online tutors for college students

online tutors for college students

The Impact and Effectiveness of Online Tutoring for College Students

1. Introduction

Online tutoring provides an opportunity to tutor a much larger number of students, more efficiently and in some cases more effectively. One significant advantage is its ability to provide remedial tutoring to students who may not have been able to access it in the past. At the same time, online tutoring presents challenges related to building rapport and reading student cues to understand the magnitude of the problem. Some tutoring centers reported that students use the online chat for last-minute studying before exams, which represents an access point for students to connect to tutoring they may not have accessed previously. I do not know of research measuring the impact of either of these trends.

The thesis study addresses the importance of online tutoring in the context of college education. Borrowing from the literature review, the section explains that prior research on the efficacy of college tutoring programs was conducted before the massive increase in online tutoring across college campuses triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the significant changes in the way college tutoring is delivered – at least in the short-term – the study addresses the need for new research in this area. It asks whether tutoring is equally effective when it is moved online and for which students, given the “digital divide,” may it be more or less effective.

2. Benefits of Online Tutoring for College Students

Online tutoring provides college students with a wide range of unique advantages. One of the foremost benefits of online tutoring is the flexibility it can offer. This modern form of tutoring is accessible to any student with a stable internet connection. Therefore, it allows students to connect with professional, experienced tutors from different locations and provides them access to resources they might not otherwise have. Some platforms automatically generate study plans for students based on their performance and the areas in which they need help. One further benefit of online tutoring lies in the ability to provide in-depth, personalized learning paths. Students can revise and review tutoring materials over and over again without any added costs. Moreover, the online and less formal learning environment fosters student engagement and makes it a better overall experience. Only online and face-to-face tutoring were meaningful in enhancing a student’s final achievement in the selected courses.

Online tutoring services provide college students with a variety of unique benefits. For instance, some online tutoring services offer around-the-clock services, allowing students to access assistance whenever and wherever they need it. The study also indicated that online tutoring sessions were less intimidating for some students. Some subjects and lessons may be more appropriately taught in an online setting; for example, online science lessons demonstrated less student frustration.

3. Challenges and Solutions in Online Tutoring

There are other reasons why an exclusively online environment may be challenging. For instance, some learners prefer a level of anonymity for economic or personal reasons, but others crave in-person connections for all of their course-related social activities. It should be noted, however, that economics may require students to take online courses, especially if they work full time, are parents, or are adult learners who are without the advantages of family support in commuting or living on or near campus. Therefore, an entire instructional environment should be adapted to be as inclusive as possible. What are some solutions contributing to potential online tutoring effectiveness? One can certainly take a constraining or resource-driven approach to this, licensing technology first and then designing programs and services around it. Indeed, advances such as Learning Analytics seem to gallop ahead without considering implications for service. Setting aside the challenges, these strategies and tools have much promise for college student success.

Challenges arise in many aspects of potential online tutoring, particularly for students at four-year colleges and universities. In particular, learners are challenged by advances in technology. Few college-age Americans remember a time without personal cell phones or the internet, yet they might not be comfortable with several layers of digital engagement and productivity. If they are, then inequities may arise if some courses or programs prefer or require layers of technology that rely on varying levels of affordability or access. What technological solutions are available may be limited by resources or institutional policy. For instance, some universities quickly pivoted from in-person to online instruction during the pandemic, but policymakers expressed concerns that other schools were not in a position to do so on short notice. In addition, many K-12 educators have limited comfort working in digital environments. While some learners are adept at digital communication and digital interactions based on their relatively low age, others may have less experience or comfort simply because they have not been digital natives for as long as their peers. Even if they claim that their only identity is digital, being online can require different skills than those needed for in-person interaction.

4. Best Practices and Strategies for Effective Online Tutoring

The implementation of online tutoring for students in CTE programs is best designed to assure the provision of immediate help when tutoring is needed. Tips for organizing and implementing effective online tutoring programs include best practices for selecting well-trained college students as online tutors, guidelines for a referral system of tutored students, coordination of online tutors in CTE career pathways, and varying weekly schedules. An effective online tutoring experience requires correct individual chair position, a computer learning zone with power and space, appropriate environmental settings (prevailing sound and lighting are important), transparency, and clear expectations in the online tutoring experience. For best results, an online COSC meeting discusses the “brick and mortar” to electronic environment, instructional shifts from teacher-directed tutoring, and the employment of online tools, such as the reporting function of Learning Central, and how these tools can vary student treatment. Educators can effectively support students and alleviate test anxiety by using computer technology and reflective writing strategies to create “event-specific” test day strategies.

Positive interaction in the online environment is of special interest to colleges today amid the growing use of personal and smart device (PSD) technology in distance learning. The results offer practical guidance on online course design based on the learning “context.” All learning “contexts” give colleges the capability to improve graduation rates of nontraditional students by selecting qualified online tutors who are knowledgeable of the mathematical subject matter and other content they can teach in an online environment. A comprehensive understanding of online tutoring is essential to open access to online distance learning to different populations, offer improved academic support of college curriculum and pedagogy in conjunction with instructional practices, and to predict future statistics of online tutoring programs.

Effective one-on-one online tutoring is personal, individualized, and interactive. Clear communication, trust, understanding, kindness, empathy, and compassion are the essential human elements of effective interaction that move learners forward. Tutors use online math- and science-specific interactive tools in the online tutoring environment to address those subjects that are difficult for students to learn. Learners develop procedural fluency and problem-solving skills using transition shapes of numbers, flexible fluency with expressions, completing the square, and linear algebra in sequences, story problems, and calculus workshops, and the WECM discussion board. Tutors encourage positive behavior (attention, engagement, and effort) and make sure that a positive end is acknowledged in the virtual online environment.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

The impact and effectiveness of online tutoring for college students have significant implications for numerous stakeholders in higher education. The body of research suggests a number of recommendations for colleges and universities that are considering developing or expanding online tutoring services. In order to connect or operate an online program, institutions will need to invest resources, such as money, staff, and additional training. Universities, as well as professional organizations and accrediting bodies, may want to collect resources to better support colleges and universities. Future research, based on limitations mentioned in the sections of this essay, aims to advance our understanding of online tutoring in various ways, as well as conduct large-scale or longitudinal experimental studies with this.

This comprehensive essay explores the potential effectiveness of online tutoring for college students. After evaluating a range of current research in higher education, the summary of findings is as follows: it is exceedingly rare to see homogeneous results across studies, which suggests that disparate libraries of research exist that different populations of students and institutions might find useful. In a few instances, the effectiveness of online tutoring initiatives is dependent on specific factors, such as a particular course or content area. In general, the impact of utilizing new technologies and eLearning methods to augment or curtail the use of existing tutorial services is not well understood.