Who Are Quality Tutors?
Tutors can be high achieving former higher school certificate students, students who have achieved a high ATAR, university students who are studying a specific subject area, a qualified subject specialist working in a profession related to that subject, generalist teachers’ who can work across a range of subject areas and subject specialists who work in special education, high ability learning, NAPLAN support, along with literacy and numeracy specialists. Tutors who have overcome adversity are also extremely valuable. That might include tutors who have suffered from ADD, ADHD or completed their schooling with dyslexia or other learning challenge. They come with empathy and understanding and have worked out strategies that have helped them be successful in education and can share those with your children. These tutors know how to learn, how to organise themselves and how to study for educational success. They also know how to break their skills and knowledge down into bite sized learnable packages that are tailor made for each child’s learning needs. This is the basis for a good tutor who can connect, model and transfer their own knowledge to the children they are working with on a one to one basis, so that they can also experience educational success.
What are the issues that occur in a classroom?
While it is part of education policy to cater for different learning styles and a range of learning abilities, this often does not happen in a busy classroom. Those in the classroom who have an additional need, whether that is a student that has a;
learning challenge
physical disabilities that impact son their learning
health issue that has interrupted their school attendance
diagnosed learning disability
students who are in the gifted range
twice exceptional children who have a learning disability and are in the gifted range
These students don’t need less work or more work, they need different work that is tailored to their specific learning needs. This will help them either catch up or extend them to meet their high potential.
Teachers are trying to meet the needs of their students in mainstream classrooms. They often do this by grouping like students together, pairing an able student with a less able student in a mentoring arrangement, in class additional support, along with individual and small group withdrawal with specialist support staff. Teachers plan to meet needs using these strategies, but the fact remains that there is one teacher or one support staff or one extension and enrichment teacher that is spread across a classroom of up to 30 students or across a school. The result is your child gets very little one on one attention in the mainstream classroom. Often the middle performing group of students are catered for really well but anyone outside the middle are left behind or neglected through no fault of the teacher. This can result in them being disengaged as they can’t keep pace with their peers resulting in a loss of motivation, becoming a distracting influence on the class, feeling left out and isolated. We want all students to experience success at all levels. Some achieve small steps and some are way ahead of the mainstream, but one on one tutoring supports consistent growth and development tailored to an individual child’s needs.
Benefits of one-on-one face to face tutoring
One-on-one tutoring sessions relies on the presence of the tutor and student. If for some reason the tutor or student are not present due to illness or other disruption that occurs, the lesson doesn’t go ahead so the student never gets behind. While a tutor may give some homework tasks for a child to develop mastery of a skill or piece of knowledge between tutoring sessions, they will never be left behind because there are other children present when they are not.
One-on-one tutoring creates an opportunity for the tutor and child to develop a quality relationship where the child will feel comfortable expressing what they do and don’t understand. The tutor actively listens to your child individually, resulting in quality interaction, giving the tutor a deep understanding of the child’s ability level, likes and dislikes, along with their learning style. This allows them to tailor activities that will individually connect with the child. This moves them toward experiencing success.
One-on-one tutoring is conducted in a stress-free environment where the child feels comfortable, not worried about not knowing as much as other students, not feeling embarrassed to get something wrong without the risk of being laughed at or ridiculed. A quality connection with the tutor and a suitable environment free of distraction, negative input and fear creates an environment where learning can be successful.
Tutors can quickly identify the level your child is at and tailor their program of learning to suit the learning style and level that the child has currently mastered. This allows students to learn at their own pace and for gifted children to move ahead quickly to new and more interesting concepts that may not be covered in a mainstream classroom.
One-on-one tutoring puts a child in a position where they have to do the work themselves. In many classrooms students copy the work of those around them or rely on others to do the work in a group setting. Parents have also been known to do their child’s assignments and homework. Individual tutoring ensures the work is the students’ own and makes it easier to identify strengths and weaknesses in the child in a safe environment. This gives the tutor further opportunity to assess the child’s abilities and tweek content and delivery to assist the child move forward in their learning.
One-on-one tutoring eliminates distractions that occur in regular classroom settings. Distraction can come in various forms. The first and most obvious is the noise and activity of other students in a busy classroom. Secondly, the distraction from interruptions, messages, announcements, interruptions to regular class programs that occur daily in school life. An over decorated classrooms can also be a huge sensory distraction to many children. Working one-on-one in a clear space that is noise and clutter free can be a huge advantage to assist children to concentrate fully on the tasks at hand.
