Any good practice techniques I can do on the side besides what my instructor informed me to do, just to better my hand techniques? Thanks

Depending on your current level, practising scales could help in many ways.
I have read in this Forum that professionals practise them almost every day (together with other exercises).

I am an intermediate student and I am working now the book of Taffanel. I find that the exercises are much helpful with different articulations, tone quality (provided you get feedback from the teacher or experienced player), and also to develop a sort of "automation" of the most difficult finger positions and note jumps and changes, such as some of the third octave.

Some scales in Taffanel, i.e the expressive type of lesson 4, also is aiding me in the expressivity of the playing.

And they are fun to play! They can be played as actual music and not just a piece of mechanical sequence of notes. Again feedback from the teacher or instructor is important for this aspect.

here are some books I have always used and that I require my students to use:

Taffanel-Gaubert daily exercises
Barrere Flutists Formulae

message me if you would like some more details
good luck

One thing my flute teacher has me too with scales (and i find this very difficult.. if it was written out, as I'm a pretty visual person, it would be easier to me) is play each scale, in triplets, and start on very low C#, C, or B (if you have a B-foot) for each time. Some scales are not possible to do this way such as D scale starting on C, because the D scale does not have any C in it, just a C#.

So for example, the G scale would now be, C D E F# G A B C, and how ever many octaves you can play. Its challenging because your fingers are doing patterns that are not normally played, especially in the very top octaves. It helps to practice just the top triplet, like in G, just doing G A B C B A G, the top octave repeatedly. In this scale its easy, because your fingers are used to doing that pattern in a C scale.. but with more sharps/flats its much harder, or for me it is :P It really makes you think..

Sorry if this doesn't make any sense.. its hard to explain it in words. I needed it explained twice to me, and that was playing with and hearing it from my teacher and stuff :P

it is difficult for any of us on this forum to answer these questions, what you need is a competent teacher..

what we can do is what we did already, list books we use and have our students use..

I don't think that anyone has mentioned this yet, but make sure your instructors primary instrument is flute.

When I was trying to find an instructor, I took one lesson with a guy who taught all instruments. He could sit there and tell me how to read and count out the measures. ( I already knew how to do that. I majored in music in college.) He didn't have any helpful input as far a embrochure and finger and hand position.

It is very important that your instructor is a flute specialist.

well said, and even then, take one lesson with that "specialist" to see if he/she knows anything before commiting to lessons...