subject: What Makes a Great Tutor? [print this page] What Makes a Great Tutor? What Makes a Great Tutor?
Due to the growing significance of education, many parents and schools choose to employ tutors. Parents employ freelancer tutors and consider private tutoring services. Parents employ instructors for jobs such as math tutoring, and SAT prep. Unfortunately, many parents do not exactly comprehend what makes a good tutor.
Tutors at times feel that they are well suited because they possess adequate knowledge of the course matter. Various people say that one possesses adequate knowledge of a subject when he can talk about the subject. But, there are many other aspects to being a capable tutor and having enough knowledge in the course will not completely make the tutor an efficient tutor.
Of course, understanding the subject matter is important to being a capable tutor. No tutor is capable to comprehensively explain material to a struggling student if he does not understand it well enough himself. That does not imply that the tutor has to have every single detail of the subject memorize. But the tutor must be able to comprehend the subject matter after a brief review before the session.
Simple knowledge of a subject is generally insufficient to be an efficient tutor. A tutor has to have true knowledge of a subject. For example, an beginner math tutor may know the Quadratic formula but a great tutor can also derive it. A decent Literature tutor knows the plot and themes of To Kill a Mockingbird. But a great tutor also comprehends the history behind the novel.
A efficient tutor should be an experienced tutor. The more experienced the tutor is, the more likely he will address the student's issues. Inexperienced tutors should first consider volunteering and tutoring family and friends before charging for their services.
Another important factor of tutoring is having good communication skills. A tutor has to not only be knowledgeable about the subject matter but also be able to satisfactorily explain it. Someone may be able to solve any math problem but he will not necessarily make his solution understandable to the student.
A good tutor is a good evaluator of the student's performance. Usually, students do not understand exactly what their difficulties in a course are. They often just know that they are having difficulty or that they are getting failing grades. A good tutor can understand what gaps and misunderstandings the student has and can give a review of these specific subject areas.
Another characteristic of a good tutor is the capability to acknowledge the student's situation. Students who work with tutors usually are frustrated and a tutor should never push the situation worse. Also, students can at times have learning disabilities so a tutor may need to explain certain aspects differently or use an easier tutoring pace. They should also be forgiving of minor misbehavior by a student as the misbehavior may be caused by stress.
