Now that I have been tutoring almost solely online for more than a year, I have found that there is very little that I can’t do in my online classroom that I can do in person, and others agree. Given the convenience for both students and parents, I am convinced that more and more demand for online tutoring will be materializing in the near future. Of course the most important factor in any tutoring situation is still the quality of the tutor (and hopefully I have that covered). But all things being equal, online tutoring is easily as effective as in-person and I think that it’s even better.
One of the few challenges that I faced when I began tutoring online was monitoring student off-screen behaviour. If I asked a student to show me how to construct the solution to a problem for example, I wouldn’t be able to see what the student was doing on paper until they showed me the finished product by presenting their paper to the webcam. This worked relatively well, except that if the student was on the wrong track, I wasn’t able to correct them until they showed me their work.
In order to try to improve the efficiency of my tutoring and make the best use of session time, I began insisting that students verbalize their actions as they wrote out solutions and attempted to solve problems on paper. The results were better than I expected. The verbalization not only helped me get the student on track quickly, it also allowed me access to some of the student’s thinking processes. In some cases I would allow the student to carry on with their solution even if incorrect, so that I could understand better what their misconception was based on. Some research shows that an added bonus for the student is that verbalizing can actually contribute to the learning process.
I can safely say that every student and parent that has experienced tutoring in my online classroom has been more than pleasantly surprised with the effectiveness. Convenience and efficiency are added and significant bonuses. Better understanding, better marks and overall increased enjoyment of chemistry always makes for happy customers. If you are looking for high quality and convenient chemistry tutoring for you or someone you know contact me for a free half-hour trial.