Our Unique Approach

Mission Excellence is a leadership-based academic enhancement program that stresses the importance of critical thinking, comprehensive understanding, and self-awareness.

Many institutions teach students how to memorize information. But do the students really understand what they have memorized? We push our students to reach their fullest potential.

Leadership-Based Teaching, Training, & Tutoring

Know Yourself: A good leader will always do a self-assessment to evaluate his/her personal qualities. Ask yourself simple questions and evaluate your responses. If you prefer to be modest then ask others what their perception(s) about you are. What are some of my good leadership qualities? What are some of my good personal qualities? What are some of my weaknesses? How can I be an effective leader/ teacher? Once you learn your strengths use them to help others. Work on your weaknesses and avoid allowing them to hinder progress.

Instill leadership into the Process: Facilitator(s) will not only teach learning material with precision but will also strive to instill leadership qualities for our students.

What are leadership qualities?

There are several leadership qualities Mission Excellence facilitators seek to instill in students. For instance, some good leadership qualities include Patience, Respect, Vision, Self-Awareness, Sacrifice, Good Communication Skills, and Trustworthiness.

How do you teach these qualities?

Mission Excellence facilitators are encouraged to come up with creative techniques to help instill positive characteristic in the student they work with. There are several ways to approach the situation. Let’s use Patience as an example. Students can loose focus quickly and/or become frustrated easily if they are not receiving desired results in a rapid manner. Our tutors constantly reiterate the importance of patience to achieve success. The idea of success over night generally happens in movies and television but not in reality. Success in reality takes persistence, dedication, and hard work. Also, we show students the progress they have made to encourage them to continue working hard.

Let Them Teach You: Nobody wants to be lectured to ALL THE TIME! Students generally receive enough lectures in school and from their parent(s). Remember the goal of Mission Excellence is to inspire future leaders. We guide the student through the process while allowing them the opportunity to teach as well. We let them work out problems on their own but correct mistakes when necessary. Ultimately we want to raise the students’ level of comprehension to the effect that one day he/ she will be able to teach the material to others.

We Are Guides: Once again we avoid lecturing and doing all the work. Both parties should be working hard to achieve desired outcome(s).

What does it mean to guide?

This means to allow the student to take the leadership role. For example, when a baby is learning to walk a parent will hold the babies hand and walk with him/her. Other parents may even allow the baby to try to walk on his/her own. Often the baby will fall and cry while simultaneously becoming discouraged. At this point the parent will stand the baby up on his/her two feet and encourage the baby the proceed. This is precisely the act of guiding without doing for. In contrast, a tutor should never do the work for the student. For instance, using the previous example a parent who is not guiding the baby will simply pick the baby up and take him/her from point A to point B. This tactic is ultimately more detrimental than helpful.

What tools can I use to guide effectively?

Facilitators can use many tools and techniques to achieve desired outcome(s). One way is to provide resources and strategies while simultaneously allowing the student to find the answers on his/her own.

For example: a student is reading an assignment aloud and comes across a word he or she does not recognize…

A) Non-Leadership Based Tutor: “Oh that word is ‘erudition’ it means knowledge acquired by study or research…let’s keep reading”

B) Mission Excellence Tutor: “I think it is important to build your vocabulary. Also to understand the assignment you need to know the word. Here is a dictionary look the word up, write down the definition, explain the definition to me, and use the word in a sentence.” (A couple of session later the tutor may even ask the student to define the word again to ensure he/she has remembered the definition.)

Learn Your Students’ Personality: Mission Excellence facilitators cater to students who vary tremendously in culture, ethnicity, age, education level, and hobbies. In order to assess students for the purpose of building on their strengths and helping to develop good personal qualities one must have a good understanding of who the student is. We encourage our facilitators to GET TO KNOW YOUR STUDENTS. What type of environments do they function best in? What do they like and dislike? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is their cultural background, maybe you need to relate information in a different manner? Learn what makes them “tick”.

Ask Questions: Our facilitators stress critical thinking skills and practice methodology to ensure success. We encourage students to ask questions and we also ask them questions to see their level of comprehension.

For example: A teacher administers a quiz to a student. The tutor will generally go over each question/ answer choice to find out why the student chose the particular answer and why he/she did not choose others. Never assume that because the student got the correct answer he/she comprehends the material. It may have been a lucky guess. Find out how they arrive at their answers. If they did not get the answer correct find out what went wrong in the methodology. Ask them to go over the methodology step-by-step. You may find the student made a small careless error; or you may find the entire methodology was wrong. In order to correct a mistake you must find it first. By ensuring proper methodology one can ensure accurate replication.

Lead By Example: It is difficult to be an effective leader if you do not lead by example. Leadership-based facilitators avoid being a hypocrites and telling people to do something they would/do not do. Our tutors must lead by example in (for instance): maintaining GPA (if still in school), being respectful to others, and displaying good overall character. If you have good personal qualities other with want to embody those characteristics as well. Therefore, one can instill leadership traits in students by simply setting a good example.

Leaders Are Responsible: We encourage students to be independent and responsible. Once again, we want to allow the student to take charge as much as possible. One key aspect of responsibility is ACCOUNTABILITY. Students are held accountable for their action.

For example: They should know lateness is unacceptable and they will be penalized for it. If they think they will be late they should take the initiative and call ahead to let the tutor know. If they are too young to call then they should have their parents call.

Another example: Students should be responsible enough to bring learning material(s) to each session without being reminded to do so. They should understand the tutors role which is to guide.