What should you look for when hiring an online tutor?

What should you look for in an online tutor? Many factors can help you determine if someone is a good fit as an online tutor. Some of these factors include:

• Willingness to provide a free introductory lesson. By providing value upfront tutors can show their commitment to the student and can transmit a sense of trust and respect.
• Use of the right technology. Tutors that are tech-savvy and knowledgeable with regards to online tools available tend to foster good online learning experiences.
• Strong knowledge of their subject matter. Although obvious, the tutor must naturally show they are an expert in the field they teach.
• Must enjoy teaching online and can seamlessly make online learning fun and engaging. In contrast to in-person tutoring, online tutoring can be challenging in terms of engaging students and preventing fatigue. Examples of strategies that tutors commonly use are online learning games and fun activities.
• Always has a contingency plan in place. Teaching online means that a lot of factors involved in the lesson escape the control of the tutor. Therefore, they must be prepared to react should problems arise. For example, the online platform of choice can crash during or before a lesson, the internet connection can be down, there can be power cuts, their computer or laptop can stop working. There is always a solution to these problems and the tutor needs to be prepared to problem-solve.
• The tutor should always demonstrate a good level of preparation and have plenty of resources to use during lessons. Those tutors who prepare their lessons can make sure they keep students’ needs in mind and always strive to make the lesson effective, engaging and goal-oriented.

These qualities are what clients should look for when hiring an online tutor so keep them all in mind if you want to find someone who can help you or your child succeed

P.S. We at LessonWise provide Tutors with the ‘Prepare the Classroom’ feature. This incredibly convenient functionality allows tutors to prepare the online whiteboard in advance and enables them to add the resources and annotations they plan to use during the lesson, thus helping them strive for the best quality of lesson possible!