Mark

Monday 8 am-12 pm and 2-5 pm Central Time
Tuesday 8 am-12 pm and 2-5 pm Central Time
Wednesday 8 am-12 pm and 2-5 pm Central Time
Thursday 8 am-12 pm and 2-5 pm Central Time
Friday 8 am-12 pm and 2-5 pm Central Time
Saturday 8-10 am Central Time
Sunday NONE

My approach is student-centered and inquiry based. My methods depend on whether the tutoring platform offers tutoring materials or not, the age of the student and the skills the student needs to improve. I prefer to adapt to the student's needs and interests, and to proceed at the student's pace, focusing on the whole student as opposed to limiting lessons to specific skill sets, and regularly checking for understanding. I keep on eye on developments and results in educational research and, when necessary, adapt my methods in order to deliver the best lessons possible.

I have a BA with a major in English from the University of Illlinois at Chicago. I received my first MA from there as well; my focus was on English literature. After that, I received my second MA, this one focusing on English education, from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Lastly, I have recently obtained a TESOL certificate from the World TESOL Academy.

I taught at 3 high schools. At the first, a Jewish boys school near Chicago, I taught ELA to freshmen, sophomores, and seniors. I designed my own curriculum using concepts from Bloom’s taxonomy to give them the best experience I was capable of. That was a part-time job, and while I taught there, I also taught composition at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

My first full-time English teaching position was at a charter high school in Chicago for kick-outs and dropouts. Again, I designed my own curriculum, seeking literature that my students would identify with, and using Whole English concepts to guide the way I taught break-out grammar lessons, as opposed to teaching grammar out of context. I allowed my students to write multiple revisions of their papers, which eventually led to my burnout.

After taking some time off, I returned to ELA teaching at a different high school with the same Chicago charter organization. I experimented with cross-curricular collaboration, co-designing lessons with other teachers at the school. I was still designing much of my own curriculum and allowing students to write multiple revisions of their papers, and again I overwhelmed myself and left the field of education.

I returned to education during the COVID epidemic. I obtained a substitute teaching license and started online tutoring. Most of my students have been adults seeking help with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, but one of my students was studying at an IB school in Beijing, and his mother asked me to help him with logic and writing. He stayed with me from the summer after his freshman year through graduation, and I helped him to recognize good argumentation and how that relates to solid outlines for persuasive essays. I have continued to refine those lessons over the past 4 years. I have taught other children over that time, helping them with reading and writing.

When I’m working as a substitute teacher, I have found, in middle school especially, that much of the literature assigned to students has a good deal of vocabulary that they’re unfamiliar with. I have seen in most of the districts I work in that they’re given the tools for decoding new words, and that works fairly well with their homework, because when they’re home, they have time to either use those skills or look up new words. But in the classroom, there are more distractions and a tendency to barrel through lessons without checking for understanding. I recognize words that are likely new to students, and I prefer to stop and check for understanding before continuing with lessons.