5 Tips for Tutors

5 Tips for Tutors

5 Tips for Tutors

If your are tutoring for the first time, or even if you are an experienced tutor, there are always lessons to learn to help improve your skills at conveying information. Because tutors work more closely with students than do teachers, tutoring tends to be a more personal, social job that requires specific attention to students' needs. This article covers several basic tips and tricks tutors can use to build up their credibility and reputation and to maximize their experience with their students.

1. Get to know your student but not too much

Tutoring is an opportunity to get to know your student on more than just an academic level. Provided that the relationship stays within appropriate parameters, becoming friends with your student can improve the quality of the tutoring experience and even make the student excited for your next session. The last thing you want is the student to resent or feel bored during your tutoring sessions.

2. Come up with practice problems to see where the student needs improvement

No matter what subject you aretutoring, coming up with personalized practice problems is the best way to track your student's progress and see where she needs improvement. Start easy and then make the problems get harder as they go on. See what questions it raises in the student and take a mental note of it. Try not to use problems you found in a textbook or other educational resource; if you create the problem yourself, you'll have an easier time explaining how to solve it.

3. Incorporate relevant examples and stories into your lesson plan

Another reason to get to know your student's likes and dislikes is that it can make thelesson plan more interesting. When you are trying to convey a certain idea or topic to your student, incorporate people, places, or things into your explanation that you know she likes and understands. Make your lesson more accessible for the student and unique to her tastes. This is a feature of tutoring that your student can't receive in the classroom so take advantage of it.

4. It's better to say what you don't know

If you come to a lesson plan or specific problem that stumps you, it is better to admit what you don't know rather than mislead the student or ignore the subject entirely. It is not the end of the world if there are certain problems you can't immediately solve; tutoring is more spontaneous thanteaching because, in many cases, it is up to the student to provide the material. Not knowing the material with which you are presented is a good way to slowly and thoroughly go through the lesson plan together. Chances are, you will quickly remember the subject you thought you didn't know, and you will have an easier time explaining it to the student since the topic is newly refreshed in your mind.

5. Be fun but make sure the student takes you seriously

If your tutoring session lasts an hour, devote five or so minutes strictly to taking a break from the academics. Telling a few jokes or laughing with your student not only lightens what may be a rigorous educational experience, but it also gives you time to bond. If your student likes you as a person, she will be more likely to trust you and focus on what you have to say during the academic session. However, while it is important to incorporate fun into the lesson plan, make sure you don't go overboard. Make sure the student remembers that you're a tutor and your main goal is to help the student learn.

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