Presentation Skills / Public Speaking Archives

Joss Lake

Joss Lake is an educator and writer with degrees from Wesleyan University and Columbia University, as well as a teaching certificate through Cambridge University’s CELTA program. He teaches throughout New York City, developing curriculum for students at all literacy levels to view reading and writing as empowering, experiential processes. Joss works with high-achieving students at The School of the New York Times, which brings together journalists, educators, and experts to provide stimulating courses that range from creative writing to sustainability in fashion. He has taught writing through SEO Scholars, 826NYC, Columbia University’s School of Continuing Education, Columbia University’s Summer High School Program, and has worked in many New York City schools, bringing creativity and innovative pedagogy into ELA classrooms.

As a private tutor, Joss Lake enjoys getting to know students in a deeper way and customizing his teaching to match student needs and personalities. He brings a sense of humor, intellectual curiosity, and an open mind to his teaching practice, and is always looking to meet students where they are. He has extensive experience helping students move through all stages of the writing process and specializes in working with students on critical essays, creative writing, and the college essay. He believes that with the right amount of scaffolding and student engagement, writing assignments can be used as tools that further the student’s own thinking process.

As a writer, Joss Lake has received awards and fellowships from Columbia University, NYU’s Performance Studies program, and the Watermill Center. He has been in residence at the Watermill Center in Water Mill, NY, and at Art Farm in Marquette, Nebraska. He was a senior editor of Conjunctions, a prestigious literary journal published by Bard College. He serves as a judge for the Queens Council of the Arts community grants. His first book is forthcoming from Soft Skull Press.

Joss lives in Queens with his dog, Violet, and is deeply passionate about social justice, the literary community, and good coffee.

Lois Nesbitt

A passionate lifelong student, teacher, and private tutor, Lois Nesbitt believes that learning is the core of a meaningful life. Much of what we learn comes from reading; discovering what we know comes through writing. Fascinated from an early age by the power of words, she believes that lively and engaging writing is always a joy to read—and to write!

Lois Nesbitt was educated at Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, D.C., and at topnotch public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. At Sidwell Friends she benefited from learning among academically motivated classmates following a creative yet demanding curriculum. At public schools she experienced teachers accommodating a diverse student population while guiding her through rigorous AP courses. Both proved invaluable in her own teaching within and beyond formal academic settings.

A gifted middle-school professor provided Lois’s first rigorous training in expository writing, skills she has applied and shared with others throughout her life. Journalism courses at Stanford University trained her to hone each story down to its bare bones. She wrote a weekly column for The Stanford Daily and began freelance writing for Archetype, a cutting-edge architectural magazine.

Transferring to Harvard University in her junior year, Lois wrote for The Harvard Crimson and served on the Arts Board of The Harvard Advocate. Lois studied art history, literature, history, philosophy, history of science/epistemology, and social studies, graduating with a B.A., Magna cum laude.

Lois Nesbitt furthered her education at Princeton University. Entering the architecture department, she found herself drawn back to the liberal arts. A series of sympathetic mentors encouraged her to enroll in courses in literature, linguistics, philosophy, classics, and modern languages. The result was a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. Lois taught expository writing and American literature to Princeton undergraduates, working in small seminars and one-on-one sessions to equip struggling writers with the tools they needed and to expand the skills of more advanced writers. She brings this experience to all students, from middle school through to adults, who want to develop or refine their abilities to write powerfully and effectively.

Lois credits the extraordinarily gifted professors at these universities for modeling how complex ideas can be conveyed in simple terms and clear examples, as well as how to encourage students to think analytically and synthetically across a range of fields and disciplines.

Lois Nesbitt has worked as a freelance writer and editor in New York City. Her literary and book reviews and art/architecture criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Phoenix, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Artforum, Artnews, Elle, and many books, catalogues, and other publications. Lois also edited and revised books for Princeton University Press, MIT Press, Rizzoli International, the Museum of Modern Art, and others. Going over texts line by line honed her ability to spot each writer’s strengths and weaknesses, from overall organization to stylistic grace and grammatical correctness.

