Importance of Tutoring in Studies
Say goodbye to messing up exams!
According to a parent survey conducted, every seventh student receives support from a GCSE maths tutor in addition to the school. That’s more than a million students nationwide. Their tutors are mostly students who want to earn some extra money alongside their studies, but they sometimes need support themselves.
Who actually needs tutoring?
Students in mathematics-heavy courses in particular often need tutoring to accompany lectures or prepare for exams. And also in law studies, due to the high failure rate, 70% to 80% of students take private tutoring before the first legal exam. If you too are treading water during your studies and the topic of tutoring is still completely new territory for you, we have a small guide for you here that you can use to orientate yourself when looking for the right tutoring.
When does tutoring really make sense?
Do you sit at your desk for hours with the documents provided, but you hardly make any progress? No matter how hard you try, you just don’t get it? Your head is spinning, but you can’t remember anything because you already lack a certain prior understanding? There is no doubt that a trained tutor can help you. Both intensively before an exam and permanently as an accompaniment to independent studies. But tutoring can also be helpful at a much earlier point. For example, prospective students of economics, engineering, mathematics or chemistry can use the time between the Abitur and the start of their studies and prepare for the content. Even students who don’t have any existential problems during their studies take private tuition to get support while learning and to stay on the ball.
Which form of tutoring is best for you?
Everyone has different deficits and different methods of learning. Accordingly, the type of tutoring must be well selected for each individual. First, you should decide between a private tutor and a tutoring institution. In most cases, the fee from a private provider is cheaper than that from an institution. You can find a good private tutor for as little as 15 dollars per hour, in an institute price start at around 25 dollars. You can even take online tutoring lessons in an institute for 17 dollars an hour. In addition, a distinction is made between the following forms of local aid:
Face-to-face private lessons:
With your own tutor, you can work on your personal weaknesses. He does not have to take care of several students at the same time, which means that both the pace and the topics to be covered are adjusted to you alone. If something is not clear to you, the teacher can repeat the topic with you until you understand it. In a one-on-one lesson, the teacher can focus all of their attention on you and you will achieve success faster.
Online private lessons:
Similar to a university revision course, which is often offered in courses such as law or mathematics, online tutoring prepares you specifically for exams. The same positive aspects apply here as with a face-to-face individual lesson: In one-on-one support, your individual weaknesses are worked on intensively. In addition, online tutoring is associated with even less effort. In most cases, tutors from face-to-face classes give the lessons at home. If you decide to take online lessons, you save travel costs and time on the one hand, and you are much more flexible on the other. Of course, this is particularly useful for students who, for example, still work alongside their studies. No matter where you are, whether at home, at the university, or maybe with your family at home, you can take the lessons anywhere. All you need is a laptop with a camera, an astable internet connection, a Skype account, and a headset. If you take online tutoring lessons in an institute, this usually offers you the possibility of a flexible choice of dates. By offering multiple teachers, they can offer you lessons both early in the morning and quite late in the evening. Tutoring at the weekend is also possible. In this way, your tutoring can be optimally integrated into your everyday life.
Group tutoring:
Tutoring in a group can have the advantage that you learn and improve collectively. This can boost your motivation enormously. In addition, working in a group can spur you on, as there is a certain pressure to keep up with the others. Of course, it depends on what type of learner you are, because this pressure can also have a negative impact on your learning success. The offer of tutoring in groups is not that big, but they are occasionally offered by independent teachers or directly at the universities. The advantage is that you can share the cost of the lesson.
Task Correction:
Some institutes or independent teachers offer you the opportunity to help you with your exercises during the exam phase instead of tutoring. This means that if you can’t get any further with a task, you can send your material to the institute or teacher and let them calculate the task. They will then send the solutions back to you immediately. This gives you the opportunity to understand the solution afterward. When making your decision, it is important to find out which type of tutoring will bring you forward most effectively. Are you someone who prefers to study together with others or can you concentrate better if you study alone? How tight are you in terms of time and how much money do you have available?
Conclusion
If you have difficulties in certain courses of your studies, tutoring is definitely a suitable way to improve and prepare yourself well for an upcoming exam. Before you tackle the topic of tutoring, however, you should find out where your problems come from in the first place. Are there really serious difficulties in understanding or do the problems arise because you don’t organize yourself properly or you lack motivation? Because no tutor can help you with that. It is important that you formulate a concrete, factual problem because only then does the investment of time and money make sense and only then can tutoring help you to be successful.