I have my PhD in chemistry and have recently enrolled in a certification program to teach high school chemistry. As a graduate student I won a teaching award. I enjoy the individual interaction and ability to moniter progress of tutoring.

The key to successful teaching lies in the ability to create a lasting impression on students. It is not enough to simply deliver the information to students. They need to develop problem solving skills and the ability to work in teams. New material which can at first appear abstract and foreign must be presented in a way that makes these new concepts relevant to their individual goals and related to what they already know. A good example of this method involves teaching the concept of entropy which can seem rather strange and intimidating to students, but can be related to things they already know such as what happens when a piece of chalk is dropped. It is also important to relate concepts in the textbook with industrial uses of these concepts.

The use of demonstrations and analogies is also important for explaining particularly tough concepts and in the case of demonstrations to renew the students’ enthusiasm for the subject.