Patient & Caring Tutor w/PhD | Studying, Writing, and Dissertations

Danielle S.

Anthropology

For the past 10 years, I have worked extensively with doctoral students across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences in 5 key areas: 1. developing dissertation proposals, especially qualitative research design; 2. developing literature reviews; 3. planning and conducting qualitative research; 4. coding and analyzing qualitative data; and 5. writing the dissertation, with emphasis on clear outlines and time management. I have worked in close collaboration with doctoral program directors and dissertation chairs at major research institutions, and am a highly experienced committee liaison. Finally, the unifying element to my doctoral student support is mentorship. Being a doctoral student, especially when it comes to the dissertation, is a marathon, not a sprint. Keeping focused and pacing yourself is critical, and maintaining personal connections can help you weather the often extraordinary pressures, work/life challenges, and uncertainties. Having successfully defended my own dissertation and supported over 50 more successful dissertations across a range of fields - from anthropology to business to nursing and epidemiology - I am eager to help support your own important, inspiring doctoral work.

Career Development

Career development issues are always under the surface for college students. They influence everything from how and where students choose to attend college to how they select, perform in, and experience their courses. Career development concerns are also magnified when taking into account students' out-of-school lives -- whether they are dependents and living with their parents, or they have existing jobs, and/or they have families or serve as caregivers. Concerns about how to plan for a career are also increasingly affecting high school students. However, these concerns are not always well accommodated by the advising and academic resources available to them. For all of these reasons, a focus on career development has been important to my tutoring and advising practice. Across all postsecondary institutional types, I have cultivated strong experience working with students on career development issues. While I work with college, graduate, and post-doctoral students in disciplines, I also cultivated a special focus on advising students who are pursuing post-baccalaureate science programs, especially pre-nursing and pre-medical students. More generally, my tutoring approach builds on the strengths and experiences that students bring into academic and professional settings. Reflective, conversational methods are important for helping students make connections -- and shape strategies -- across their strengths, hopes, and goals. In addition to my individualized career support experience, I also have experience developing collaborative cross-departmental career support programs as a higher ed administrator. One major contribution was bringing together three different college centers -- academic resources, academic advising, and career services -- to co-host integrated student resources, such as new student orientations, career writing workshops, and community resource materials.

College Counseling

I have counseled college and pre-college students for years in various capacities, including middle school ELA teacher, instructional coach, mentor, and college 101 instructor. I have also conducted qualitative research on adolescent and young adult literacy and college choices, as well as teacher education focused on how they make meaning about student learning and choices. My primary populations of focus include students who are the first-generation in their families to consider & attend college, those students' families, and other students who are historically underrepresented in college, such as BIPOC students, immigrants, and refugees.

Common Core

As an instructional coach in a bilingual, bicultural public charter school, I worked extensively with teachers in and out of the classroom to develop reading and ELA Common Core standard-aligned lesson plans, activities, and teaching approaches. I also managed the implementation of a new literacy curriculum intended to help align student learning more closely with Common Core standards in ELA. As part of this new literacy curriculum, I developed and facilitated intensive teacher and paraprofessional training in using the multimodal curriculum tools to teach Spanish and English Common Core standards.

Data Analysis

My PhD in education includes significant training in qualitative research methods, from designing research and analyzing data to writing reports, presentations, theses, and dissertations. My dissertation was a phenomenographic study, and I have taught both intermediate and advanced qualitative research methods courses. I also have 10 years of experience in coaching doctoral students on qualitative and mixed method dissertations, from proposal through defense. Finally, my primary qualitative data analysis software experience is in Dedoose and Atlas, with additional experience with NVIVO and non-QDA formats, such as coding and theming through Word and Excel.

English

I have a PhD in Education with a focus on literacy, which includes theories of reading and writing in English. I also have a BA & MA in English Literature, have completed all PhD courses in English literature, and have taught a range of English classes over 10 years. So, as a tutor, my most common subject areas are certainly education and English! I enjoy helping students from elementary through graduate school with reading, writing, and study skills. As a former instructional coach specializing in literacy, I also work with new teachers, too, with a focus on instructional methods & understanding student literacy practices in ELA & literature classrooms.

