Learning with Online Tutors in India

By: Supriya Kashyap

Date Published: June 26, 2020

Last Updated: July 7, 2020

Online tutors in Gurgaon have adopted to the digitalization of home tuitions in the last four years or so. Many students of IB and IGCSE curriculum opt for online tuitions in different subjects. Since mid-march this year, due to restrictions in the face to face interactions with students at their homes because of COVID-19, a number of home tutors in Delhi-NCR, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta, Jaipur, Pune and other cities of India have started taking online tuitions. Parents and the students are also settling down with the idea of online tuitions using a web portal such as Skype or Google Meet. Expert and experienced IB tutors can bring in the innovativeness required while teaching in an online environment. For students of XI and XII (IBDP) this system of web-based tutoring sessions was already effective as a number of students were already opting for academic help in Maths, Physics, Economics, and other subjects on a regular basis. Due to coronavirus pandemic now the students of the middle year programs (IB MYP) are now also switching to web-based tutoring solutions in lieu of home tuitions as everyone wants to stay home and be safe from getting exposed to coronavirus. However, parents and the students are having few concerns too with respect to web-based tutoring solutions for the required academic help in different subjects. This article discusses some of the possible concerns of the parents and the students for having online tuitions and ways to mitigate or solve such concerns:

Screen Time

Parents not only in India but around the world have always wanted to restrict reasonably the screen time of their children. With smartphones, electronic tablets, and personal computers present in every household in urban areas, now the digital media is virtually everywhere. Kids have already been spending 3 - 4 hours or more in front of digital media while using a mobile phone or for watching a video on their laptops. Now, with online tuitions, this screen time is going to increase. However, an innovative tutor will make sure that during a class of 30 or 60 minutes, the child is not continuously looking at the screen for more than 3 minutes in a stretch. As the student and the tutor are interacting on the internet, after every 3 minutes or so, the student does some calculations or takes notes using a pen and paper for the next 4-5 minutes or so. This way 60% of the time spent by a student in a web-based tutoring session is spent on going through his/her books, or in making notes of important concepts or formula, or in practicing some other important written work.

Personal Connection

An expert and an experienced tutor will be able to establish an in-person interaction with the student even in an internet-based environment. A qualified and experienced tutor knows how to keep the attention of the student during an online class and will continue providing the required motivation needed to learn new concepts. An experienced and expert tutor knows the art of establishing a personal connection with the student to help the student acquire the academic skills needed to do better at school. Expert tutors are able to observe the facial expressions of the students during an internet-based class and can modify their teaching style to suit the learning style of their students. Even for difficult concepts such as word problems, algebraic expressions, trigonometry, or creative writing, an expert web-based tutor can be as effective as a traditional home tutor.

Monitoring academic progress

Parents can effectively monitor the academic progress of their children when they learn in an online environment with their tutor. A qualified and expert one-on-one web-based tutor with his/her long experience in helping students will be able to give you a planned study-lessons specific to your child beforehand only. A schedule of every 5 or 10 sessions can be planned and shared with the parents. The content of the teaching sessions will not only include the concepts that the tutor will be covering but also will include the assessment part as well. Assignments and tests on the topics already taught will be given to the students regularly and using a printer these assignments and tests can be printed by the students. The tutor will be happy to evaluate these assignments and will send them back to the student for review.

Privacy and security

Parents are advised to create a separate user id and email for the purpose of such web-based tutoring sessions. Albeit, in the present day scenario kids as young as 8 years old understand the importance of online privacy and are less likely to share the password of their email with another person, but if there is an apprehension that the child is too young to understand the privacy and safety issues then it is advisable that the password for skype and email should not be shared with the child and the parent should keep a control over the password with themselves only. The weekly schedule of the online classes should be prepared in coordination with the respective tutor in such a way that during the web-based sessions, one of the parents is keeping an eye on the student while the tutor is giving lessons. Overhearing the conversation of the child with the student from a distance and peeping on the screen of the child every 10 minutes or so is a good idea. Parents can also record the online sessions of the child with the tutors for not only better supervision of the online safety issues but also for making the child revise those concepts in the future as and when required. Parents can also request the tutor to share their id-cards for just keeping a record and for additional safety.

This way parents can see that online tuitions are a viable and effective alternative to home tuitions. Students can continue learning without moving out of their home with customized study plans by one-on-one tutors who will provide effective, undiverted, and individual attention to the students of different age groups in the required subjects.