Elisa S.

My teaching philosophy is that there is always a different way to tackle the problem if the traditional one does not work. In class, teachers tend to adopt a classic form of explaining concepts; however, this might not work for everyone. It is necessary that the student personally makes the concepts clear so that it is not a sciolistic learning but an active, almost personal one.

Understanding students’ concerns Many students struggle because they do not know how to solve their weaknesses, even if they understand the problem itself. I believe that understanding student concerns targets the issue because it focuses on simple but problematic misunderstandings that lie on the basis of every work subsequently produces. Understand their methodology, strengths, and weaknesses. Usually, going through a past paper, the student explains how the essay was approached, what he/she feels is good (preferably also from teachers’ feedback), and what instead might be improved.

Subject-wise, by creating a fixed but pragmatic structure that can be applied to every future paper. During the sessions, these techniques are used to training papers so that, little by little, the mechanism will spontaneously arise. Nonetheless, the student must become independent in approaching new challenges too. Hence, through the lessons, the student will learn how to tackle difficulties by creating a practical approach used in other IB subjects and later studies.

I always keep a positive attitude, I am aware of how stressful IB may become, so I know when it is important to have small ‘checks’ and recall that, even if there is room for improvement, the student must always be aware of his/her pre-existing strengths. Besides, IB strengthens students’ stress and time management abilities. Hence, I am always happy to offer little but essential tips on doing well on an emotional level.

It is common to struggle to understand certain concepts, so I usually let the student explain what he understood. While repeating what seems unclear, our mind clears out most of the time, and everything makes sense. If this does not work, while the student explains the concept, the fallacy will eventually emerge, and we can start by working from that. If this is not enough, I provide sheets with schematic notions to use in texts as an ‘open book exam’ at first.

As an international student in my first IB year, I immensely struggled too with reading comprehension. With time, I developed my own strategies to tackle even the most tedious readings. These involve highlighting, breaking down sentences, and acknowledging the impossibility of understanding every single word and hence understanding concepts instead of literal meanings.

The most successful strategy is empathizing with the student, as this really helps to get to the core of the problems and insecurities. Secondly, I realize that, for many students, schematic hand-outs to apply to past papers are very helpful. Lastly, going through the syllabus and the marking criteria is the classic option that never fails. However, this must be done in a proactive way, where the student should fully understand what is meant in every requirement.

I keep the sessions on a friendly note, engaging and very conversational, where both the student and the tutor are free to share their viewpoints and come up with the best-combined technique that can best fit the student. Also, I try to go to the core of the subject, explaining to the student the ‘sense’ behind it. This appears to be extremely useful as IB students have to study subjects they dislike too. Hence, getting to the point, to the ‘nice side’ of the subject, will both make them realize what it might teach them and what the examiners want to see it taught them.

I’ll ask questions to check the reasoning behind it, and I’ll use acronyms to help students remember important information and; lastly, we’ll go through past papers and grade them together.

I always make sure that the student knows what has been done well when I discuss improvement areas. Throughout the sessions, I also ensure that students acknowledge their improvements and see them due to commitment and effort.

I directly ask students how they feel about the lessons and the content. Furthermore, I pay attention to how students approach tasks and which type of questions they ask me.

Adapting to students’ needs is an essential part of the tutoring sessions. In the first session, both the student and the tutor discuss their concerns and their preferable ways of working to develop the best and most effective learning experience possible. However, specific needs tend to show up after several sessions. Hence I will do some ‘check-ups’ to understand what can be improved, what should be removed because it might be ineffective, or what turns out to be useful, thus applying it more often.

I use Google Docs as it enables live editing. Secondly, I use screen-sharing often as I can share with the student extra-material.