This allows a tutor to adapt to the child’s learning and communication style – this creates connection and establishes trust between the tutor and the child creating a great grounding for a positive learning experience and growth in learning confidence.
Benefits of one-on-one online tutoring
The flexibility that comes from using an online platform is invaluable. It ensures that tutoring sessions fit around the busy schedule of children and parents, eliminating travel to tutoring centres. It also frees parent to be doing other important tasks instead of waiting in the car park for the tutoring session to be over or hovering around the area in the house where tutoring takes place in your home. With use of noise cancelling headphones, it also means that the tutoring session can take place in a range of locations in the house, and it doesn’t require the rest of the household to be quiet during the set tutoring session.
Online tutoring has the added benefit of allowing students to develop their skills using technology platforms alongside the given reason for tutoring. One benefit that has come out of lockdown and home-schooling is that children of all ages have now become consummate users of a range of technology tools that enables them to learn online. Continuing tutoring online also ensures that these skills are not lost due to lack of use.
For children that are disengaged by education, online tutoring is one method that is engaging and suits a specific type of learner. This is particularly the case for visual learners where they learn from using pictures, images and special relationships. It can also suit auditory learners who learn through sound and music. In addition, verbal learners can also benefit from online tutoring as they love using words, in writing and speech.
Learners that experience periods of time away from the classroom benefit from online tutoring also. These could be students who have had to travel overseas, have elite sporting commitments and training schedules and students who are hospitalised or housebound. These students can work with their tutor at their own pace in any location that they may find themselves in.
Some children prefer online tutoring as they are not physically face-to-face with their tutor. In our modern times anxiety and mental health issues are increasing in school aged children. This can keep children from attending school intermittently or for long periods of time. Many children with these kinds of challenges may find an unknown tutor coming into their home space quite intimidating and find using an online platform actually makes them feel more relaxed and at ease. Developing a rapport with a student who prefers to have a blank screen is a difficult way to learn, but having an online platform with a suitably understanding and compassionate tutor can help keep these children connected to their education and reduce losses due to lack of school attendance.
Online tutoring may allow students to connect with a tutor that is not in their location, but who has a specific set of skills that is perfect to meet your child’s needs. Online tutoring also has the ability to break down barriers that exist due to disability. The ability to bridge barriers using technology is key for learners who have the added challenge of disability. Online learning in conjunction with technology such as voice activation software, voice recognition software, can work hand in hand to assist students during online tutoring sessions.
Many families don’t feel having a stranger in their home as a tutor is appropriate for their situation. Perhaps there is limited space, or they are just not comfortable with a traditional style tutoring arrangement where the tutor comes weekly to their home. This has become particularly the case with Covid, as the virulence of emerging strains spreads throughout the community. Parents in large numbers have selected to begin and continue tutoring using the online platform to ensure the safety of their family and the tutor involved.
Older students often prefer this platform for tutoring also. It means that they can utilise free periods during their school day to connect with their tutor. This ability to maximise all of their available time during the senior years is invaluable in supporting students through their higher school certificate. Some seniors have several periods of a subject they find challenging on a given school day and are able to follow those lessons up directly with their online tutor due to free lessons on their timetable. This helps reinforce the learning that has taken place during that day and/or allows them to go through any concepts or skills that they did not understand and gain assistance with organisation and assignment completion. As a result, students in this situation are using online tutoring to their best advantage as they are able to keep up with the rest of the class and be fully prepared for the next lesson.
As a result of multiple lockdowns in the past two years, children are used to learning using this method and many prefer it to traditional face to face learning. The younger generations have grown up with technology and it is incredibly engaging for them. They feel comfortable with it and it keeps them interested in their weekly online tutoring lessons. They can use multiple technologies to assist them in getting immediate feedback from their tutor. This could include free scanning apps enabling use of a smart phone to scan, save and upload their work. The tutor and student can also use inexpensive camera attachments to ensure that the tutor can see the student as they are working and also the student can see the tutor as they are modelling a particular skill or concept. A quality headset is also essential to ensure quality sound and hearing for the tutor and student.
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