• Undergrad:

  Lawrence University

• Grad 1:

  Masters,

• Tutors Out Of:

  Wellington, CO

• Travel Radius:

  150 miles

• Tutoring Certifications:

  biology - English - ESL/ESOL - excel - French - general computer - geography - geometry - literature - Microsoft word - prealgebra - psychology - reading - SAT math - SAT reading - SAT writing - statistics - study skills - swimming - vocabulary - writing - zoology

• Tutor's Fee Per Hour:

  $36.00 * with a 10% discount after purchasing $360

Hello! Welcome to the WyzAnt website! I am originally from the Los Angeles area, but have spent the last five years working for various government agencies as a wildlife biologist since finishing grad school. I spent two years in New Zealand working with fur seals and received honors in two graduate level degrees.
I did quite a lot of tutoring in high school in biology, esl, english, french, and math. I have a solid education in all the sciences and a strong writing ability. I am currently writing my first novel. I was a teaching assistant for 100 and 200 level zoology courses while in grad school, and I also taught computer courses for the Information Technology Department. I would be a competent tutor in university level biology, geology, intro french, and intro statistics.
I'm also an expert swimmer with high school and college level competition experience and have taught swim lessons for eight years to all ages, including adults and special needs individuals. I was also a masters swim team coach. I really enjoy helping others improve their strokes and swim with a technique that will not cause them injury.
My tutoring style emphasizes practice and reiteration of information and skills to enhance learning. I was diagnosed with ADHD at age four and have spent my life learning ways of getting myself to focus, concentrate, and learn. Because of this I am very good at getting others to focus on the information that is truly important. I also emphasize study skills by teaching the student how to organize their studying and the information they must learn in order to make things easier for them. I am laid back and flexible, but firm, and ask the student a lot of questions to get them to think through to the best answer on their own. I use a lot of positive reinforcement and try to create a visual and environmental motivational space in which to work to help the student focus on the task at hand.
In the pool I also stress practice, reiteration, and positive reinforcement. I believe anyone, regardless of history, can learn to swim and will work with you or your child to make you safe and comfortable in the water. For those that already know how to swim I will tailor lessons to your goals and will correct anything that could cause you physical damage or pain in the future. I also firmly believe that an instructor should not teach something they can't do themselves, and I am in the water with the student at every lesson unless they are very advanced. I believe students learn physical skills better when shown what they are supposed to be doing.
I look forward to meeting you and hope that I can be of service.

Email this tutor in Wellington, CO!

• ESL/ESOL

  I tutored ESL students in english, biology, and math when I was in high school. I have lived overseas and am sensitive to cultural differences and customs. I also understand how it is to be in a foreign land and have difficulty communicating. I have excellent writing, spelling, and grammar skills and the type of personality that enjoys teaching and helping others. I have also learned a lot about grammatical structure from the six years of french I took while in high school and college. I believe tutoring ESL students is the same as tutoring other students but just requires more patience and a desire to go at the student's pace.

• general computer

  I have been working on personal computers for 25 years starting with WordStar and DOS. I am proficient in Microsoft Office. I have presented numerous presentations for school and professional groups using Powerpoint. I was an instructor in Excel, Word, and EndNote during graduate school for the Information Technology Department at University of Otago. I can install software and set up DSL and internet on computers with limited assistance. I am the one in the office that people come to when they have a problem with their computer. I can teach people the basics of how to use a computer.

• statistics

  I have gotten As in the two statistics courses I have taken. I tutored my boyfriend through his statistics online course at UCLA. My masters thesis was essentially a statistical exercise. I calibrated mark-recapture estimates with total counts of New Zealand fur seal pups. This involved doing a lot of ANOVAS and GLM regressions. I became proficient at Minitab and SPSS software and wrote a few macros to run simulations for other aspects of the work. I would be capable of tutoring introductory statistics for science and non-science majors.

• study skills

  I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 4 so I have spent my life trying to figure out ways to get and keep me motivated and focussed while learning. I emphasize techniques for organizing work during my tutoring sessions. For example, I would require a student to have written assignments down, to have a calendar with assignments and tests plotted out. I would encourage them to have an organized notebook and workspace. During tutoring I encourage repition and ways of helping learn information, like flashcards, writing things out repeatedly, and verbal repetition as well as trying to come up with pnemonics.

• swimming

  I swam competitvely for 10 years in high school and college, and then for a masters team after college. I specialized in butterfly and freestyle swimming all the distances in these two strokes. I had an exceptional coach in college who emphasized stroke technique. I also had shoulder problems due to poor technique and have spent years refining my own strokes to prevent injury. I took Water Safety Instructor training in 1999 with my college coach as the instructor. I taught swim lessons for 8 years at the local Y. I taught all levels from age 3 to 60. I specialized in adults and children that had difficulty in mainstream classes. My job was to work with them and get them back to a level where they could function in a mainstream class without disrupting other students. I have experience with lots of ADD and autistic students and would often have an entire class composed of just these kids when other instructors could not cope with just one different child in their class. They would generally be ready for a mainstream class after one 6 week session of 1/2 hour twice a week with me. I do not generally teach infant classes, but I could teach parents how to teach their kids how to swim. I was a masters swim team coach for a little over a year before I left for grad school. The team disbanded after I left. I am an excellent swim instructor.

• zoology

  I have a masters in zoology. I was a senior teaching assistant for a 100 level university zoology course, and a junior teaching assistant for a 200 level zoology course for one year. As a senior TA I ran laboratory sessions for 96 students. My resume will show you the extent of my education in zoology. I have also been working as a wildlife biotechnician for the last three years after completing my masters in the zoology department of University of Otago. My knowledge of zoology is much better than my background in cell biology and molecular studies. I have experience to back up the education. I am comfortable tutoring in all levels of zoology and animal science.