By Online tutoring is a kind of teaching, usually one-on-one, that takes place over the Internet in real-time. shsat online tutoring needs to involve a “real teacher,” despite what some technology platforms may claim. For example, an online tutor can be someone the student already knows in real life or someone from a different side of the world whom the student only meets online.
How online tutoring works
How online tutoring works can vary enormously from person to person and from one tutoring organization to another. Options for how these works include:
- A Skype or Zoom video chat with an online tutor and a student showing their work/instructions on a webcam.
- A customized online virtual classroom environment where the instructor follows a carefully developed lesson program, often using features similar to an interactive whiteboard.
- A “shared screen” approach where the tutor shares the screen and optionally comments on it for the student to watch, possibly also with a messaging function.
Why do people use online tutoring?
The benefits of online tutoring are detailed below, but in general, parents and students choose online tutoring for one of four reasons:
- Improve your exam technique and ultimately get better grades in SATs, GCSEs, or A Levels.
- Fill learning gaps or support a child struggling in a subject.
- Allowing the child to accelerate their progress further and faster than they would in the 15-30 class.
- Build confidence in the subject and develop study habits so they can respond better to all their lessons.
As you’ll notice, all of these reasons apply to in-person and online instruction. This is intentional. Online tutoring provides all the benefits of in-person tutoring but with much more convenience.
Online tutoring for individuals or small groups?
Mostly, when we talk about online tutoring, we mean one-off lessons where one professional tutor will teach one student over the internet. However, one online tutor can teach more than one student at a time in a small group setting. Once the group size is more significant than about 5 or 6, we tend to refer to it as online tutoring. The kind that take place during the Covid-19 pandemic – as many of the personalization benefits of online tutoring are lost. If you want to invest in online learning, one-on-one is the way to go. The benefits of a tutoring experience completely tailor to the needs of the individual. Moving at their own pace, cannot be overstate.
What are the most popular subjects for online tutoring?
For younger children between the ages of 5 and 12, online elementary school tutores is almost exclusively focuse on math and English. As children progress through high school, math remains very popular, but many tutoring companies today are also seeing strong interest in chemistry, physics, biology, and languages. It’s worth bearing in mind that a more ‘physical’ subject, such as dance, PE, or even art, can be more challenging to teach online, but you can find tutors for almost any topic.
What does an online tutor do?
An online tutor does precisely what an in-person tutor would do:
- Plan the lesson.
- Teach the address, and then ideally.
- Inform the parents about the study.
The difference is that with technology, many other processes can be automate and improve so that the maximum amount of time can be devote to teaching rather than the preparation and reporting part. For example, Third Space Learning’s online math lessons are create well in advance by a team of curriculum and subject knowledge experts. So when a tutor knows what task they are teaching, they don’t have to plan the lesson from scratch. Instead, they need to modify the task they have been trained on.
