What Makes An Effective Tutor?

Part 4: Working Toward Independence

What can seem like a great student-tutor match may actually be detrimental to a student in the long run if the tutor is functioning as a crutch. We often think about the old proverb, “Feed a man a fish and he will eat for a night; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime” – a good tutor or private SAT tutor is always trying to teach the student to fish and leave the student independently successful. A tutor should be a mentor and a coach, but never an assistant.

Tutoring should be about building skills for life success as much as student success. In Part 3 below, we discussed our view of student achievement through the three-layered prism of the What, How, and Why. We believe that independence must be built in all three of these areas.

In the What layer (subject matter understanding), students must not simply learn to memorize formulas or methods needed to succeed on one test or assignment, but rather, they need to be taught to grasp the underlying concepts at hand. That level of depth of understanding will stick with a student and forms the foundation for future independent understanding.

When it comes to the How layer (fundamental student skills), a tutor must work with the student to build long-lasting skills relating to organization, time management, studying, writing, problem-solving, presenting, student-teacher interaction, etc., etc. These skills, if truly ingrained in a student’s habits and understanding, will provide the bedrock for success in college, graduate school, and an eventual career – all well beyond the tutor’s time with the student.

It is often true foundational strides in the above areas that leads to real changes in a student’s confidence, motivation, and attitude, or what we call the Why of school. A student that succeeds but feels that he or she did so mainly because of a tutor’s help is not going to have gained any inner confidence from tutoring, and any increase in motivation will likely be short-lived. But when a student really begins to believe in his or herself, it can result in a whole new attitude, and the results can be staggering. This is why we come to work every day!

What Makes An Effective Tutor?

Part 3: Addressing the Whole Story – the WHAT, HOW, and WHY of School

The struggles of nearly every one of our students can be broken down into three layers – what we at Launch Education Group call the What, How, and Why of school.

What – The What refers to the subject matter itself—the concepts being taught in school and a student’s understanding of that material. A tutor should look for gaps in a student’s knowledge that may plague the student again and again, stay attentive to the ways in which each particular student learns best, and adjust his or her teaching approach to best fit each student.

How – Beneath the What is what we call the How of school – all of the fundamental skills and study habits a student needs in order to succeed, from study strategies to binder organization to paper-outlining to time management. Often what seems like a struggle with subject matter is really a deficiency in basic student skills. In these situations, addressing subject matter only will not lead to sufficient improvement.

Why – At the core of every student’s success is his or her inner motivation and confidence. Students who don’t feel positive about themselves as students and feel less-than-hopeful about their chances of succeeding will begin to put in less effort. On the surface, this usually comes across as laziness or a bad attitude, but both work ethic and attitude can shift dramatically when a student’s confidence is enhanced. A tutor must keep a close eye out for confidence problems and work over time to build a positive attitude and optimistic outlook in the student.

Not all students are struggling in all three of these layers – but a good tutor needs to be skilled in recognizing all potential reasons that a student may be underachieving, especially when it comes to SAT test prep.

What Makes An Effective Tutor?

Part 2: The Right Match

Matching is a key skill of a great tutoring company. An effective tutoring director has a knack for making the right student-tutor matches (usually based on years of experiences making successful matches and, yes, some bad matches along the way). A skilled director will always consider the following when making a match:

1. Aside from the obvious need to match the student’s subject need with the tutor’s subject-teaching ability, the teaching style must be matched correctly. Some tutors are great verbally, others are excellent visual demonstrators; some are fast-paced teachers, others move slowly and deliberately; some are high energy and talkative, others are…well, you get the point.


2. The student’s personality must be matched to the right tutor personality. For this reason, social intelligence and understanding the pre-adult psyche is a critical skill of a tutoring company director. True improvement almost always goes hand-in-hand with the a terrific student-tutor relationship—the student has to respect the tutor as a mentor and role model while also being able to connect with the tutor based on common interests and humor. If the student isn’t looking forward to the tutor coming over for a session, academic improvement will be difficult to achieve, especially something as delicate as SAT tutoring.

What Makes An Effective Tutor?

Part 1: Hiring the Right People

What makes an effective tutor?

For the past five years, we have obsessed over that question. Through our work with hundreds of students, tutors of all sorts, and private SAT tutors, we feel pretty confident now that we’ve got it figured out. Though every student’s struggle and road to improvement is unique, our success has been drawn from adhering to a few basic principles of how student improvement really happens.

Let’s begin with hiring. What are the qualities that any tutor must have to be effective?

1. Freshness with and experience teaching the subject or subjects they will be working with – it doesn’t matter how good you were at chemistry in high school, if you haven’t done it in the last year, you will be rusty.


2. The natural ability to teach – some people have it, and some people just don’t. A good tutor can get inside the head of a student, view the material from the student’s perspective, and adjust his or her teaching accordingly.


3. A personality to connect with at least one type of student and the passion to do so – if you’re in the student’s home purely to pay your bills, the student can usually tell.

A tutor who does not possess all three of these qualities should never be hired.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Launch Education blog!

Launch Education is an academic tutoring company in Los Angeles and New York that began in 2005. Since then, we have worked with hundreds of students, tutors of all sorts, and private SAT tutors with a singular mission – to help our students achieve their full potential, both as students and as future young adults.

The Launch Education team consists of its two founders, Tim Urban and Andrew Finn, its two directors, Ashley Feinstein M.A. and Sallie Oto, and a number of closely affiliated professionals, including renowned educational therapist, Carolyn McWilliams M.A. We love what we do, and this blog is an opportunity for us to share our thoughts and insights, both with our clients and those not working with us.

We hope you’ll enjoy our blog, learn something from it, and pass it on. If you’d like to know more about our company or have questions about tutoring, contact us anytime or visit our website. We also encourage you to share your thoughts by commenting on our posts.

Thanks for visiting!

The Launch Education Team