20 Tips for New Tutors (Part IV) - TutorNerds

20 Tips for New Tutors (Part IV) - TutorNerds Twenty Tips for New Tutors (Part IV) Twenty Tips for New Tutors (Part IV) Grades Shouldn’t Be a Big Surprise You shouldn’t be crossing your fingers that a student will do well on their upcoming test.   If you’ve been seeing them long enough to prepare for it, then you should give them practice quizzes or tests and grade them yourself to see how they’re doing.   Whether the practice test is something you found online, questions you’ve made yourself, or just a few selected examples for their textbook, it usually isn’t hard to come up with material to test your student’s knowledge before an exam.   This way, you and the student will have an idea where they’re at before going to take the real thing. Learn Their Teacher’s Style After seeing some of your student’s graded assignments from their class, you should be able to get a good idea of what their teacher is looking for.   Maybe they’re a huge stickler for vocab, or they require every equation to be memorized.   Maybe they put more of an emphasis on style and sentence variety rather than spelling in grammar.  Perhaps correct significant figures determine a large part of their grade.   Maybe they don’t care about the final answer as long as the work is correct and neat.   All of these situations could be the opposite, and there are many other styles and priorities that teachers have.   Recognize what your student’s teacher is looking for early so that you can make your practice lessons more similar to their expectations. Stay in Touch Staying in touch with your client will help you build a better relationship and keep them feeling more satisfied with your commitment.   This could mean following up to see how they did on a test, checking in to see what new classes they might be taking, or being available to help with simple questions via text or email outside of tutoring hours.   Your level of involvement outside of working tutoring hours is up to you, but staying in touch more with your students tends to lead to better success for both student and tutor. Don’t Let Tutoring Become Homework Time Helping with homework and assignments is a large and vital, part of most tutoring.   However, if you are regularly seeing a student, your tutoring should not just be you going through each week’s new homework assignment with them.   At worst, you should transition them to doing the homework before you arrive so that you can focus on only the problems they didn’t understand or got wrong.   At best, they can complete the homework on their own so you can quickly check it if needed and focus on additional practice and lessons during the tutoring.   There is nothing wrong with helping with homework, but regular tutoring should be more than just a tool for a student to use to get their homework done easily via professional help. Get Them Talking Many students will be quiet, shy, or just unwilling to open up about their struggles in class.   A very important quality in a tutor is being charismatic and friendly enough to help these students feel comfortable opening up to you.   Don’t turn a tutoring lesson into a long casual chat, but also don’t be so cold that you only focus on the academic work.   If a student isn’t comfortable talking to you, then it will be harder for you to know when they are confused and when they aren’t paying attention. Read part three here! Michael C. is currently a private math, science, and standardized test tutor with TutorNerds in Irvine and Anaheim. All blog entries, except for guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at pr@tutornerds.com for guest blogging and collaborations. We want to make this the best free education resource in SoCal, so feel free to suggest what you would like to see us write.

The Value in Taking Online Courses

The Value in Taking Online Courses Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash Have control of your own schedule One of the most promising aspects of online courses is that online courses allow you to have control of your own schedule as they are much more loosely scheduled than your typical class would be. Of course, you will still have the usual deadlines for quizzes, exams, papers, or discussion posts, but you wont have to go to a lecture at a set time several times a week when you might need to be somewhere else. Taking an online course allows you to adjust your schedule accordingly. For example, if you need to trade shifts at work to go home later in the week and the only shifts people are willing to give up when you would typically watch an online lecture, you can always find another time to study the lecture in order to pick up a shift. By taking an online course, you minimize the chances of having serious time conflicts and save yourself the trouble of picking if  having a job  or going to school is more important to you. If you are notorious for skipping your early morning classes because you cant find it in yourself to become a morning person, taking an online course eliminates that problem. If you know you work better at a certain time of the day, like nighttime, you can easily plan time during your nighttime routine for listening to online lectures. You get to decide when your class time is. Taking an online course also allows you to follow your own pace. If you hate going to lecture just because your professor is slow while going through a concept, trails off on a tangent too often, or doesnt stop to gauge the students level of understanding for the lectures content, you can listen to online lectures without worrying about that problem. Create your own learning environment When it comes to taking your typical college course, you may find yourself disliking whatever learning environment you are set in. You might prefer to learn in a smaller, more private area instead of the typical lecture hall, which can be full of distractions. The people around you could be in a full conversation, conflicting with whatever the professor is lecturing about. The person ahead of you can be online shopping or streaming something on Netflix, allowing your wandering eyes to take advantage from the lecture. If you are taking an online course, however, you get to decide what your learning environment will look like. Build your own distraction-free zone according to your taste. You can reserve a study room on campus to eliminate the possibility of a roommate barging in mid-lecture or you getting sleepy and taking a nap instead of sitting through a full lecture. If learning from the comfort of your own home is your best option, create a study space just like you would to crank out an essay or study for an exam. Turn your phone off or set it to the side, let your roommates know if you want to keep the noise level down, and whatever else you usually do to create a space you can be productive in. Test your self-control, or learn some While online courses may seem very promising, the idea of holding yourself accountable to follow a strict schedule on your own may seem daunting depending on the level of self-control you already have. Online courses give you plenty of freedom when it comes to deciding when and where you want to have class time, and that freedom comes with a large amount of responsibility when you are in charge of creating your own class schedule and studying schedule. You can build your own class and studying schedule, you are responsible for sticking to it. There is no strict attendance policy forcing you to go to set lecture times you just need to be strict with yourself to actually sit down for an online lecture when you plan to. This may seem like a little too much responsibility if you are the type to procrastinate on everything, but taking an online course is the perfect opportunity to learn how to practice self-control. When you have control over when you have class because of an online course and learn how to stick to the schedule you set in order to not fall behind, it will help you in other classes that arent online as you get to use the self-control youve learned to stay on top of other class schedules. When it comes to registering for next terms classes, consider registering for an online course if its offered for the classes you need. While unconventional, online courses have plenty of value, especially for busy college students that are seeking better control of their own schedule.