Is Online Tutoring as Good as In-Person Tutoring?

The question of the moment that parents are asking themselves and other is "Is virtual learning as good as in-person learning???"  And when it comes to tutoring parents are wondering the same thing.  Lately, I've been doing my share of online tutoring and here is what I have noticed:

1. The older students seem to do better with online tutoring than the younger ones.  Now part of this I feel has to do with maturity and also partly to interest and comfort working with technology.  I have had some middle school students really engaged with online learning and some high school students not be so engaged with it.   You may just have to try a session or two to see how your student responds to it.

2.  The expectation of the class and the classroom teacher.  At the end of last year, at the beginning of the pandemic, the bar was set really low by schools and teachers and the pressure for comprehension and emphasis on grades was not a priority.  I think that was part of the reason that students didn't feel it was that important and didn't put in the corresponding level of effort.  It sounds as if that is not going to be the expectation this school year, so I'm hoping students will now be ready to dive in more seriously to virtual learning as well as online tutoring.

3.  The ability of the tutor to bring alive the online learning "classroom."  What I mean by this is that some tutors may not have the necessary equipment, technology, and know-how to really make online tutoring effective.  This is where I've been putting my effort lately to ease the transition for students to online learning. From writing tablets, to document cameras, to using capable online video conferencing software, to having the actual textbooks that students are using in many cases. To see a sample video of my current tutoring setup see the video I did to help other tutors get set up as well below:

If you would like to try an online tutoring session with me to see if it is a good experience for your child let me know.  

Mario
​Mario's Math Tutoring