6 simple ways to make online tutoring a more effective learning environment

With advancements in technology and the conveniences of working from home or learning from home, online tutoring offers a great teaching/learning experience. Advantages of online tutoring being learning from the comforts of your own home, one on one interaction with the tutor, saving on travel time to and from coaching centers, learning at your convenient time, the ability of technology to break geographical barriers so that the best teachers can be available on your screen and last but not the least, parental involvement . Regular involvement and feedback of parents is also a vital part of online learning.

Live online classes or online tutoring is not very different from face to face learning. There are many collaborative tools and virtual classrooms that can be used to make it an audio-visual experience.

Popular platforms or tools used are skype as an audio-vido aid with a plug in for white board. Alternatively several virtual classrooms are available such as wiziq, vyew or Webex which can accommodate several students at a time in an online tutoring session.

As discussed earlier, Online learning is not completely different from face to face learning or other forms of learning. In fact it could be more effective. To make an online experience endowed and enriched in knowledge sharing, following approaches could be adopted:

Create a plan Be Proactive. Create a plan and share it accordingly in order to study in tandem.

Share the curriculum and other resources To make the learning experience more effective, it is indispensable to share the curriculum such as CBSE, IGCSE, ICSE, IB , K-12 or Australian and also other resources between the student and the teacher.

Develop a rapport The onus is on both the teachers and the students to develop a rapport. For the teachers, A warm-up activity (Jokes, games, discussion on their favorite topic etc.) based on the interests of the students. For the students it could be responding well to the teacher’s activities. Once the ice is broken, an online tutoring session can be loads of laughs along with good learning

Stay motivated Aptly said by Carol Burnett, “Only I can change my life. No one else can do it for me”. That’s why we recommend Motivation to be key part of all of our sessions. Motivation is a great to tool to achieve extraordinary results. In an online environment, establishment of rapport is key to motivation. Without direct physical contact and interaction with other learners or an instructor, online students might lose their interest or motivation mid-way through their course or program. There are several motivation al tools one can follow such as keeping an eye on the prize, meaning working hard to be successful. Also staying motivated is a very personal thing, talking to a counsellor or taking a counselling session can greatly help set personal goals to stay motivated.

Communicate Good communication is the key to success in online learning. It is important to communicate the instruction techniques that work. It is also important to communicate when reinforcement of concepts or practice is necessary. Communication also includes asking the right questions to bridge gaps in learning.

Take notes Taking notes is indispensible to any learning experience. Note taking could be through the age-old pen-paper technique or making use of the digital concepts available. Animations, videos or other modes available on the GUI of the software being used to teach could also be used. Online recording facilities are available with some collaboration tools.

These simple but effective techniques can greatly enhance the online tutoring/learning experience and help students succeed in their goals.

Blended Learning and Personalized Online Tutoring

A lot of discussions happen on Blended learning. What is actually Blended learning? Blended learning, as the name implies is a blend of classroom delivery along with digital or online content, typically where face to face classrooms sessions are combined with computer meditated or other digital activities.

It signifies a fundamentally different approach that teachers and students need to adopt in the teaching learning process. Another popular term used in this is “the flipped classroom” or other terms like hybrid, mixed, or integrative to describe the same trend.

In 2000, an estimated 45,000 students from K-12 curriculum took online courses, and a decade late, the numbers have escalated to approximately 3 million, computers in schools catalyzing the whole process.

Blended learning has the following important components

• In-person classroom activities facilitated by an experienced educator
• Online learning materials, pre-recorded lectures, animations, videos or other tools to enhance the learning process, often used to explain difficult concepts
• The instruction followed by reading material, worksheets, assignments and other aids to reinforce the concepts already delivered.

While there is many a discussion on the effectiveness of blended learning and its impact on education, one of the applications that this could be extended outside the class room is in educational environments such as online tutoring. An online tutor could adopt the following characteristics to enhance the “facilitator” role
 

• While course content is vital, pedagogical technologies and strategies to enhance the learning process are indispensible.
• Creating a learning environment by facilitating interaction among students and personalizing it according to the individual needs of the student may be very effective in one on one tutoring environments such as online tutoring
• Making assessments and grading a little unconventional can greatly help in keeping the student engaged in the online class.

A true learning experience is a combination of relevance of the material as well as applications of concepts and ideas in a “real world setting”. These in fact can be beautifully combined in a blended learning environment - A teaching- learning experience that can be an interesting blend of the conventional and the modern.