Do you need help with revisions, homework or exams? Are you struggling to keep pace with the school syllabus? Are you stuck with a poor or absent teacher? Do you require support and guidance to complete a University thesis? Are you children failing their subjects in school?
Whatever reasons you may have, finding the right tutor, online or in person, could be the most important decision you make this year. While you could always find excellent tutors at popular sites such as Revision Centre, sometimes it pays to learn more about the tutoring landscape first to enable you to make a better hiring decision.
Conversely, if you are considering a full or part-time career in tutoring, we will also provide relevant and useful topics that will help you to get started.
Why Do You Need Tutoring?
It is important to understand that practically every student cannot absorb their school curriculums simply by attending classes (unless they possess a genius-level IQ). For one thing, rote learning plays a vital part in the public schooling system at any level. Students are expected to memorise huge amounts of texts, concepts and formulas. This can only be achieved through daily revisions at home, since there is only so much time allocated for each lesson in school.
The size of a classroom correlates with the level of personalised attention students receive. Image courtesy of Pixabay.
This brings us to the second problem – the quality of teaching. If the quality of teaching is substandard, students won’t be able to capture the essence of lessons, and as such, their revisions will be adversely affected. Beyond the quality teachers, the large number of students in classes also prevents teachers from helping individual students struggling with certain topics. At the end of the day, they will be left revising stuff they have a poor grasp of. It’s like pushing a bicycle for hours because you still haven’t learnt to ride it.
This is where tutors come in. They can provide students with personalised teaching that students won’t get in packed classrooms. This is particularly important for less than gifted students, or those suffering from visual or hearing impairments or learning disorders.
Once students are able to fully grasp their lessons, tutors can then begin to help them develop proper revision techniques and habits. Revision is not simply about reading – students must learn how to summarise content, take notes and ask questions. The latter is especially useful, as asking the right questions encourages self-directed learning and can further enhance understanding and data recall.
Having good studying habits will also be critical once students reach universities, as class instructions will be even less than in schools.
Above all though, getting the basics right will make learning and studying more enjoyable for students. There is a clear roadmap to revisions and the sense of achievement from mastering topics and concepts will only spur them harder.
On a broader level, particularly for parents, tutors help to improve academic performance, which will ultimately translate to better schools, better career prospects and better quality of life for children. Isn’t that what every parents want?