Essay Writing

I have a PhD in Education with a focus on literacy, which includes theories of reading and writing in English. I also have a BA & MA in English Literature, have completed all PhD courses in English literature, and have taught a range of English classes over 10 years. So, one of the most common tutoring areas I focus on is essay writing. I primarily work with secondary school through graduate school, but have experience with helping elementary students learn how to write essays & helping elementary ELA teachers design essay-writing lessons & work with their students in & out of the classroom.

Homeschool

My instructional coaching experience has involved extensive literacy-focused work with teachers and students across elementary, middle, and high school. As a learning and teaching specialist with a Ph.D. from an equity-focused education program, I also have deep expertise in teaching and learning strategies, which I have dedicated to supporting teachers and parents as well as students. Importantly, my work in schools has also focused on integrating families into their children’s literacy and learning development. I have provided family workshops and consultations as part of my instructional leadership. Now, I am even more committed to supporting families as they are homeschooling due to COVID-19 school closures. In acknowledgement of this difficult new reality for students and families across the country, I have begun to provide remote homeschool support in the general literacy, ELA and common core, literature, reading comprehension, and writing. I work directly with students, of course, but I also work with parents and guardians to help them understand course materials, general literacy and ELA principles, common core requirements, and generally getting into the swing of reading and writing for comprehension as well as enjoyment. Keeping focused on the joys of learning is so important at a time when both adults and children are scared and isolated. I am absolutely committed to supporting families as they weather school closures and support their children through this unprecedented pandemic.

Literature

I have a PhD in Education with a focus on literacy, which includes theories of reading and writing. I also have a BA & MA in English Literature, and completed all PhD courses in English literature as well. So, as a tutor, I love to support students with reading strategies in literature, plus tips for analyzing and writing about it. Also, if you're a graduate student developing a thesis or dissertation proposal or are in the midst of writing your manuscript, I can help you with that, too. My literature subject areas include modernist English literature, Anglophone postcolonial literature, English & American poetry, although I enjoy working on general analysis & writing strategies across multiple time periods in English and American literature for secondary school through college students. For college and graduate students, my primary areas of analytical expertise include critical sociocultural, historical, feminist, psychoanalytic, and queer theories. My PhD in education includes subject matter expertise in teaching and reading literature in general, and specifically children's and YA literature. The theoretical lenses I utilize most in this work include, but aren't limited to, critical sociocultural, literacy, and reader response theories, and I also focus on how both literature and reading practices are situated within schools and society. Finally, I frequently work with education graduate students around critical qualitative methods for developing and conducting research studies on teaching and literacy practices around different types of literature (including graphic novels). This also includes support for presentations, papers, thesis & dissertation proposals, and thesis & dissertation manuscripts.

Marketing

As a tutoring program developer and instructor, I have designed workshops and tutored both undergraduate and graduate students in marketing and communications at multiple Research 1 universities. I have also worked as a marketing director at global accounting and advisory firms. In my leadership capacity, I was also responsible for providing communications instruction to other departments and staff members. Highlights from this experience include (a) developing and facilitating internal communication programs with human resources; and (b) training managers, principals, and partners in cross-cultural communication styles, presentation design, cross-functional proposal development, and public speaking.

NCLEX

As a learning specialist with a PhD in education, one of my professional roles has been an academic coaching program developer & facilitator for a nursing program. Specifically, I helped the school build a formal academic coaching process that helps students learn deeply, not just "get through," with emphasis on two essential learning areas that don't always get taught explicitly in classes: 1. Understanding how nursing exam & NCLEX questions are constructed, and how they align to help nursing students understand the "why" behind each answer 2. Learning how to study actively​, efficiently, and effectively Nursing education & the NCLEX are necessarily rigorous. They have to be! However, I firmly believe that you can confidently grow your learning strategies and succeed on exams with a commitment to active learning & to putting patients at the center of your thinking. I've seen success story after success story -- and I know you're ready for your own success story, too. I'm excited to help you on your journey into this incredibly important field!