For the past 25 years, Lois has met every challenge a teacher and private tutor can face while training countless students in her second love, yoga. Her passion to share what she knows led her to create dozens of yoga teacher-training programs worldwide. These 200-hour intensives require that Lois skillfully keep students awake(!) and engaged. She does so with varied formats, lively presentations, interactive exercises, and a healthy dose of light-hearted humor. Students learn yoga postures, anatomy, history, and philosophy, and the art of teaching itself: how to convey complex ideas through plain language, economical phrasing, precise diction, and classical rhetorical skills. Lois in turn brings these skills to aspiring writers in her tutoring sessions.

Lois’s other passions include art and design. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally. Most recently she has focused on graphic works, limited-edition objects, and custom-designed events for organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Harvard University, The Boston Harbor Association, Hoops for Hope, and The Group for the East End. She spends much of her playtime in, on, or close to her beloved Atlantic Ocean.

Caroline Johnston

A graduate of Vassar College, and mother of three little girls, Caroline was born and raised in New York City, where she attended Trinity School for 13 years. Caroline uses her years of experience as a middle and high school teacher, an instructor for college-aged students and adults, and a private tutor, to help students of all ages with their writing, math skills, and test taking.

After working as a private tutor for a family in Beverly Hills for three years, Caroline took on a full-time position teaching English and social studies to 8^th graders at the prestigious Crossroads School in Santa Monica. While there, she also taught drama to 6^th, 8^th, 11^th, and 12^th graders. Since moving back to New York, Caroline has been teaching adults screenwriting and acting. Additionally, she blogged for a quirky motherhood website, and does private screenwriting coaching.

Since graduating from Vassar, Caroline has enjoyed volunteering as an alumni admissions officer, interviewing scores of students from high schools in Manhattan and Westchester. She also volunteers as a mentor for the South Central Scholars program where she offers academic and social support for exceptional students from low-income areas who have earned scholarships at prestigious universities.

Caroline’s unofficial philosophy is that the most important thing in life is to improve the world by bettering people’s daily lives. She tries to do this by bringing positivity, kindness, generosity, and respect into every situation.

Lastly, if there is one thing Caroline regrets from her teaching career, it’s that she was not a parent herself when she was teaching young students full time. She feels that being a parent now makes her more empathetic to children’s struggles and strengths, and better at understanding parents’ needs.

Andrea Simons

Andrea Simons is a writing consultant at Grace Church High School, where she helps students with academic essays, college admissions essays, creative writing, and other writing assignments in the school’s Writing Center. Andrea helps students outline arguments, form clear and concise thesis statements, and remain committed to their paper’s argument in addition to providing grammar assistance.

Andrea Simons completed her B.A. from Tufts University in 2015, graduating Cum Laude with High Honors. At Tufts, Andrea taught a weekly creative writing class to middle and high school students, where she worked with a range of skill levels and watched her students’ writing improve, including a class catered to homeschooled students that met weekly. Andrea’s students have gone on to submit their work to contests and scholarships, including The Betty Award, Cicada Magazine, and The Claremont Review. Andrea takes a patient and fun approach to writing coaching, helping her students express themselves and personalize their work in order to achieve the best-written pieces possible.

As a private tutor for elementary, middle, and high school students, Andrea specializes in academic essay writing, college admissions essays, and academic preparation for English, Spanish, and the ACT. Andrea works with students to ensure that their writing is clear, concise, and purposeful. Her test prep guidance includes executive functioning tactics, organization, and outlining. Andrea also helps students break down passages for reading comprehension portions of standardized tests in an organized and methodical way so that they can excel and achieve higher scores. Andrea fine-tunes the tactics and methods that are best for each student and works with them to meet and exceed their potential.

Andrea is also a screenwriter and comedian, and her work can be seen on Refinery29, WhoHaha, and Bustle. She is able to adapt her voice to different writing mediums, from script analysis to journalism to fiction. In her free time, she enjoys writing and performing stand up, sketch, and improv comedy in venues across NYC.

In addition, Andrea is currently studying acting at Maggie Flanigan Studio. She is also trained in improv and which often helps when preparing students for public speaking events, auditions, and interviews.

Brad Hoffman

Brad Hoffman, CEO and Founder of My Learning Springboard, has always loved working with students and their families. He believes in the power of collaboration and advocates for a holistic, 360-degree view of education.

