Tutoring: A Complement to Teaching

Teaching is one of the most important professions. There are all kinds of teachers in the world. Some educational teachers teach academic values, as well as spiritual teachers who teach spirituality. Now, some online teachers take online classes and teach digitally, etc.

However, there’s a limit to which a teacher can influence a student’s life. There is also a limit to which a teacher can teach a student. A teacher is best defined by Thomas Carruthers as, “A teacher is the one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” Hence, a teacher’s role should end after a specific time. One of the factors that decide it is the ability of a teacher and student.

Tutor’s main role

In the education field, it is important to note that not all students learn at the same pace. Often students hesitate to ask questions from teachers, They think it could lead to an embarrassing situation. They might also tend to think that their question is silly. They might also fail to understand certain things. Sometimes, all they need is a unique perspective, and they are not provided with it very often. Teachers can sometimes fail to recognize this need.

This is where the role of a tutor comes in. A tutor is someone who should be able to teach things unconventionally in a simple manner. A teacher’s job is to make learning more fun. A tutor takes this a step ahead. So, a tutor should be able to teach even better. This is because a tutor gets to spend more time with the students. This results in a deeper bond between a tutor and a student.

Private online tutoring

Tutoring is highly useful for students. From a student’s point of view, tutoring has one big advantage, and that is approachability. A tutor spends all the time and energy on the student alone. This is not the case with a teacher. Hence, e-tutors are, arguably, more approachable than teachers.

A tutor is more of a friend to a student rather than just a teacher. Tutoring pleasantly complements the boring academic way of learning. As a result, a student improves their academic performance... Not only that, but a student develops a better understanding of the concept than before.

Tutor helps students

Tutors also provide a different learning environment compared to teachers. If a student can learn the same thing in two different ways, it positively impacts their minds. Another advantage is that tutoring builds trust. Parents tend to trust tutors more as they want what is best for their children. Students can trust tutors if the learning experience is positive. This creates a favorable environment that helps students perform better.

A tutor provides a unique perspective. Teachers are the ones who teach and guide. Tutors do the same, but they do it differently. Therefore, a tutor’s job complements a teacher’s role. Furthermore, tutors build on that role by filling in the teacher's gaps that may have been left.

Every student desires to score well on their exams. They also aspire to lead in their classes. This may not always happen due to a number of reasons. A student may not get enough attention from the teacher back at school. This is because there are many students in one classroom. Hence, the school lessons alone may not be entirely helpful to a student. Also, each student has a different capacity for understanding. There are those who readily understand when the teacher is teaching, while others might need a thorough revision. Students shy away from asking questions in class. This is especially when they feel that they are the only ones not to understand. These reasons make it necessary to get a qualified tutor for students.

Online tutorials: The new means of tutoring

Tutoring is a demanding job. One of the things it demands most is creativity and uniqueness. This is because tutoring is often person-specific teaching. Since not all people interpret a concept the same way, tutoring helps provide a customary teaching approach. Hence, tutoring has to be done in a way that a learner understands the concept. Tutoring should also inspire the learner to explore the ideas deeply on their own as well.

Hence, tutoring, like many other good things, is heading towards a digital platform. Online tutoring has proven to be helpful for students.

Online tutoring sites

Online tutoring websites are now on the rise. They serve as a student portal. They can also function as an online group discussion forum for resolving student queries. They also provide a platform for discussions about topics and particular concepts. These forums provide a means for the self-service learning of students. They also serve as a great learning place for students by providing them the help they need.

One of the main advantages of online tutoring is the easy accessibility of the tutorials posted online. Students can access them at any time, while private tutors may not be available all the time. A guy sitting in London can learn from a private tutor based in India. This is the case simply thanks to online tutorial websites. They serve as an excellent learning place due to their easy accessibility.

The online tutorial has another significant advantage. Online learning and teaching take in many different forms; textual as well as voice. They can also be video-graphic or infographic, apart from being an audio file. This helps understand things better and gives better results than when they explain in textual form. Therefore, online tutoring has opened new horizons in new-age education for both the tutors and the students.

Online tutoring is mainly in demand in academics, especially where the higher education segment is becoming extremely competitive. As per the market report, the major vendors are clubZ! Tutoring Services, Chegg, GradeSlam, Huntington learning centers, Educomps solutions Ltd., QueryFloor, and approximately 80 other online learning platforms

Online tutoring vs. in-person tutoring

One unique advantage of online tutoring has over in-person tutoring is that sometimes it is better to ask questions through an electronic system. This is especially true in the case of socially shy students. Such students have a problem interacting with people in-person. As per a study, many students said that asking questions from an electronic system was easier.

Another advantage is the low cost. Learning through in-person tutoring could cost you money. With an online tutor, though, it might cost you less money (in skype or whiteboard learning), as online tutors often provide fixed packages for teaching a specific topic. This is true in many cases. At times, there is also an option available for students to avail of free online tutoring. The online tutorial can be accessed through any electronic device, like mobile, iPad, Laptop, etc. Hence, there is an improvement in overall accessibility. The freedom to learn from anywhere is a great advantage. Online tutoring can be conducted anytime and anywhere, and students can, therefore, quickly adjust the courses into their schedules.

