Become a Productive and Effective Tutor One-on-One

How do you know if you are taking the right steps to becoming a productive and effective tutor? Your skills may be honed to the level of Ph.D, MA, or BA certification but just because you have the knowledge doesn’t always mean that you can communicate it to someone. Many of the smartest people aren’t necessarily the most effective tutors or teachers. There are many other skills that must be addressed outside of your professional field of study. Some of these include social and communication skills which are extremely important when maintaining effective tutoring practices. These skills are not easily acquired and can make or break progress in tutoring sessions.

Tutoring or teaching must be a passion to really achieve effective practice and execution. Each individual has different needs and this is why tutoring curricula must be molded to fit that unique individual. To hone your tutoring skills please review the short list below to see if you are full-filling the suggested requirements for good tutoring practices.

Tutoring Guidelines
Establish goals with the student and parent, and discuss the reality of their expectations. Make sure you both agree on the goals, put them in writing, and intend to satisfy them by the end of your service. Keep in mind that learning is most often an unpredictable process; don’t guarantee any goals will be accomplished but intend to achieve goals outlined in your initial agreement.

Make sure you maximize your time with the student. Arrive on time and ready to make progress in the students learning abilities immediately.

Prepare your curriculum and yourself prior to the tutoring sessions. Make sure that you have structure in your lessons and can answer most of the questions a student might have about the material presented. Preparing solutions to problems in advance for subjects like math will most often be a more efficient and effective use of your time and the student’s.

Having an appropriate attitude and personality complements your ability to be an effective tutor. An engaging attitude and enthusiastic responses to progress may be just what the student needs to establish a confidence and motivation for learning.

Bring yourself to your students level. Maintaining a mutual respect between tutor and student can help establish understanding, patience, and honesty or transparency in the tutor/student relationship.

Make sure that the goal is independent learning and you aren’t doing all the work for your student.

These guidelines do not encompass all the necessary steps to being a great tutor and if you follow these steps they do not guarantee performance. These steps are only intended to set the tutor on the right path towards effective tutoring practices. Tutoring is a noble service to the community and tutors should have pride in their profession. Whether you tutor math, English, science, or PHP, all your efforts are well respected and we hope these guidelines will help you become an effective and productive tutor.

References

The University of Queensland Australia
MidAmerica Nazarene University
Boise State University