Professional Associations

Brad Hoffman is a Board Certified Educational Planner (AICEP) and Professional Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) with specialty designations in mainstream day and boarding schools, specialized schools for students with learning disabilities, and therapeutic placements, including therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, and wilderness programs. He is also a member of The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), the Small Boarding School Association (SBSA), The Enrollment Management Association (formerly SSATB), the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP), the Association of Educational Therapists (AET), the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA), and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

Brad Hoffman’s Teaching Background

Over the past 25 years, Brad Hoffman has worked with students from pre-kindergarten through Fortune 500 executives as a classroom teacher, tutor, curriculum writer, human resources talent development specialist, and educational consultant. Brad graduated magna cum laude from Penn State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and then received a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction at Hood College in Maryland graduating with honors. He is also an Elementary Math and Science Specialist and holds an Advanced Professional Teaching Certificate from the state of Maryland. Brad is trained in PAF Reading Intervention, an Orton-Gillingham based approach, Sounds In Motion, Read Naturally, Singapore Math, Everyday Math, and a variety of other programs and curriculum standards. In 2014, Brad was honored with the prestigious Penn State Alumni Achievement Award in honor of his significant contributions to the field of education.

During his undergraduate career, Brad Hoffman was an Assistant Teacher at Penn State’s Bennett Family Center (formerly called the Penn State Child Care Center) during all four years of college. He worked with children ages birth through 5 and participated in the center’s accreditation process with NAEYC. During his senior year of college, Brad was a Teacher Intern in England while studying at University of Chichester. There he taught a Year 2 class (ages 6/7) at an Infant School in all areas of the curriculum, including literacy, numeracy, technology, science, religion, history, PE, and Art. Upon graduation, Brad accepted a full-time lead teaching position in Frederick County, Maryland in a fully inclusive public school setting located in a rural part of the county. Children with both learning differences and physical disabilities were fully integrated in the regular classroom. One-third of Brad’s students had dyslexia and received specialized intervention, and two of his students were children with autism.

“While it was really challenging, I learned so much about how to differentiate classroom instruction for all types of learners, which is critical for any productive learning to occur.”

Brad played an integral part in facilitating his students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEP), a documented plan to help meet the unique needs of an individual learner with a learning disability. This assistance often required a team of related services experts to meet, ranging from the speech language specialist and school psychologist, to the parents, principal, and teacher(s). Working collaboratively always led to increased professionalism and greater student success.

In 2001, Brad relocated to Bethesda, Maryland to pursue a teaching position with Montgomery County Public Schools, one of the leading public school systems in the United States. He taught first and fourth grades at Somerset Elementary School in Chevy Chase, Maryland for five years, differentiating instruction for students at, below, or above grade level in addition to working with students identified as gifted and talented. Somerset is an internationally diverse community and one of the highest ranked elementary schools in Maryland; it is also a model Inclusion Program school. During this time, Brad earned his Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and partnered with the Somerset Educational Foundation, school faculty, and the school counselor to develop K-5 Service Learning curricula. Brad presented his curriculum work at both the county and state departments of education and was named a Maryland Service-Learning Fellow.

Brad Hoffman’s Corporate Background

In 2006, Brad Hoffman moved to New York City to start his second career in Human Resources with Time Inc., a Fortune 100 Media Company. As an educator, Brad brought a unique perspective to Corporate America and focused on Talent Development. He worked with clients across locations, divisions, and countries – over 5,000 employees – to design and implement customized learning solutions and strategic recruiting efforts to attract, develop, and retain talented employees. Brad also designed and managed summer internship programs for college and MBA students interested in media, general management, finance, and marketing career paths. These programs were designed as 10-week projects so that management could assess intern performance on authentic, thoughtful, and substantive tasks, while interns were also able to assess the company as a good fit for starting their careers.

In 2009, Brad and his wife, Faya Hoffman, launched My Learning Springboard to help families construct and manage private teams of experts focused on educational consultation, which includes admissions consulting, academic support, enrichment teaching, strategic test preparation, professional development, teacher mentorship, and curriculum development. In 2011, Brad left Corporate America to further expand My Learning Springboard in New York City and Washington, D.C. as well as Palm Beach County, Florida.

Brad Hoffman’s LinkedIn profile

Brad Hoffman

My Learning Springboard, Inc.

CEO and Board Certified Educational Planner

A multidisciplinary educational consulting firm specializing in school planning, academic tutoring, and test preparation.

Upper West Side

New York,NY

10024

brad@mylearningspringboard.com

Phone: +1 (646) 580-9794

Last edited @ 1:01 pm

Joss Lake

Lois Nesbitt

Caroline Johnston

Andrea Simons

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