Tutor Spotlight: Holton Huntington
Meet Holton.
We caught up with one of our expert tutors recently to hear about his experience tutoring students online. Holton offers personalized support for middle school and high school students, whether they’re preparing for the SAT or ACT, strengthening executive functioning and study skills, or drafting a college essay.
What's one thing you love about tutoring?
I love seeing the wide range of skills and interests students display, particularly when they apply their passions to our work. No one comes to a tutoring session as a blank slate - everyone has an important background that contributes to their academic story, and I find it rewarding to help students connect disparate parts of themselves to their studies.
For example, I recently worked with a student to augment their study skills. We needed to establish a connection between the rigorous structure of their part-time job, which they found useful, and the chaotic nature of their school curriculum, which they found overwhelming. Once this student was able to organize their schoolwork in a similar fashion to the structures they found useful in their job, their grades went up!
How do you keep students engaged in online tutoring sessions?
I started my teaching career at the beginning of the pandemic, which forced me to teach (and learn) over Zoom effectively. Student engagement was a constant struggle, and back in those early days, I had few tools at my disposal. Now, years later and with countless Zoom meetings under my belt, I have a wide range of activities, tools, and strategies to keep students engaged.
By far, my favorite is to integrate audio-visual elements into a lesson. Is my student presenting as disengaged? Let’s watch a video that highlights a particular topic in English. Is another student’s attention lagging during a lecture? Let’s use my tablet’s drawing tools to make a math problem more tangible. I believe there’s an online tool for every issue, as long as you’ve got the tenacity to find it.
What's one study tip every student should know?
Your most useful time is actually the time you don’t spend studying. Sitting and staring at a computer screen for hours can affect your eyes, your posture, and even blood flow to your brain. Get up to walk around and reset the mind is a critical strategy for success. But perhaps more important is sleep! I always recommend to that students should plan their entire day around eight hours of sleep. Easier said than done, but it makes all the difference to the learning process.
What was your favorite class in high school and why?
I was lucky enough to attend a high school with a blacksmithing forge, and I took three years of metalwork for art credits. I learned how to light a fire, make it hot enough to turn a piece of iron red, and use a hammer to shape and mold it into something beautiful – in other words, how to turn something imagined into something tangible. Even though I haven’t touched a forge in years, blacksmithing engendered visualization, planning, and execution skills I still use today.
share an example of a student you were proud of for reaching their goals.
I once worked with a student whose first language was Mandarin. Though they had been speaking English for years, they found reading and writing to be quite challenging – for example, it was a success to read an entire paragraph without stopping to ask for a word’s definition. It was discouraging for them to see peers reading and writing in English, seemingly without effort. However, this student never let this challenge stop them from showing up and working hard. To this day, I’m amazed at their resilience and determination.
What do you admire about your students?
I am consistently impressed with my students’ honesty and humility. Asking for help can be difficult, especially when asking someone you’ve only known for a few days. It takes a great deal of maturity to admit what you don’t know, and I try to acknowledge that fact verbally to encourage my students in their academic journeys.
