For the past two years, COVID-19 has caused education to change drastically. Since the pandemic’s beginning, all education and tutoring have happened exclusively online. This situation has called for an emergency situation where educators have to move to online teaching quickly, which isn’t easy for many. Teaching online requires preparation and different kinds of interaction with students. This is what overwhelms most tutors.
If you are reading this blog now, you must be a tutor who is looking for advice on how to teach online classes effectively. We have simplified what works for online tutoring based on research that will help set your tutoring business up for success.
Hone different skills to become adaptable
Online teaching requires tutors to be resilient and adaptable to any situation that comes their way. Therefore, don’t limit yourself to leveraging one education technique. Instead, equip yourself with additional skills, tips, and tricks to emerge as a personal educator who attracts learners. Acquiring multiple abilities will also help you to possess the skills to respond to doubts, create interesting assignments, and guide your students through different areas and offer genuine feedback on student works.
Be flexible to embrace the unexpected
Unlike in-person teaching, online tutoring possesses a lot of challenges where technology can fail, resource links can stop working, video chat connection might be interrupted in between, and the list can just go on. When you are teaching online, be prepared to expect the unexpected. Be ready with a backup plan for classes or anything connected with teaching online to continue your work if interruptions happen. Also, be transparent in your communication with your students about technology failure or postponing a class due to any other reason. Finally, don’t hesitate to solve technical challenges in real-time, especially during real-time collaborative activities or live discussions.
Make it more personal and interactive
When you are planning your online classes, real-time or self-paced, ensure that each class is carefully tailored to meet the unique requirements of your learners. Each student has their own learning style, and it’s your job as an educator to nurture it.
However, your teaching style must be common to all sessions for your students to connect with it. Inspire your students to actively participate in the classes by participating in interactive activities and asking questions. To facilitate this type of student-teacher interaction, you must hold valid expertise in your subject area. Hence, work on strengthening your knowledge and skills in a subject area to answer students’ creative questions.
Maintain the professionalism
Even when you are tutoring your students from the comfort of your home, it still requires your professional behavior. One easy tip to be more professional is to present yourself, both in looks and attitude, as if you were teaching the students in a professional space.
Similarly, make sure you have a dedicated space that you use strictly for work. The space can be as small or big as you like, but it needs to be able to hold all the equipment and materials you will use for your tutoring sessions. The basic idea is not to waste your learners’ time finding necessary learning materials; keep everything handy and within your reach. Also, make sure to set up a fast and stable internet connection to stream your online classes smoothly.
Establish a strong community of students
When you are tutoring students online and have an established student base, it is important to create a sense of community. Demonstrate excitement about tutoring a subject to make your students comfortable and productive. Humanize yourself by creating a welcome video, incorporating instant messaging, asking questions to empower participants to question each other and elicit rich discussion. While you can have one-to-one sessions to clear doubts, respond to the community as a whole otherwise.
Create a customized online tutoring platform
You need a dedicated online tutoring platform to host your online classes and self-paced courses when tutoring online. And what’s better than building your own custom tutoring platform by maximizing the potential of your business. Building an online tutoring platform is not a cakewalk. However, there are ready-made online tutoring software whiteboards available in the market to help you create and launch an online teaching platform in no time. Pinlearn is one such white-label solution tightly packed with all the basic and advanced functionalities required for effective online tutoring. In addition, it can cater to the varying needs of tutoring businesses of all sizes and establish a profitable teaching career.
Regularly check resources and applications
Regularly check all the modules, activities, links, resources, and content overall to make sure everything is working great. Online content can change or move, which can lead to confusion and lack of engagement. Offer assistance to students who have difficulty enrolling in a class or navigating course links. Model the navigation process and clearly demonstrate how to be accountable and stay motivated during the entire learning journey.
Encourage critical thinking
As an online tutor, you are responsible for encouraging critical thinking among your students. The best teachers motivate their students to share their opinions about a particular subject, brainstorm new ideas, and ask questions at an advanced level.
Not only does it motivate your learners to solve problems virtually but also to think about the bigger picture. Keep in mind that your duty is not just to help students crack exams but to encourage critical thinking to make them smart and competent.
Begin small, then expand
Even though you might be tempted to accommodate more students as online tutoring might seem like fast revenue, don’t immediately book several classes a day. Instead, start with a small number of students so that you will have adequate time to prepare. In the beginning, it might seem challenging; it gets easier with time.
Ideally, you want to start with medium fees depending on what you offer and the niche you are tutoring. As you get the hang of online tutoring and receive more positive testimonials, you can start increasing your price for your expertise. Make sure to ask your learners for a review, which is essential to attract new students.
Conclusion
With these tips to make teaching effective, you can build a career as a successful online tutor. The most significant idea is to keep a professional attitude while bringing something unique to your work because that is what differentiates you, even in the group of the best educators.
