As traditional education makes a radical shift to remote learning, it becomes important for tutors across the globe to adopt online tutoring.
Being familiar with classroom-based teaching style, you need some careful planning and preparation before you start with online tutoring.
Running a tutoring business comes up with a lot of challenges, so we have put in some research and gathered valuable tips you can follow to prepare for a remote teaching environment.
Set up a Professional Working Environment
The importance of having an adequate working environment cannot be stressed enough. Even if you are working from home, your professionalism and self-discipline must talk for you.
Although you can teach from anywhere in the world, you must create a perfect teaching environment for yourself.
Keep the space inviting as it is where you spend your productive hours. Also, keep the teaching environment distraction-free so that your students can have a great learning experience.
Plan Your Online Classes
Live online classes are quite different from classroom-based sessions and hence require a different approach.
As your learners are not physically present, their needs are different, and the type of attention and engagement needed is also different. Think from their perspective and offer the support they need at a given time.
Give clear instructions, boundaries, and guidelines and clarify how the class will process. This will help you to create and maintain a good learning environment.
Prior to the start of your class, share the syllabus and course materials with your students as well.
Conduct Practice Sessions
Before your online classes:
- Conduct practice sessions to rehearse your online classes.
- Rehearse as if you are talking to your learners.
- Include every detail, step by step, exactly as you plan to do in your live class.
For example, if you plan to ask questions to students every 25 minutes, include that also during practicing.
Rehearsing in front of the camera will also make you more comfortable during the real presentation.
Incorporate Methods to Engage Passive Learners
Plan for effective ways to help your learners interact and engage in your live class. Keep in mind that all students aren’t self-motivated.
Hence, you need to ensure that you give attention to students who need additional support.
The tone is something that has a huge impact in a live online class. A formal and intense tone combined with a professional attire set a professional learning atmosphere.
At the same time, a relaxed and conversational tone can set a warmer environment and foster a sense of community.
Choose a Platform to Host Live Classes
When it comes to hosting online classes, there are many options. However, the best tool you choose must align with your context and goals.
There is something special about conducting live classes using video. It’s exactly like being with your students in person.
You can use tutor management software to build your online tutoring marketplace to achieve that.
Maintain Good Communication With Your Learners
Make it a practice to communicate with students individually as students can easily get distracted in an online learning environment.
And sometimes, they require your intervention to get back on track. Try interacting with your students to keep them engaged and accountable.
Ensure that you dedicate a specific amount of time each week where you will be available for interaction and let your learners know the timings when they can contact you outside your online classroom.
Incorporate Projects and Assignments
When conducting live online classes, make sure you add projects and assignments to your curriculum just like you would do in a traditional class.
Encourage your students to participate in discussion forums and online groups on social platforms.
Make sure your students submit the assignments and projects using your online tutoring platform.
Design Your Digital Experience
When running a tutoring business, think about how you want to deliver your classes- Whether it should be live classes or a combination of both live and pre-recorded classes.
It would be best to consider where you are planning to teach from. Do you want to teach from your living room or home office?
Maybe you want to teach from your normal classes and broadcast your classes to your learners.
Keep the following things in mind to deliver the best user experience when teaching online:
Ease of Use
Make sure the teaching environment you use is easy to access.
Student Interaction
Facilitate student interaction to make the learning process much more like real interactions in a classroom.
Custom Branding
Make sure you have adequate support to create custom branding for your tutoring business.
Collect Valuable Feedback From Students
Student feedback can be valuable when you are trying to design online classes or courses that your students will benefit from.
Ask your students for their valuable feedback to understand how satisfied they are with your classes.
For example, are they receiving all the necessary information they require?
Are they getting adequate support during the classes? Do they know where to look for help in case of any challenges regarding learning or usage of the platform?
Remember that student feedback works as constructive feedback on what to improve in your classes.
Conclusion
Online teaching is a wonderful opportunity as it’s a growing market for potential teachers, current educators, and giant educational institutions.
Conduct proper research, create a professional teaching setup, plan your teachings, and start tutoring your students with confidence.
Once you start approaching your classes with careful planning, you will be laying the groundwork for better online tutoring that can help you find success in your career.