Online tutoring will continue to grow. It will, however, take online tutoring for quite a while to replace in-person tutoring. Nevertheless, it certainly is a new way of tutoring.

Tutoring is a profession.

Tutoring has a lot to offer than just conventional teaching. A tutor usually forms a stronger bond with the students. This is because a tutor has to, often, deal with only one student at a time.

There are various reasons why you would want to choose as a profession. One of them and perhaps the most obvious one is financial support. Tutoring does not exactly require a high-level post-graduation degree, like Ph.D. All it requires is that the tutor has a good understanding of what needs to be taught to the learner. Especially for tutors who teach online classes, the chances for growth are ever-increasing.

Another reason to take up tutoring is to get a feel for teaching. In-person or online Tutoring is no different from teaching, but it does not require a high degree unlike classroom teaching.

Tutoring is a fulfilling profession. Demanding for sure, but highly profitable. The reason for this is that a tutor provides more than the role of a teaching assistant. As tutors connect to a student personally, students will not hesitate to ask them questions as their bond grows.

Become a tutor

There are several ways one can pursue tutoring as a profession. One can reach out to people. This involves querying them to see if they require a tutor. You can put advertisements in local newspapers. For this purpose, online ads are the trending technique in the modern digital world. They greatly help you in marketing yourself and landing a career as a tutor. A tutoring career can grow exponentially once people start finding your work credible.

A tutoring profession is very intellectually challenging. One of the primary reasons is that a tutor needs to alter their teaching technique according to the student. But there is a bright side to it. A profession that is challenging keeps one motivated. Along the way, tutors can learn from their students. The tutoring profession serves as a two-way learning rather than one-way learning. The real mark of a successful tutor is to be a successful learner himself. Becoming a tutor, therefore, requires discipline, dedication, and devotion towards your students. You have to be smart, and you need to learn the best techniques to stand out among other tutors. The following tips for a private lesson (one-to-one tutoring session) will help you in online tutoring jobs:

(A) Involve the learner

Learning is a two-way process. Ensure that as you teach, you engage the student as well. Ask questions. Let there be an interaction between the two of you. When you talk throughout, a learner gets bored and loses concentration. Asking questions keeps the listener alert.

(B) Understand the learners’ challenges

Understand what challenges a student is facing. Try to pinpoint what is the biggest hindrance to their excellent performance. You can do an evaluation as you start the session. Ask for school exercise books and previous exams. You will be able to identify the weaknesses of a student. Then, come up with tactics for helping them out.

(C) Have knowledge of the curriculum

You need to know all the details of the current curriculum. This will help you in teaching the relevant topics. If you have expertise in a subject you’re teaching, you will likely do a better job teaching it.

(D) Give assignments

Assignments are designed to assess your student’s progress. When a learner sits alone, they can gauge themselves. Through giving and checking assignments, you can keep track of their performance. This way, a tutor can also identify where the student has difficulties.

(E) Give personalized attention

Be open with students and give them your full attention. Ensure that you make learning personalized and fun. Ask the student about their likes/dislikes and hobbies. This will ease tension and also improve the overall learning environment.

(F) Have a passion for teaching

This one is quite self-explanatory. To be able to cope with students, you must love teaching. You must also like them in order to become a part of their success.

(G) You must like the subject you are teaching

You can’t perform well if you do not like what you are doing. Students can see through superficial interest. So don’t feign deep passion. In order for you to instill the love of learning of a particular subject with your students, you should be genuinely passionate about what you are teaching them yourself. It is only fair that you must enjoy teaching the subject so that you can help the students to enjoy it too.

(H) You should change the way you relate with students

For them to be open with you, you have to create a friendly environment. When they are doing anything wrong, you should correct them politely.

(I) You should congratulate students when they perform well

Similarly, if a student responds well to the lessons and performs well, you should respond very positively. Such a practice would further encourage your students. This practice is known as positive reinforcement. Thus, always take the opportunity to award good performances and discipline.

(J) Your teaching should be organized

Plan on what to teach beforehand. Ensure that the student understands the topic before going moving on to the next one.

Conclusion

Teaching is one of the noblest professions in the world. A teacher bears one of the heaviest weights of social responsibilities. It is the teacher upon which students rely on learning anything. A tutor is a step above that. Tutors are not just confined to study-related issues; they also improve overall student performance and build their confidence.

Therefore, if you are thinking of becoming a tutor, then firstly, realize that it is a big responsibility. Secondly, you need to understand the student’s requirements and their individual learning capabilities. Accordingly, you can create your lesson plan, customize it, and teach students.

A passion for teaching is shown by the commitment you have to each student by helping them to reach their full potential. For this purpose, tutors should continuously work on newer and better ways to improve their teaching methods, inventing new tools to help their students learn better.