Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm currently a freshman at San Francisco State, although thanks to the wonders of AP tests, unit-wise, I'll be a junior by December 2007. I'm originally from Long Beach, where I graduated as my school's valedictorian (out of 519 seniors). To establish my academic credibility further, here are some stats: My GPA in high school was a 4.6. I got a 2270 on the SATs. I took 10 AP tests (World History, Language, U.S. History, Biology, European History, Micro and Macro Economics, Government, and Literature) and got the highest score of a 5 on all of them. In case you're wondering, I'm at SF State by choice. I also was accepted to Berkeley, but they didn't give me as nice of a scholarship (here at State, I'm part of the Presidential Scholars program).
Anyway, now that all that stuff is out of the way, let's get to what is important: my skills as a teacher. Before wyzant, I've formally tutored two students from my school--one in Pre-Calculus and the other in the SAT II in U.S. History. My U.S. History client ended up getting a very nice score on her SAT II and was subsequently accepted to both Northwestern University and UC Santa Barbara, where she now attends. I helped the other student raise her Pre-Calculus grade all the way from an F to a C first semester, and by the end of the year she had a solid B. Now, she is attending UC Berkeley and majoring in International Relations.
My teaching style is relatively laid back. I don't believe in excess pressure, as it is what ended up doing a lot of my friends in in high school. I help a student relax, approach the subject with more subdued eye, and then understand the information for what it really is. It is far better to learn a subject from its core rather than memorize useless facts. Also, I believe a key part of doing well in school is to understand how tests themselves work. They are what often makes or breaks a grade. However, if the student can learn to understand how tests are structured and what kind of knowledge they are designed to get out of you, then it lets off some of the pressure. Suddenly a test is not such a scary thing and the student can relax and let their true knowledge show.