Matt

I'm currently studying engineering at the University of Cambridge, and outside of term times I live in Devon. My hobbies include surfing, tennis and robotics/electronics, and I currently lead a team on the Cambridge University Spaceflight (CUSF) society which is hoping to get a rocket to an altitude of 150km next year.

Since a young age I've had a passion for maths, physics and chemistry, and it has only deepened over the years. My learning style has always been fundamental understanding first - I find intuition is far more reliable than memory, and in large part I believe this approach was what allowed me to achieve excellent results in GCSEs and A-levels, and be where I am today.

I had a number of brilliant teachers, especially during my sixth form years, who reinforced this approach and made it clear to me how much difference a teacher can make when they really care, and really know their stuff. I hope to be able to use my own passion and ability in the same way, to help students achieve grades they never thought they would be able to achieve.

Tutoring Experience

I have minimal formal tutoring experience, having only done a couple lessons on another tutoring site. However, throughout my GCSE and A-level years, I spent a lot of time "tutoring" my friends in shared subjects, and over that time I developed a good understanding of how to help people get their heads round a subject, and bake it into their intuition. This also made me a very patient teacher, having worked with students of very varied natural abilities and starting points. Many of the fellow students I worked with in these years achieved significantly higher grades than they or their teachers had expected - and while I do not wish to take credit for their hard work and dedication, I believe the time I spent aiding them had a very material impact on their results.

However, I do recognise that I lack formal experience, and have set my rates appropriately low with the goal of building up my experience first, and helping students who (like myself in college) struggle to afford expensive tutoring lessons.

Tutoring Approach

On a high level, my approach mirrors the aforementioned learning style I have found most effective for me and those I've helped in the past. I encourage a way of thinking which emphasises fundamental understanding, and if at all possible, committing a subject to intuition. This creates more flexible learners, who are able to apply their understanding of a subject to a type of question they have never come across, rather than relying on having seen a similar question before.

I believe in listening at least as much as you talk, as a tutor. When we approach a question, I will first ask the student to have a go at it and see how far they can get on their own, while articulating their thought process as they go. This allows them to see where they may be going wrong when approaching a difficult question, and gives me a better understanding of the way their brain sees a certain topic - after all, no two people think in quite the same way, and attempting to force someone into a certain way of thinking is bound to fail. If the student gets stuck, I will attempt to provide just a small nudge in the right direction so that they're doing as much of the thinking themselves as possible.

Of course, this style of teaching is only possible when the student feels comfortable and relaxed in the lesson. I've also found people are far less likely to retain information if they were nervous when they learnt it - unsurprisingly, a fight-or-flight state is not the most conducive to learning. For this reason, my style is informal. In the tutoring I've done online, I've made an effort to begin the time with a quick chat about stuff unrelated to the subject, and to get to know the student a bit better. When I ask a question, I assure them there is no rush and say they're welcome to take as long as they want to think about it - and if they don't know, that's absolutely fine. A student who feels a lot of pressure when they're learning is not going to enjoy learning, and that will certainly affect their outcomes.

As for lesson structure, I will generally ask the student a few days before their lesson which subjects they'd like to tackle (unless it's been clear to me in previous lessons that there's an important topic they are weak in, in which case I will encourage them to go over that topic). I will prepare a few examples on the subject (usually from past papers from their exam board), gradually increasing in difficulty, and see how far we can get with them. On the occasion that they're unable to start the more basic questions, I will briefly transition to a more traditional teaching style, explaining the fundamentals of the topic, before having another go at the basic questions. After a lesson, I will find a few extension questions based on how far we got in a lesson, and email them for the student to try in their own time. I will ask students to send me their answers/attempts sometime before the lesson, and if need be, will respond with some guidance and ask them to have another go. If they are still unable to get to the answer, we will cover the question/s at the beginning of the next lesson - however, I prefer to do most of it outside of the lesson so they get their full money's worth from the lesson.