How one can become a successful online tutor

Schools from pre-schools to universities have turned into online tutoring as most of the interactions have become virtual due to the COVD-19 pandemic. With this shift, online tutoring has increasingly become more common and important.

Moreover, students seeking guidance from online tutoring are becoming increasing worldwide due to the convenience and flexibility offered by online education. As the current spike in online education isn’t going to change anytime soon, it has become the new norm. For the same reason, many online tutors are trying to establish their presence in the online tutoring market.

This blog is a guide to get started and work your way into building an extremely lucrative career in online tutoring and excel as a professional online tutor.

Tips to become a successful online tutor

To become a successful online teaching brand, having valid expertise as an educator is not just enough. You have to be present in the online class and invest your valuable time in communicating with your students and take efforts to make your classes efficient and engaging. Here are some of the tips to become a successful online tutor.

Be available for your students

When running online tutoring classes, understand what your students want to learn and allocate sufficient time to pay attention to them. Pre-announce your class schedules and make sure you are present in the class at least sometime before.

Never make the mistake of communicating with your students through messaging only as this could result in less engagement. Most learners require more intimate support as they need to see and hear from their teacher directly to be truly interested in a subject area.

Conduct regular review sessions so that you can collaborate with your students efficiently and see how their learning curve shapes up.

Implement fun learning

The best online tutors don’t just stick to a particular strategy when taking classes. Instead, they constantly experiment with different strategies to make the learning experience fresh and fun.
Constantly encourage your students to take up new assignments, write blogs about the topics they are learning, participate in different activities so that the learning experience becomes engaging for them. Even the most disciplined students need a change to stay motivated when attending your online classes.

Encourage critical thinking

Education is not confined to learning facts, it must encourage learners to share opinions, analyze ideas, and take steps to implement theoretical knowledge to solve particular problems. A good online teacher not only helps their students to pass an assignment, but also encourages them to be responsible citizens who can make a change in the world.

Allow students to learn at their own pace

Each student has their own learning style and speed when it comes to learning anything. Some learners might take a short time to grasp a subject, whereas others might take a long time. Some students enjoy social interaction, whereas others prefer to participate indirectly.

It is important to communicate with students who are not interactive in classes as well. These students might be leaning fine, but they might need a bit of support from your side to progress. Keep track of their progress by setting regular assignments to make sure they stay top of the learning process.

Make learning personal

As already said, each student has different learning interests and styles. To cater to your online classes to suit the individual needs of your students, try to understand your students and their requirements.

Some students like to learn through interactive activities, whereas, some are reflective learners who like to read through the learning materials and process it. Good online tutors would offer online classes according to the learning style of each student by deciding what approach to follow in each scenario.

Keep your video tutorials short

If you are offering video tutorials to your students, make sure you keep your videos short instead of delivering long lectures. Videos no longer than 15 minutes can cause distractions and slow downloading.
If you have to include a lot of points about the same subject, consider recording two or more short videos. Also, be precise when crafting the content on your videos, never drag the topic.

Craft great presentations and learning materials

Educators must be aware of how poor presentations can affect the reputation of their online classes negatively. Use online tools that are present in your online tutoring website to create engaging presentations that will not only add a professional look to your classes but also helps in advancing the pace of learning among your students.

To facilitate the same, use professional virtual tutoring software that features essential features and functionalities to create professional-looking and functional learning resources.

For example, you can use a software like Pinlearn that is blended with the tons of the best features that allow you to create an online tutoring brand. Make sure you use modern technology to grow your online tutoring brand in a way it makes the learning process convenient and efficient for your students.

Provide interactive learning activities

Most online tutoring platforms feature a wide range of functionalities to create engaging learning activities like assignments, quizzes, and puzzles.

Along with creating interactive activities for your students, provide step-step guidance to your learners on how to complete them successfully. Creating engaging activities for your student will help to foster their academic and creative skills.

Set reasonable expectations

When you create assignments and learning activities for your students, make sure you set reasonable expectations. Ensure that all the assignments can be successfully completed by your students by referring to the given learning materials.

Also, ask your students to write a summary of your video classes. These kinds of small tasks will help to bring the best responses and results from your learners.

Leverage group communication carefully

Group collaborations should not be used for general teaching sessions regularly. Use group communication carefully. Use group classes to offer support to your students and to check if there are any issues that need to be addressed.

These sessions can also be great to collect learner feedback on your online classes and teaching style as well. You can either make group classes mandatory or optional according to the interest and requirements of your students.

Conclusion

Online education has grown leaps and bounds since its inception. These days’ educators are looking for how to create an online course and take their business forward. Students across the world are looking for online teachers who can deliver personalized learning experiences to suit the personal learning objectives and learning styles of students.

For becoming a successful online tutor, you must be able to customize your classes by adapting to the strengths and weaknesses of learners along with delivering classes to the learner’s medium of interest.
Following the above-discussed tips will help you evolve as a successful online tutor. Hope this blog has helped to gain some significant insights on growing your online tutoring brand. Please share your valuable feedback as comments below. We would like to hear from you.

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About the Author

Kathy Alameda works as leading expert on building and implementing learning strategies. She has led learning & performance improvement projects form last few years. Currently marketing consultant at https://www.pinlearn.com/