For over 6 years, Jon has been working for Keystone, tutoring over 170 children around the world via online tuition.
Jon covers some of the key concerns parents often have when considering online Maths tuition in the article below, bringing his extensive experience as both a tutor and a teacher to bear.
What would you say are the main benefits and drawbacks of online Maths tutoring?
Online tutoring is incredibly flexible, allowing both the tutor and student to make use of a range of different teaching techniques and resources. It’s very efficient, and makes scheduling sessions and sharing exercises and pieces of work very easy.
Is it harder for students to focus when you are teaching them online?
As a tutor, working online requires you to hone your teaching skills – looking out for any drop in focus from your students, and building new strategies for keeping them engaged. Teaching outside of a classroom or in-person tutorial setting requires just as much creativity and planning to get the best results.
Is it harder to build a relationship with students online?
Not particularly. The different communications tools we use mean that there’s still the same amount of face-to-face interaction. A lot of the tools for building a good student-tutor relationship work just as well over these mediums - the key is being genuinely interested in the students you work with. Students can always sniff out when this isn’t the case – online or offline!
What makes an effective online Maths tutor?
Having access to great tools and platforms, knowing how to move between engaging tasks in a smooth and well-structured way, and being able to question your students effectively, so you really know if they have understood the content you’re delivering.
Are there any interesting things you can do when tutoring maths online that you wouldn’t be able to do in person?
Lots – for example I’ve been able to use some online modelling software and screen share this with students to illustrate some of the learning points we’ve been working through. Also bringing in some complex graphing software has been quite cool for my students as well as for me!
Can you give an example of a student who has particularly benefited through online maths tuition with you?
I’ve taught a student who was out of school for a long time for medical reasons and access to online learning has been instrumental in them getting back into full time education. It enabled them to support their classroom work to get back up to speed as quickly as possible. They recently came top of their class in a maths test!
Online Maths tuition
Keystone Tutors have a number of highly experienced Online Maths tutors who have experience of teaching Maths across the age spectrum from 7 years old up to undergraduate level. They cover exams including 7+, 8+ and Common Entrance as well as GCSE, IGCSE, A Level, IB and Pre-U. Many of the Maths tutors we match with students are current or former teachers and many have studied Maths at top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge.
For more details on how Keystone can help with online Maths tuition, please call the office for a chat with one of our client managers, or contact us via our request a tutor form.