Maddalena Cipriani

Hi! I’m Maddy, a third year at the University of Bath studying Psychology. I have a lot of experience in tutoring younger children, teenagers, and older adults, helping these students with their organisational and academic skills. I have received awards for successful mentoring of year 7 students, helping them to catch up on their academics and improve their organisation, allowing them to ultimately re-join the extra-curricular activities they previously had to drop due to academic struggles. I have tutored GCSE and A-Level students in a variety of subjects, receiving 5-star reviews, and have tutored older adults in writing theses for internationally recognised degrees. I believe these experiences make me stand out, as I have learned to adapt my approach to a wide variety of academic concerns, as well as age groups, and thus have highly developed problem-solving skills. Teaching is a personal passion of mine, which I discovered when I was learning to develop my own style of studying and learning; through trial and error on myself, I believe that I have now learned what approach works best for which type of student, and for which subject matter. I have developed very good communication skills, with my past mentees giving me very positive reviews regarding my ability for clarity and depth in teaching concepts. Therefore, I would love to use these developed skills to push fellow students to expand on subjects which helped me discover my passions, hoping to help them find theirs as well.

At the start of each tutoring journey, I will introduce myself and my approach to the student. I enjoy interactive lessons, to increase engagement on behalf of the student, guiding them to achieve their goals themselves, rather than simply passively providing them with the ‘right’ answer. To do this, I use visual tools, and ask students to feed-back what they have learned every session, to ensure that the content has been understood to a satisfactory depth. I also ask the student to relay what they believe to be their own strengths and weaknesses, working to build on their individual skills to consolidate subject understanding, and working to build confidence on those skills where they perceive themselves to be less strong. I believe increasing subject confidence is key to achieving personal academic goals. Therefore, I will be challenging students to go out of their comfort zone, ensuring they feel supported and safe throughout, and never judged. Before each session, I will be preparing PowerPoint slides to explain the session content, will be having discussions with students to ensure the content is clear, and will at times also provide small quizzes to ensure that content is being consolidated. This approach will of course be tailored depending on individual student needs. Progress will therefore be measured by comparing the student’s development in confidence and content knowledge from session to session, ultimately comparing their self-perception at the start of the journey, with how they perceive their strengths and weaknesses at the end of the journey, also complemented with academic feedback from their institution.