It’s the year 2030 and it’s dinner time. Max just joined the table after finishing his online calculus tutoring session. Mom turns to Max, “How was your session?” “It was great!” responds Max, “Today I actually understood how limits work!” Dad says “I’m glad you had a great time and are here with us for dinner. Can you imagine back in the day people had to actually drive for private tutoring?””Hah!,” Max sighs, “Yes, I’ve heard about that.” He continued, sarcastically, “Did you also have to walk in mud and snow and climb rocks to get to school?” Mom laughs and says, “How old do you think we are! That was probably our grand grandparents…”
That’s what the future landscape of private tutoring will look like in just a few years, especially for high school and adult students. The 2020 global pandemic initiated a rapid and unstoppable growth in education technology and online learning market that has lead to stronger connectivity and high functioning interactive boards optimized for online learning. Since then, and even as public participation is reaching its pre-pandemic level, a lot of students and families still prefer online to in-person tutoring.
I give you some of my own stats: I am a professional tutor and have been tutoring full-time for several years tutoring an average 20-30 hours per week. Prior to the pandemic, all of my sessions were conducted in-person except occasional Skype sessions for students across the state border. During the pandemic all of my students moved to the online space for which I used, and still use, Bitpaper (I love this platform!) After schools opened and since last spring still 90% of my students chose to be tutored remotely; these were high school students whom I taught subjects such as Precalc, AP Calc or Physics, SAT/ACT Prep or more advanced math such as Multivariable or linear algebra. The small in-person percentage were 8th graders whose parents wanted them to come in. Right now that I have started my own online tutoring business and don’t tutor in-person anymore, I still have all of those students plus some new ones who prefer to work with me remotely. It just works better for these older kids for reasons that I will go into in a bit.
The transition of learning preference to online rather than in-person is more than just a matter of convenience; it is a paradigm shift in learning and one of those historical examples of how unforeseen external circumstances can force us into a new phase of evolution and a new way we think and do things. Online tutoring is now the preferred learning method for most high school and adult students because of efficiency and better results.
There’s not doubt that in-person tutoring works better for younger students in the K-8 range because of the physical supervision element, and that’s a good thing because they’re still learning how to learn. However, when it comes to high school and adult students and their academics and test prep needs, the thriving benefits of online tutoring easily beat the few surviving benefits of in-person tutoring. The idea that these students pay more attention in an in-person than an online setting has proven to be inaccurate. It all has to do with the tutor’s experience level and skills in keeping the students interested and engaged. The right online tutor will be far more effective in educating and getting results than the wrong in-person tutor simply because the learning process doesn’t happen in the physical space but rather in a shared intellectual/spiritual flow that’s initiated and maintained by the skilled tutor.
The common bias that downplays the effectiveness of online tutoring comes from this false notion that a tutor can better control the student’s attention when they’re in the same room together. But, being physically confined in a space and with another person poses no limits to the wandering mind. We don’t need phones or other screens to get distracted; if we’re bored in a long conversation or an off-topic lecture in a meeting, we can always open browsers with many tabs in the always available space of our minds to avoid listening. We’ve all been there and done that. So, it’s up to the tutor to know and apply the right, and often personalized, rules of engagement during their online tutoring session in order to connect to the student and keep them engaged.
But there is always resistance to change. Remember when Amazon started selling books online in the 90s? People had a hard time transitioning to buying books online at first. We thought we had to see and touch the book and flip through it before purchasing it. But we’ve moved past that prejudice. Visiting a bookstore is now a rare event, perhaps an accidental encounter when passing by a bookstore and having time to kill. I still prefer reading a physical book instead of a digital copy, but when it comes to purchasing books, doing it online is way more convenient, safer, more efficient, and of course more affordable.
The same is true of online tutoring, and I strongly believe that traveling for the sake of private tutoring will soon become a thing of the past, especially for more mature students. So, using my own experience as a professional tutor and the experience of other tutors and families, I’ve listed the 7 main reasons why online tutoring is better and more effective than in-person tutoring for high school and adult students.
#1 Saving Time
Imagine the amount of time a student or a tutor has to spend in traffic to get to their tutoring session. Where I live (D.C. metropolitan area), a student spends at least 1 hour in traffic to have a session at a tutoring center. With the dense school curriculums and extracurricular activities that an average student deals with, this is an unnecessary and even harmful waste of time. As a math tutor, I’d rather have my students spend that time working on practice problems that otherwise aren’t completed due to lack of time. And that’s where real improvement happens, when notes are reviewed and applied regularly between tutoring sessions.
How about having the tutor travel to the student? It depends on the level of quality and professionalism expected by the parents. Let’s think it through: first of all, professional and experienced tutors do it as a full-time job and not as a side hustle; they either run a tutoring business or have students come to them simply because it’s not economically feasible to spend the same amount of time driving as tutoring; this would mean settling for half of their potential income and, even more importantly, not spending time on improving their content knowledge, tutoring skills, and their business. It’s a very simple rule: when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.
