Personalized Chemistry Tutoring: Master Your Coursework

In his career, John has published scientific papers in a variety of subjects, including nuclear waste management, spectroscopy, surface chemistry, and analytical chemistry methodology. He has regularly come up against the limits of knowledge in a given field and had to push his research into new territory. "I credit my ability to do this to the comprehensive education that I received," he says, "and I think it has given me the ability to diagnose what I don't know and how to go about learning it." This ability also translates to diagnosing and guiding his students.

John began teaching as a PhD candidate, serving as a teaching assistant, helping teach the undergraduate course load. Since then, he has continued to help students who need it, mostly in math and chemistry. In the last few years, he has also volunteered with a local non-profit that organizes ESL classes. "Teaching a non-technical subject like ESL, is different in many respects from science and math, where equations and formulas can carry the lesson," he says. "What it has taught me is that effective tutoring is all about communication, which means more than having the student nod in agreement."

As a tutor, John takes the passive role, as he wants his students to be actively showing what they know. He describes it as "a version of the Socratic method, where the teacher coaxes the solution to a problem out of a student with well placed questions." If he detects a lack of understanding or knowledge hole that needs to be filled in, he will lecture "only until I have explained the point." He explains, "I try to keep my explanations brief, because I want the student to learn by doing, not by repetition of what I do."

John jokes, "My area of subject expertise, chemistry, is intimidating to most of the population already, and I don't want my teaching manner to add to it." His awareness of his students' anxieties helps him make general subjects and test-taking less intimidating. Chemistry, he says, is also "a subject full of abstractions, so if there is any way to make it more concrete, to make analogies to our everyday common experience, I try to make full use of them."

In high school, John played baseball and tennis. When he got to college, he began playing ice hockey. These days, John has a wide variety of interests: foreign language and foreign travel, gardening, climate change, classic cars with diesel engines, cooking, mycology (the study of mushrooms), and hypnosis. He likes to use his knowledge of hypnosis to help students with test anxiety. Fun fact: He has lived in 10 states and 4 foreign countries!"

JJ began tutoring during college to pay the tuition bills. She enjoyed it so much that she never stopped! Now, she has been tutoring for over ten years, focusing on test prep and biology, physics, and math. She has worked with over 1,000 students during that time.

During her four years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, JJ tutored her peers in calculus. After college, she spent eight years tutoring ACT/SAT prep to high schoolers. During that time, she also tutored various math and science subjects at the high school and college level. Many of JJ's students have gone on to attend top-fifty ranked colleges.

When asked to describe her approach, JJ says, "I like to encourage students to ask questions and really understand subjects." In her experience, she has found both hands-on learning and repetition to be particularly effective. "The more students practice, the more likely they are to retain the concept. After all, practice makes perfect."

As a student herself, JJ participated in swimming and running. In her downtime now, she still loves to swim and also enjoys rock climbing, traveling, and trying new foods.

Following college, Thomas joined Teach for America and taught high school geometry, pre-calculus, algebra 2, informatics, and chemistry. However, he focused primarily on increasing access to high-quality instruction in public schools. To this end, he has worked as a curriculum designer, an instructional coach, and a tutor in the hopes of bringing the joy of rigorous learning to all students. Thomas has garnered a wealth of accolades for his academic and teaching skills. As a high-school student, he was a National Merit Semi-Finalist and AP Scholar. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Merit by a Michigan representative for outstanding academic achievement, along with the GE Star Award for promise in the engineering field. In the teaching arena, he earned the Excellence in Teaching and Learning award from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which recognizes teachers with excellent student ratings. Finally, Thomas received the Classroom Innovator Prize for design and implementation of a rigorous, standards-aligned project-based learning opportunity in his classroom.

Thomas’ introduction to tutoring occurred during high school, and he began teaching when he was an undergraduate teaching fellow. As a teaching fellow, he taught multivariable calculus, physics, and computational music theory. When asked about his approach to working with students, Thomas shared that he focuses on “giving students opportunities to do rigorous work in an authentic way that they can easily build into their understanding of themselves as able doers.” One of his greatest thrills about assisting students is the fact that “the student walks away feeling a sense of confidence or empowerment.” Thomas feels that empowerment leads to the development of one’s self-identity as a student and learner “who can solve hard problems, build new understandings from complicated ideas, and communicate their ability to the world.”

During his high school and college years, Thomas competed in equestrian sports. At Harvard, he was the co-captain of the college polo team, and he played nationally and internationally as an undergraduate. These days, Thomas enjoys skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, and cycling. Fun fact: Thomas grew up on a farm that had goats, horses, sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, and llamas."

Her background in science and pre-med has given her expert knowledge she’s eager to pass on—in school, her nickname was “the physics queen!” She’s proud to share that her students have made significant improvements in their grades and test scores. “I find joy in helping others through their challenges and when they are able to achieve their best,” she shares.

Gabrielle received a BA in teacher education from Boston College. She also holds a BA in biology from the University of North Georgia, where, as of winter 2023, she is a clinical dental assistant. In addition to tutoring, she’s excited to go to dental school to become a dentist.

Gabrielle sees herself as an adaptable facilitator. “I do my best to strengthen their weaknesses by delving deeper into what is inhibiting them from navigating through certain topics and problems,” she explains. Whether they’re looking to strengthen any weaknesses or tackle higher-level concepts, she’s adaptable and methodological in her approach, often using “illustrations, references from other subjects, analogies,” to find what sticks. Regarding test prep, time-management skills are her forte! “I do my best to engage students' interests and guide them so that they’re able to make sound choices, even under pressure,” she adds.

A Mathematics Olympiad champion in high school, Gabrielle also earned the US Presidential Award—in both 1994 and 1998—for her academic excellence. Her exemplary score on the math regents exam earned her the Regents Scholarship in 2020 and 2021.

A music lover, Gabrielle loves singing in her free time. She was even part of a university chorale that toured all over Europe. She’s currently a member of a local chorale society that puts on biannual concerts and, “each year,” she says, “my school has a joint concert where we sing with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Orchestras!”