At some point in a student’s academic life, they might struggle with understanding a subject or more. This point is where the assistance of a tutor, who has the perfect understanding of the topic, is employed.
As a tutor, you need to understand your student’s pain point to be able to solve it. However, there might be a bit of misunderstanding, either on your part or your student’s part. This is bad because the student might lose interest entirely. It is essential to prevent this from happening, to boost your student’s learning experience and improve your teaching experience. When you do this, you not only have a happy and eager-to-learn student, but you also feel happy and fulfilled as a tutor.
Regardless of what subject you're tutoring, whether you’re a maths tutor or not, you need to focus deeply on helping your student.
Best practices for effective tutoring
Build Trust
The most important element in any relationship is trust, and good chemistry between a teacher and student is essential for trust to develop. A good tutor will strive to develop a healthy relationship with their student to ensure maximum trust and improve the learning experience.
Exercise Patience
What you consider apparent or simple may be difficult for your student. Learn to avoid displaying irritation in your words or body language, especially when your tutee is a slow learner. It could make your student feel more withdrawn and impassive to learning.
Communication
The goal is to make the student feel comfortable. Your tone should not suggest anger or frustration, and your body language should be one of ease and understanding. Acts like sighing, tapping, and fidgeting could be interpreted as uptightness, and this could make them withdrawn. Instead, make regular eye contact, smile, and nod when they’re talking to make them feel at ease with you. Also, you have to encourage them to open up to you whenever they have difficulty. This is tied to the student being able to trust you. Once they can trust you and know that you’re understanding and empathic, they’ll open up to you easily and even learn more.
Listen and be observant
Do less talking and more listening when needed. Of course, this does not mean you should talk less (as that's essential to your job performance) but that you should pay more attention to your student's feelings. Often, tutors talk without ever bothering to check whether the student understands anything. Make sure you leave room for them to express themselves between teaching sessions.
Build Confidence
This practice and the previous one work hand-in-hand. When observing your student, you would be able to identify their weak points and work to fill them by changing techniques and building confidence in them. They would appreciate you doing this and find confidence in themselves. This will make them more enthusiastic about learning. Tutoring should be about imparting knowledge in the subjects needed and building confidence in the student to boost their capability. When a student feels confident, he is more willing to participate, ask questions and become better. Studies have shown that confident students are more likely to tackle academic problems without fear of failure
Make students effectively teach themselves
Students should be in charge of their learning process, and it is your responsibility as a tutor to guide them. Employ reflective questioning. Students would most likely have many questions at the beginning of a tutoring session. You must contain the overwhelming temptation to answer them. Look for a way to diffuse the question apart and reflect a small portion of it to the student. Let them learn with what they have and not look for straightforward answers.
Be Flexible
A good tutor should be able to adapt to his student's learning style and adjust his techniques and approaches to fit such style. If your student is the type that needs a bit of time to comprehend fully, don't rush, take it slow. Ultimately, being flexible would allow you to present information to great effect. Learning styles can be of different types, mainly seven; Verbal, Kinesthetic, Visual, Aural, Solitary, Logical and Social. Learn what your student adapts well to, and apply it. Also, knowledge of the student's medical conditions that can impair learning, like ADHD and dyslexia, would guide you on the approach to take. Additionally, students like trying out new things. So, never stick to one style of tutoring. The last thing you want to do is to sound boring.
Regular Evaluation
Evaluation is key because it is the feedback of the tutee's understanding of what was being taught. Observations alone are not enough to know to what extent your tutee comprehends, so you have to employ other methods, like taking tests.
Engage in Debates
Debates are a unique form of learning because, in essence, you're not the one teaching, but the students are doing so to themselves. This strategy is best implemented with multiple students (at least two). It entails posting a question as an issue and having students take sides. This engaging, student-centred approach will develop their cognitive skills and confidence in the knowledge they have. Debates are critical in arming students with critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity skills (often touted as the "Four C's" of the 21st-century skills).
Share experiences
Using case studies and real-life examples helps paint a picture of the information you are trying to pass across. Try sharing stories and personal experiences with them, as this increases learning interest in that tutorial session and creates a bond between you and them.
Professionalism
Above all, your approaches should speak of professionalism. Being professional and organised as a tutor earns you respect in the eyes of your student and boosts your career prospects. An undisciplined tutor will lose respect in his student's sight and crumble the special bond that is key to effective learning.
Conclusion
Tutors have the power to make or mar a student’s life. With such power comes great responsibility, as you want to make sure you do the former, not the latter.
With this knowledge and responsibility, you want to make sure that you provide the best learning experience for your student, such that they'll always remember you. The best way to do this is by employing these effective practices in your tutoring sessions to get the best from yourself and your students, impart solid knowledge, and develop a healthy relationship.
