Just as in a traditional classroom, engagement in online math tutoring is the gateway between students and understanding鈥攐r even enjoying鈥攖he content they鈥檙e trying to learn. The moment a student becomes invested in learning the material, everything gets easier.
Students turn to tutoring based on a range of experiences. Some are forced into it and come with a negative attitude from the beginning and are thus already shut off to the idea. Others come for enrichment, to dive deeper than they can go in the classroom.
If they鈥檙e spending time with a tutor, whether it鈥檚 because they are struggling or because they want more challenge, they may already have a hard time engaging in class, if they ever had been. As a teacher who鈥檚 worked in both traditional and virtual classrooms and as an online math tutor, here鈥檚 how I engage my students and do my best to instill a love of math.
What does online math tutoring engagement look like?
As many teachers found out during remote learning, checking for student engagement in a virtual setting is different than in a classroom. We have a small window through which to see students, and even that disappears if they turn their cameras off.
To see if students are engaged, I keep an eye on their background to make sure they aren鈥檛 running around the house or riding somewhere in a car. I also pay attention to their eyes. If they鈥檙e glancing up and down or side to side, they may be taking notes. Or they might be distracted by something on a second screen. As they respond to you during the session, it should be pretty easy to tell whether darting eyes are a sign of studious note-taking or distraction.
Sometimes I use third-party websites with review games, and I like the ones that show me exactly what students are doing. If you can actively monitor them, it鈥檚 clear if they鈥檙e engaged, even if you can鈥檛 see their face.
Just as in a traditional classroom, the best way to tell if a student is engaged is whether they are asking you questions. Unfortunately, it鈥檚 also the most difficult sign of engagement to come by. I find that this is often a matter of training, so I encourage them to ask questions often, especially with new students.
Challenges and advantages of online tutoring
There are both challenges and advantages to online tutoring when it comes to . When I was in school, I was a shy kid who was afraid to share answers in class. If I had been able to share privately with my teacher, it would have made me more confident and maybe even more likely to be correct because I wouldn鈥檛 have been distracted by the social pressure of my peers around me. The more intimate setting of tutoring helps many students feel safe enough to give answers more frequently, get them right or wrong, and learn from those successes and failures.
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One challenge of online tutoring is that it鈥檚 easy for students to hide behind their computers. Their camera is the only window in, and it doesn鈥檛 show you what they can see or interact with. They could have the TV on behind the computer, a browser window open or any number of other distractions. They can even turn the camera off and leave you feeling like you鈥檙e talking to yourself with a black screen for company.
I find that the best way to discourage hiding behind the computer is to encourage them to connect with me through it instead. It feels a little more like being an actor than a math teacher sometimes, but especially in the first few sessions, I act extra excited to be there and look for any opportunities I can find to relate to them. I ask them what their hobbies or interests are and tell them about myself to show that I鈥檓 a human being and not some kind of math tutoring artificial intelligence.
A more practical challenge in online tutoring is that sometimes students are not comfortable with the technology and may not want to use the tools. The platform I tutor with, Remind Tutoring, has intuitive tools that students pick up quickly, but just getting students new to tutoring to use them the first time can be difficult.
Here, being animated and excited is also helpful. If I鈥檓 fun and enthusiastic, my students are less likely to worry about looking silly if they don鈥檛 know how to do something. I also work to be as accommodating as I can by letting them show their work in any way they鈥檙e comfortable with or showing them how to use the tools, even if it means using a document camera to show them what I鈥檓 doing.
One of the hardest challenges of engaging tutoring students online is getting through to those who just don鈥檛 want to be there. When a student just gives one-word answers or says, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know鈥 in response to everything, finding your opening can be a bit harder than when you鈥檙e together in person because you鈥檙e not in each other鈥檚 space, picking up on facial expressions and body language in the same way. It can be harder to pick up on a student鈥檚 confusion or frustration, and it can take longer for them to see me as a supportive presence who鈥檚 not going to judge them and only wants to help.
Building relationships over time
If a student doesn鈥檛 want to be in tutoring, the only solution I鈥檝e found is to build a relationship with them over time. It can take some patience, but it鈥檚 worth it, and building those relationships helps all students, not just those who would rather not see a tutor.
Students gain more confidence the longer they work with the same person. I just received an email from the parent of a student I鈥檝e been tutoring for about two years thanking me for helping her to find her confidence as we move from Geometry to Algebra 2. Her little sister is about to start middle school and I鈥檒l be tutoring her as well, so sometimes tutoring means we build a relationship with the whole family.
I鈥檓 able to create and send progress reports and summaries of sessions to students鈥 families every week and to track against the goals we have collectively set. This helps families be more engaged with their student鈥檚 learning and progress, and families of younger students in particular seem to appreciate the communication.
When I first start with a student, I receive a lot of notes and emails from their families thanking me for the feedback. It drops off with time, but that usually just means that the student is taking more responsibility for their tutoring and doesn鈥檛 need their family checking in on them as regularly. Once students are in the swing of things and everything is going well, families tend to keep an eye on summaries and progress reports more as a means of making sure everything is still on track.
Summaries in particular are also helpful in keeping students engaged. If their parents are involved, the student is going to receive praise that encourages them to keep working but they are also directly helpful to students. It鈥檚 a good teaching strategy to follow lessons up with a review of what you covered, and it helps students feel a sense of accomplishment to see what they did.
Since our summaries are all modeled on a growth mindset, they include a student鈥檚 strengths and the areas where they鈥檝e made progress鈥攇rowths, as they鈥檙e called in the platform鈥攁nd a look ahead to where we鈥檒l try to help them grow next. Even if they had a bad day at school or a challenging tutoring session, they get a positive reminder of all the progress their hard work is creating to help them build confidence. It鈥檚 a nice bow on top of the end of the session for both students and their families.
Online tutoring may have its own challenges and advantages, but in the end, it鈥檚 not that much different than any other kind of teaching. It鈥檚 important to show up organized and prepared because most students are not going to tell a tutor what they want to learn. Tutors need to be open and vulnerable to students because we are asking them to do the same by engaging in learning, which requires risking failure, tackling difficult challenges and admitting we don鈥檛 already know everything.
And as tutors, we need to be aware of how much we can take on. Building relationships with students takes a lot more time, energy and mental space than simply explaining math concepts to someone in a video chat.
