A bit about Sarah K

I'm a traveller, have lived in three countries, and I love food. I recently moved to Edinburgh, Scotland from British Columbia, Canada and I'm loving it even more than I could have imagined. I am currently working on my third and fourth languages, largely so I can go to wider range of markets and restaurants in more countries just to eat like a local. I'm an archer, horseback rider, and in my spare time I paint, write and take a lot of photographs. I'm an enthusiastic, calm and supportive tutor with expertise in English, TEFL, anthropology, archaeological and Earth sciences, and history. I have extensive experience with researching, writing and editing academic humanities and science papers. My main goals of being a tutor are to help students create learning plans that suit their education, personal and emotional needs. Depending on the student and how their thought process works, I build a lesson plan from general to specific or specific to general. I also try to relate the topic to aspects of the student's life and experience, to create strong mental connections to the subject. I like to leave room for questions throughout the lesson, and encourage students to give me feed back on what is and isn't working for them. I've been tutoring on and off since I was a teenager. I started helping other classmates with history and English assignments in high school, and expanded this routine when I went to university to my anthropology, Earth Science, and archaeology classes. I have also maintained a continual line of paper editing and research training. While working on my paralegal diploma, I expanded my tutoring to include a wider range of humanities, including teaching english as a second language. I value how an understanding of history and the physical world around us enriches other subjects, so I take great care to help students gain a similar appreciation. People, as Churchill said, who don't learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. Students, even those taking maths or hard sciences, gain a deeper appreciation of the "real world" impacts of their subjects when they start to understand the humanities, and conversely, their grasp of their subjects strengthens as their education is layered and broadened. I'm really about working with the student's learning preferences. If they are a visual learner, I try to incorporate pictures and video aids to our sessions. Whereas I might read out the text to a student who learns by listening, and then engage in discussion about the topic with them. I believe students owe it to themselves to be accountable and honest, so I tend to hold them them to their goals while providing a judgement free space for those goals to be adjusted in accordance with the situation. Overall, I'm relaxed, open, and honestly encouraging. The best moments of being a tutor are when a student has that "AHA!" moment, when all the pieces which have been plaguing them fall into place. I've had those moments myself as a student, and there's no better way to strengthen one's confidence. I really love helping a student get to that place. As a close second, I love being the tutor for a student that I could have used many years ago. I missed out, struggled at times when maybe I didn't need to go it alone. So getting to show up for someone now in that way gives me a lot of peace and satisfaction. Education and knowledge are things that no one can take away from you. They are the great equalisers in life, and should be available to everyone. I believe learning can be fun, and those that make it feel like a chore need to revisit their strategy and review their perspective. I think my past students would say that I remove the judgmental pressure, and create an atmosphere where the only goals are to find their limits and strengths, and increase their confidence. I think they would also say I try hard to apply the subjects to their lives and lived experience. For example, linking current voting rights to each historical change in who could previously not vote, helps clarify the student's opinion of why and who they vote for now. A lot of what is taught to students can feel very disconnected to what matters to their day to day lives, or is so nebulous that they never see the impact the topic will have on their lives. I try to learn about what matters to my students, and from there I do my best to help connect those personal aspects to their subject. While working as an Accessibility Researcher for a university students’ union, I discovered a sharp increase in the number of students accessing learning assistance in second year versus first. To develop my understanding of the phenomena I interviewed student’s with Learning Disabilities and the directors of the Accessibility Centre for Students (ACS). I concluded first year students didn’t seek help because they were unaware that they need to inform the university of their assistance needs. Due to privacy rules, their grade school learning assistance plans were not submitted to the university upon application. Most students thought these learning accommodations were known by the university and their instructors. Jump forward to the exam period, many students were left with no accommodations as there was no time to assess so many students needs. The influx of students to the ACS in second year was due to students learning about the ACS through fellow students or instructors, but only after nearly failing a class, often damaging their mental health and grades. Clearly this was a problem that could be solved by proactive actions. To help the university be proactive, I assisted the Registrar with modifying the entrance application process. All prospective students were advised that any learning assistance plans they had from grade school were not forwarded to the university, and so they were given an option to anonymously request the ACS send them literature on the available resources before the start of classes and how to request learning accommodations. I come from a family of teachers, which means I've been exposed to a wide variety of teaching methods organically. Building from this foundation and my natural interest and love of teaching and educating, I have years of experience as a freelance tutor who gain need clients by word of mouth. I bring expertise and experience in a number of subjects in the form of my BA, MSc, Post baccalaureate diploma and Paralegal Diploma. Further to these qualifications, my TELF training is focus on teaching methods appropriate for ages child through older adult. I love helping people and I love learning. Tutoring my fellow classmates and then external and younger students was a natural outlet for both these aspects of my personality and a way for me to elevate the community of people who I interacted with daily. I hate seeing people struggle, so using working with people to help them manoeuvre around and through their learning hurdles is very rewarding. I am an avid travel (slowed considerably due to covid), and I have recently moved to the UK from Canada, which was a long term goal of mine. My other passions include the history of food and the cultural significants of certain foods, photography, horseback riding, archery and painting. I love a good day out hiking and trail running, or just to wander around my Edinburgh and take in the history and architecture. In the past I have helped students study for their provincial exams, which are the Canadian equivalent to GCSE here in the UK, as well as middle and end of term university exams. I am able to quickly bring myself up to speed in regards to testing requirements so to ensure a students studying program covers all relevant topics. Subjects for GCSE and university exams include: Anthropology, Archaeology, Human Biology, Cell Biology, Canadian, American, Europe History (Medieval, Industrial Revolution and 1880-1954), Civics, English, Political Sciences, History of Labour Law and Labour movements in Europe, Physical Geography, Geology, Palaeoecology, Palaeoanthropology, and Palaeopathology.