed to be an excellent tutor. I was also a member of a similar scheme during my 2nd year of university as part of a university society called Student Community Action but this time I was tutoring 6th form students. Although my experience may be less extensive than others I believe it is an advantage that I have only this year finished my education. It is still fresh in my memory the brilliant teachers that I have been taught by and also the not so brilliant teachers so I have clear ideas of what, in my opinion, makes a good tutor.
Approach to Tutoring
When I was doing my GCSE's I had a maths tutor because there were a few aspects of the course I was struggling with. This tutor was grumpy to say the least and would talk for ages without checking if I was following what he was saying and then get frustrated if I made an early mistake. I would like to think my approach would be completely opposite to this. My first lesson would involve two parts. The first part would be to just get to know my tutee and determining their most effective learning style and the second part would be a general chat about the subject. This chat would involve me finding out the exam board and course that my tutee was taking and any areas they feel they would like me to focus on. This then allows me to plan each further session as I like to build upon topics slowly. I also find a lot of people struggle with exams for the wrong reasons. Many people I know didn't make use of past papers thus where intimidated by them whereas for me they were my most important tool. This is especially important for the longer exam questions which are sometimes worded in an extremely confusing way so even if you know information relating to the question you may not realise it. That's why I use past exam papers in my sessions because in my opinion they are the best method to improving exam results. This way I would aim for my tutees to improve on their biological knowledge and exam technique.