On the other hand, who likes a tutor showing up to their home sweaty and stressed and perhaps shocked by the unpredictable state of the nowadays always-under-construction roads! As a parent I’d rather see that tutor spend that travel time either prepping more or creating better plans for the session, studying and staying up-to-date in their niche and skills, or improving their business and helping more students. So, as you see, no matter who does the traveling for a tutoring session to happen, unnecessary time is wasted that can otherwise best spent on improving the quality and effectiveness of the learning experience.
#2 Saving Money
Online tutoring is less costly than in-person tutoring simply because the time, the energy, and the supplies for conducting online sessions is minimized if not entirely eliminated. Nowadays, traveling tutors charge extra for the time and gas and wear and tear it takes to see their students; and they have every right to do so and for very good reasons such as inflation and the rise in gas prices. The same is true when a student travels to a tutoring center where the costs of space, power, staff, and the supplies that go into conducting the session is calculated into the hourly rate, and add to it how much is spent on gas for making this happen on a regular basis. So, think about how much extra money goes into making a session happen, and consider enjoying that same experience with the same or even better results without the extra fees.
With online tutoring, all these costs are eliminated. The only new cost would be that of using an online platform for conducting the sessions. With the significant technological improvements in this industry over the past two years, these platforms have become so accessible and affordable that it would cost tutors less than $1-$2 to conduct a 1-hour session using an interactive whiteboard. As a result of spending less to no money on gas, utilities, and supplies, tutoring fees for online sessions are naturally lower and more affordable.
#3 More Choices for Parents
There are many factors involved in a successful tutoring session: tutor’s personality, content-experience, and engagement skills, and also the student’s learning style and personality. It makes perfect sense to look for a tutor that is the best match for your student. Without the right experience and chemistry, learning falls apart. It’s proven that personalized learning is far more effective and inclusive than the traditional one-size-fit-all education. If the content delivery and the learner aren’t on the same frequency, learning becomes a cumbersome experience for all parties involved.
Now you do the math! What’s the likelihood of finding that one tutor(s) who is the best fit for your student’s needs in your neighborhood or city? Well, much lower than if you expanded your circle to other cities or states or even globally. By being open to online tutoring, parents open the door to endless possibilities in a quality education that can have a lifelong impact on their children. I know many professional online tutors, including myself, who offer discounts and free trial sessions for promotional reasons and also for giving families a chance to see if they’re a good fit for their student, a win-win trial that benefits both parties. Distance and time-zone shouldn’t deprive students from getting their best learning experiences. Who knows, maybe a student’s best fit in both personality and learning style is a tutor on the opposite coast or even across the ocean!
#4 24/7 Access to Session Notes
An integral part of any learning experience is taking notes of the most important parts of the lesson so to process and apply them later. Every tutor is familiar and perhaps frustrated with the high resistance of kids to taking notes during the session. And when they do take notes, it’s so rushed and unorganized that they either lose the notes or the order of the pages, or they can’t read their own hand-writing. And this is not to include the idle time during which the tutor waits for the student to jot down the important stuff, if they do. How, then, can students effectively retain the meat of a tutoring session after the session is over and the board is wiped clean?
Well, this problem, too, is non-existent in online tutoring if you work with an experienced tutor because all of the session notes and content are placed and preserved on a forever-board that is always accessible to the student. For example, I use Bitpaper as my tutoring platform which is great for math and science learning. My students gets access to this interactive board through a link that I share with them. I paste specific problems on the board and write down detailed notes, solution-steps, and formulas while I teach. As a tutor, I do the note-taking for the student so they can watch and listen carefully to the lesson. The link never expires and the pages are always accessible, so the student can open and view them at any time. This allows the student to stay focused during the session while being able to review and apply the steps later as they were worked out on the board.
One of my favorite perks of online tutoring and working with interactive forever-boards is the realtime access to unlimited resources while working with a student. It’s a very common and unpredictable part of tutoring sessions where the tutor must digress to address a gap in the student’s understanding and provide new problems at the exact level of complexity needed for the student to bridge that gap. This is quite difficult to achieve during an in-person session. The exact resources or textbooks are unlikely to be around, and it’s not easy to make up an advanced math problem on cue that has workable numbers or leads to the intended outcome. But as an online math tutor, I can find and drag and drop the exact resource or problem I need within seconds, either using my own digital resources or other online resources. Sky is the limit when it comes to this level of flexibility. Imagine how much enrichment this can bring to a session where the tutor can help the student on the spot when surprises show up. In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful advantages of online tutoring.
