By: Tutoring Services
Submitted: 2011-01-10 23:37:38 | Word Count: 579
The popularity of online tutoring lies in ease of access. For learners, help in a vast range of subjects is only a few keyboard clicks away. For educators and tutors, online tutoring means that it is possible to make a living – and make a difference in people’s lives – from the comfort of one’s own home. Online tutoring has created a mini-revolution in education, but there are some pitfalls and challenges to bear in mind.
Problem: Forging an educational relationship is harder online. We know that a positive relationship between learner and teacher is a vital part of the learning process. This can be harder to build when liaising with students remotely. Video calls give the illusion of face-to-face teaching but don’t quite close the gap. Numerous studies have shown that the dropout rate for online education of various kinds, including online tutoring, is higher than in traditional learning contexts.
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Solution: If you are offering an online tutoring service, you will need to devise additional strategies to keep learners engaged and motivated. You need to make sure that online tutoring at a distance doesn’t also mean interpersonal distance. Whatever incentives you can provide to keep learners logging on for their online tutoring sessions will pay dividends for all parties.
Problem: Technology is great when it works and a nightmare when it doesn’t. You don’t need to be a computer geek to offer online tutoring, but you will need to have some computer know-how, and tolerance of the problems that can be thrown up. You may also have to help your students with the technology.
Solution: Computers and the internet provide all sorts of bells and whistles that you can use to make your online tutoring engaging. Don’t overdo it or over-reach your capacity. Not only can you be left high and dry if you rely too much on technology, but you may also compromise the important supportive relationship that oils the learning process in online tutoring.
Problem: With online tutoring you can take on students from distant places – potentially anywhere in the world. This raises the risk of mismatched expectations and misunderstandings.
Solution: Make sure that you clearly set out the parameters of your online tutoring service – what you offer and what you expect. In turn, you will need to do your own homework to make sure you are able to provide what learners need. That includes understanding the requirements of the curriculum they are seeking to master in their region, and the different learning styles that students may expect (for example instructor-led versus participatory learning).
Even if you are an experienced tutor in a conventional bricks-and-mortar educational setting, you will need to put a good deal of effort into tailoring your service for the online tutoring context. Depending partly on the subject, online tutoring can be a very different way of working.
If you are working for an agency you should get support on what strategies you need to learn to offer an effective online tutoring service. If not, you will find all sorts of resources to assist you. Online tutoring is not as straightforward as it may initially seem, but it can be very rewarding for tutors and learners alike.
Author Resource:-
Tutoring Services LLC. offers opportunity of online tutoring jobs with free registration for tutors. Online tutoring services is beneficial for students and helps to find private tutoring, home tutoring, homework help and online learning benefits for students of schools, colleges & universities.
