Lodestar Tutors

***99th percentile GRE and SAT scores***

***Ivy league undergraduate degree and graduate degree in Molecular Biology***

***Extraordinary at connecting and communicating***

When you're encountering challenging material for the first time, it can feel like being lost in the woods without a map. Rereading textbooks, memorizing notes, and rote repetition haven't been working. There is a different way! At Lodestar Tutors, we help you form lasting connections and create your own mental map of the material, which you will retain long past the day of your exam. We believe in active learning, engaging students in a give and take that we adapt in the moment to your specific learning style and knowledge gaps. Mistakes pave the road to success, and we create a safe environment to make them and learn from them, so that you build confidence and a strong foundation of knowledge.

Alicia Sponholz, founder of Lodestar Tutors, first encountered her talent for teaching as a young child. Witnessing a student's struggle transformed into understanding, delight, and curiosity remains her driving motive for doing this work. Through her education at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Brown University, and The CUNY Graduate Center, Alicia developed her teaching skill and expanded her breadth of knowledge. Many clients have recognized that Alicia's unique value as a tutor lies in her ability to communicate, adapting her teaching style in the moment, and guiding students to form lasting connections with the material. Expertise in subject matter is necessary but not sufficient! What sets Lodestar apart is the way we use evidence-based practices to create a learning environment that promotes confidence and retention. Increased test scores and grades are the metrics we use to gauge our progress, but it is the joy of learning our students experience that we view as success.