#5 Flexibility with Travel & Relocation
Imagine how many times people lose good tutors because the tutor might move out of the area or the neighborhood or can’t afford the time to travel to the tutoring session! Or perhaps it’s the family that might move farther away or one kid going to college and still wanting to work with their old tutor. This can happen to tutors too (Yes, we do travel!.) For example, I travel to Italy a few months a year to spend time with my wife who lives there and can’t yet come the U.S. until her visa is prepared. Parents still want me to keep working with their kids, and that is a mutual feeling. Online tutoring has allowed us to keep the sessions intact while I am abroad. I once did one of my multivariable calculus sessions from the the beautiful Island of Elba in the Mediterranean sea. See, deep connections don’t have be lost just because we go away.
No matter the geographical changes in the tutor’s or the student’s life, the learning flow doesn’t have to be interrupted. Through online learning, good connections with skilled tutors are no more contingent upon geographical changes. To lose contact with a good tutor or to jeopardize the consistency of tutoring sessions over geographical changes, however temporary, is no more necessary. In another examples, online platforms have allowed me to work with students who were on extended summer vacations but still wanted to spend a small part of their time on learning and staying connected with their knowledge. This is especially beneficial for test prep students where any break from the sessions can have a negative impact on the student’s upward momentum and readiness for the test.
#6 Health & Safety
Due the effects of the 2020 global pandemic, everyone is now operating with a heightened awareness of health and hygiene. Under certain conditions, and more conditions now than ever, it might not be a good idea for the student and the tutor to be in close contact. Given the new tools and technologies, that’s not a good enough reason to disrupt a tutoring session unless one party is really out of it. Even as the pandemic is fading, health concerns are still in place. With two years of necessary isolation and the ensuing decline in herd immunity on the one hand, and schools and public becoming more relaxed about masks on the other, the 2022-23 school year will see a lot of kids getting sick and having to isolate due to common cold or flu if not Covid or new viral diseases. This can create major disruptions to in-person tutoring sessions. This is equally true for tutors too who might have symptoms or be too ill to drive to the student but still able to run their sessions remotely.
With online tutoring, sessions can still happen as long as the student and the tutor are able to stay present for an hour from the comfort of their homes. It’s safer for both. Who knows if one party is asymptomatic with Covid or perhaps just picked up a couple Monkeypoxes on the way to the session. Online tutoring eliminates all these health risks not just for the tutor or the student but for the whole family and the network of people with whom they will be in contact.
#7 Environmental Impacts
Last but not least is the positive environmental impact of opting for online tutoring. I call online tutoring green learning as it’s a learning process with minimal carbon foot print. Electricity, heat, and transportation, as major components in in-person tutoring sessions, together make up 46% of greenhouse gas emissions. Also, think about the amount of plastic office supplies that’s used in tutoring centers and amount of paper and trees wasted for in-person learning. So much is saved when you transition to online tutoring. In my tutoring sessions, all homework and supplemental material come in the form of files and PDFs that I share with students through Google Drive. Besides making things super organized and accessible to students at anytime, it’s a very clean and environment-friendly way of conducting a tutoring session.
On another plane, by eliminating the need for the family or the tutor to commute to their sessions, online tutoring minimizes traffic and pollution. Yes, it matters! Everything we do matters however small. In the area I live, a very high percentage of students see a tutor at least once a week, and either the tutor or the student will have to spend an average of one hour in commute to the session. That adds up to a lot of carbon dioxide in the air we breathe. It’s not so sane to go through all this to access services that can be perfectly delivered through an online, clean space.
It’s not often that we hear about hazards of chemical supplies professional tutors are exposed to on a daily basis. Aside from cleaning supplies that are now a part of everyday office cleaning before and after seeing a student in a tutoring center, the continuous exposure to toxins in dry erase markers and whiteboard sprays can’t possibly be good for us. Working in indoor environment as a tutor, I always end up with lasting headaches after using these sprays. This is one of those things that we may not pay much attention to or may even downplay the risks now and regret later. Did we not do the same thing with cigarettes 50 years ago when we smoked indoors and next to kids and elderly, on plane or in the office? There was a similar situation with the hazards of chuck dust which was a totally ignored part of teaching in the previous century. Just look at one of these studies here to see how that worked out for our teachers. Perhaps we will be in the same position about these modern toxins a few decades from now and a hundred respiratory illnesses later. Why should we be so careless with the health of our educators and future-builders!
With online tutoring, all of these unnecessary environmental risks and downsides are minimized if not entirely eliminated. We can still get the same quality and results by transitioning to online tutoring unless we absolutely can’t or when the results are compromised.
Conclusion
We can see for ourselves the numerous benefits of opting for online tutoring when it comes to high school and adult students: eliminating wasted time and money, access to more and better tutoring options, and guaranteeing consistency in learning within a safe and clean environment are just a few among the many. We all want the best quality education for our children, and it’s important to know that there are many high quality professional tutors that have transitioned to online tutoring for some or all of the above reasons. It works best for most tutors and students alike, and it’s here to stay and thrive. Online tutoring promises freedom and unlimited growth without compromising our inner and outer environment.
