Feb 23, 2017
Keep your students invested in learning outside of your tutoring sessions with these 4 tips.
On average, tutors only see their students between 60 to 90 minutes a week. That may not feel like enough time when you’re pushing to help your client achieve exponential academic growth. Good news: your impact doesn’t have to end with your session! Read on for four ways your tutoring sessions can continue to have an impact 0n students’ academic improvement throughout the week.
Empower parents to hold their child accountable between your tutoring sessions. Beyond praising how well the students did in the session, cue parents into students’ specific improvements and learning goals. Provide parents with tangible assignments and tasks students should be doing between sessions. For example, math tutors can ask parents to ensure their child is completing five math drills each evening, flashcards for 15 minutes each day, or otherwise.
Often time, the topics that you are tutoring are concurrently being taught by the student’s teachers in school or is a part of their larger test prep study plans. The feedback that you provide on problems should be able to be applied to similar problem sets. Consider “multiply both denominators by 2 before adding” versus “before adding, find the common denominator by multiplying both denominators by a common multiple.” The second piece of feedback can be applied for all fraction addition problems, not just to the specific one you might be working on. For more help with how tutors can provide effective feedback, check out our previous post on the subject.
Misplacing the practice problems from your session should not be the reason why students cannot study from them! Work with your students to create an organization system for their notes that integrates with their lifestyle — whether that’s a separate binder or scanning notes into digital files. Then, help them learn how to manage their time to study in advance of your tutoring sessions. Consistent study plans reinforce knowledge and ability to recall information. Work with them on calendar management and help them build into their schedule a specific amount of study time during the days you don’t meet.
Studying can be intimidating when you have an excess of crucial information. Eliminate the pressure of this daunting task by integrating opportunities to take notes throughout your lesson that they can reference later when they are working independently. For example, if you use a textbook as a reference, annotate with highlighters or Post-its. If your session involves recalling factual information, create flashcards as you review them.
Mastery of a topic occurs after a topic is encountered in multiple variations and formats. Providing students with the skills, organization capabilities, and tools to continue their tutoring between sessions with you will have a big impact on your student’s educational outcomes.
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