Nursing

As a learning specialist with a PhD in education, one of my professional roles has been an academic coaching program developer & facilitator for a nursing program. Specifically, I helped the school build a formal academic coaching process that helps students learn deeply, not just "get through," with emphasis on two essential learning areas that don't always get taught explicitly in classes: 1. Understanding how nursing exam & NCLEX questions are constructed, and how they align to help nursing students understand the "why" behind each answer 2. Learning how to study *actively​*, efficiently, and effectively Nursing education & the NCLEX are necessarily rigorous. They have to be! However, I firmly believe that you can confidently grow your learning strategies and succeed on exams with a commitment to active learning & to putting patients at the center of your thinking. I've seen success story after success story -- and I know you're ready for your own success story, too. I'm excited to help you on your journey into this incredibly important field!

Public Speaking

Public speaking is more than just delivering speeches to large audiences, yet it is not sufficiently addressed in conventional academic support contexts. Whether a student is speaking up in class, participating in small group discussion sections, or giving presentations, they are "on stage" in all of these contexts -- and that stage can be as stressful as a formal speech. The stress associated with public speaking is often magnified by the associated academic navigation, positioning, and identity issues that are so deeply connected to learning. In fact, anxieties about performance in a subject matter or about one's success as a student are frequently increased by or conflated with the public speaking required in these contexts. In acknowledgement of these challenging, interconnected issues, I often address public speaking issues in my tutoring sessions. I have also taught and tutored in public speaking at the college level, in addition to having designed and managed a college tutorial program focused on public speaking and academic modes of communication.

Sociology

I have co-taught two doctoral-level courses in qualitative research methods and conceptual frameworks in education and social sciences. Since 2009, I have also tutored qualitative research design and analysis for master's and doctoral students in education, sociology, anthropology, public health, and social policy. Additionally, I have been a qualitative dissertation coach and editor since 2009, with a focus on students conducting cross-disciplinary research in sociology, education, and anthropology. Finally, I am currently working as a writing and qualitative research advisor for executive doctoral program courses. I also coach writing and qualitative research for executive dissertations situated in sociocultural frameworks for leadership, behavior, and social intelligence.

Study Skills

I believe that reading and study skills underpin all academic activities. Study skills, at their core, fundamentally connect how students think about navigate their school culture and courses with how they specifically approach individual assignments and academic task. And, of course, study skill develop and vary over people's many developmental stages they assimilate information across these different dimensions of academic life. As a learning specialist, particularly given my focus on adults who bring complex contexts to their schooling, study skills support represents a major component of my educational practice. Since the late '90s, it has been my privilege to work on both direct and applied study skills with students in high school, college, and graduate school, in both individualized and group contexts, across a range of academic disciplines, programs, and degree tracks. I have significant experience working with professional and post-bacc students in business, law, medicine, and nursing, as well as with doctoral students across the humanities, behavioral, and social sciences. On the flip side, I have similarly extensive experience working with students who are brand new to higher education, including first-generation students, and are still figuring out how to go about studying in college. Finally, much of my current work is focused on adult students who have been out of school for many years and who are seeking study skills support in both academic and non-academic contexts, such as licensing and permit exams.

Thesis Writing

As an academic program leader and academic coach for the past 15 years, I have specialized in helping students move through the thesis and dissertation processes. This includes the trajectory from developing proposals and beginning approved research design to analyzing data, writing up manuscripts, and preparing for their final defense. My teaching focus is on qualitative research methods, and I have taught both intermediate and advanced courses for groups of interdisciplinary graduate students representing fields such as education, urban planning, linguistics, and anthropology. As a first-generation college graduate, I am especially sensitive to the experience of being "first" again in graduate school, after having successfully graduated from college. I thus help students unpack some of the common reasons behind writer's block and anxiety associated with the thesis and dissertation processes, including (but not limited to) imposter syndrome; getting acclimated to new, often unwritten rules of academic writing and research on the graduate level; navigating the demands of home, jobs, and graduate school requirements; and navigating graduate school culture in ways that "do work for you" instead of impeding your goals and your best work. I have been lucky to support countless students through the process of writing, researching, analyzing, and successfully defending their theses and dissertations, and I look forward to supporting your success story, too!