Andrew

First-class graduate LSE economist with 5 years’ experience teaching 200+ students. I achieved the top mark out of 1400+ students at the London School of Economics, winning the “Economics Examiner Prize” and the “Rishi Madlani Award” for Macroeconomics. I received 4 A*s in my self-studied A Levels; a 98% average at AS Level, the highest in my year; and 11 A*s at GCSE.

I am currently working on Up Learn, an online learning system which uses educational neuroscience (the science of how we actually learn) and artificial intelligence to ensure all students achieve A*s at A Level.

To develop my understanding of educational neuroscience further, and ultimately to help my students achieve the very best results possible, I am currently self-studying intermediate neuroscience, in preparation for the Educational Neuroscience MSc, offered by UCL’s Institute of Education, which I will be starting next year.

I’m veritably passionate about changing education... so it might therefore surprise you to learn that I actually dropped out of school when I was seventeen.

To put it bluntly: I hated school. I hated sitting in a classroom, not understanding what was going on, wanting to ask questions but being too afraid of looking “stupid”. I hated that I couldn’t engage with my teachers, that I didn’t understand the purpose of what I was studying, and that I forgot 90% of what I was taught by the time it reached exam season.

Leaving school and learning to self-study, I experimented with different learning techniques, frequently testing myself to see what worked, and what didn’t. I eventually developed a system that got results, a system I used to achieve top marks from my GCSEs through to graduation.

And in the last two years, I’ve found that these same techniques are supported by a vast body of research from the last century of educational neuroscience.

It’s my ambition to rewire education: I want to move it away from theory, intuition and ideology, and towards a system of education based on the science of how we really learn, so students can actually fulfil their potential.

Academic awards:

• Economics Examiner Prize: for the highest in my 2nd year, out of 1400+ LSE students
• Rishi Madlani Award: for the highest mark (91) in Macroeconomics (EC210) out of 600+ LSE students
• Highest mark in Industrial Economics (77), an advanced microeconomics course
• ifs Young Business Writer of the Year 2013: My article came 1st in the country
• Royal Economic Society Young Economist of the Year Competition: 3rd internationally out of 750 entries
• Harvard Prize: Highest grades in the year

Tutoring Experience

I’ve been tutoring now for over five years, teaching 200+ students.

I’ve seen particular success in A Level economics, where two of my students have now achieved 100% at AS Level and offers to study at Cambridge (feel free to read my reviews below). I specialise in AQA and Edexcel economics, and all my A Level economics students receive a free subscription to Up Learn, which takes students through a series of interactive videos, practice questions and exam walkthroughs which I’ve spent months developing.

Up Learn uses artificial intelligence to track students progress and even mark written responses automatically against a mark scheme. Students receive instant personalised feedback, and our algorithm adjusts their learning route depending on each student’s strengths and weaknesses. We focus on “mastery learning”, and each video we produce is optimised based on the multimedia learning principles set out by American educational psychologist, Professor Richard Mayer. We provide an “A* or money back guarantee” for all students who complete an Up Learn course, because of the efficacy of our system.

At undergraduate level, I’ve taught microeconomics and macroeconomics across Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Bristol, Warwick, Essex, Kingston and City. I am also running the Micro (EC201) and Macro (EC210) revision courses at LSE this year, for the Economics Society.

I also run Enspire Academy, and 11+ tuition centre. 11+ preparation can be crushingly dull; our aim is to turn it into a more stimulating, interesting experience for students, and work more to build academic skills that will endure beyond entrance examination. Pokemon percentages, verbal reasoning hangman, Disney movie script-writing are some of the activities we use to engage students and build their maths and english skills for top exam performance.

Tutoring Approach

My approach to tutoring is driven by what works and the educational neuroscience behind how students really learn.

My lessons are structured as a series of clever questions. Students’ answers to these questions will take them to the next stage in the explanation, and eventually we reach its conclusion - which is always a wonderful “aha” moment for students.

Because I’m asking my students questions, rather than lecturing or talking at them, I’m able to pinpoint any misconceptions in their understanding immediately which we can dispel and move forward.

The questioning approach makes use of the “testing effect”: students who are tested (or test themselves) on what they’ve learnt, invariably outperform students who don’t - sometimes by as much as 50% (the equivalent of going from a C grade to an A*). It also takes advantage of “generation”: students asked to generate their own answers to questions before being shown the correct answer, remember the correct solution more robustly than students who are just given the solutions.

After each lesson, I ask my students to create memorable flashcards, using a technique known as “visceralisation”. I teach my students how to organise their flashcards systematically so they can review them over spaced intervals - this takes advantage of “spaced repetition”, which has been shown enhance retention; and also how they should mix up their flashcards, to exploit “interleaved practice”.

I monitor my students’ progress meticulously, and adapt our lesson progression according to their learning needs. I focus on “mastery learning”, which means we devote as much time to a topic as is required for mastery - mastery is how students achieve 100% at A Level (not just A*s). Of course, when time is short, I make sure we’re prioritising the most relevant topics for examination and carefully plan out the most productive use of our lesson time.