Whether you are a student or a parent of a school-going child, you might need to hire a tutor at some point to complement what is taught in the classroom. If you know a website where you can get the best tutoring-related information, then that would be a great place to start.
In many cases, finding the best tutor is not as easy as one might think. There are many factors that you have to take into consideration. At the same time, different people look for different qualities in a tutor. What might be an important quality to one person might not necessarily be the most important to the next person.
The most important thing is to know why you need a tutor in the first place. This will put you in a great position to know which questions to ask and where to begin the search. Enlisting the help of friends and relative works, but you still have to ensure that you make the right choice for the right reasons.
Here are five tips to help you find the best tutor:
1. Set goals
To ensure that you don’t end up wasting your time and money, you must be very clear on what you aim to achieve. The goal should not just be something as broad as “passing exams” or “gaining knowledge”. While these are legitimate goals, they are the minimum standards that any tutor can meet. However, if you say you are looking for a tutor who can help you get 80 percent in math, then you will be in a better position to look in the right places.
2. Check Credentials
The tutor you choose must be qualified and have enough experience teaching the subject you need some help with. At the very least, the person must have been through a tutor training course. This is the best way to ensure that he or she understands instructional strategies, educational theory, and the various remedial approaches.
3. Read as Many Reviews as Possible
Although you shouldn’t necessarily trust every single review about every tutor, reviews can still be a useful tool for ascertaining the level of competence of a tutor. If a tutor has a considerable number of bad reviews, then that is probably one you shouldn’t hire. You must also lean towards reviews from legitimate websites as opposed to people’s personal social network accounts.
4. Choose the Best Tutor for a Specific Subject
The best tutor is one who specializes in the subject you want some assistance in. This should be among the first questions you ask when you start looking for any prospective tutors. Before you tell them what you are looking for, let them tell you what they teach first. This ensures that they are not just telling you what you want to hear.
5. Pick a Tutor who Offers Something Different from the Regular Class Teacher
Tuition should be about complementing what is offered in school. Many times, it’s only a different approach that can make you or your child understand a particular subject better. If the tutor is doing things the same way they are done in class, then you cannot expect different results.
Even when you find the right tutor, you must still try to see if you are getting real value for your money. The results will either show in terms of improvements in school tests or change of attitudes towards the subject in question. If you don’t feel like you are getting any tangible benefits, then you probably need to look for another tutor.
