My Experience as a Virtual Tutor
From 2020-2021 I served as a virtual writing tutor at the student success center of an online college. This was an awesome experience where I could interface directly with adult virtual learners and see exactly what helps them learn best. I also found it extremely rewarding. Many of these learners returned to school after many years, and some lacked confidence in this new environment. Some were English language learners, and many also worked full-time jobs and had family obligations. This was a great manifestation of the power of eLearning. For most of these students, attending school in person would not have been possible, and virtual learning truly opened up new opportunities.
I served as both a writing and business tutor. The tutoring platform was set up where there were specific hours that tutors were available, and students could enter the site and opt to video chat with a tutor. They asked us questions, and we were able to screen share, upload documents, use a virtual whiteboard, and send links. The writing center also had a paper review service where students submitted papers, and tutors reviewed them and added comments. We then created videos explaining the comments and teaching some writing lessons. We focused on developing big picture writing skills such as structuring a paper, writing a thesis statement, and decreasing wordiness.
Benefits of Virtual Tutoring
I was impressed with the university’s use of technology to create both synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences. I was also amazed at how effective online tutoring was. The students got personalized feedback and could ask questions for clarification which was beyond what most of the professors were able to provide with such large, online classes. Also, as the tutoring sessions were 1:1 meetings, students were always engaged,
which is a reoccurring problem with online higher education. Finally, the resource was fairly cheap for the university to implement. Our hourly wages were not very high, and most tutors only worked part-time hours. As the tutoring sessions were remote, we could work from all over the country and the time to onboard new tutors was minimal. The program was a great way to give the students personal attention without taking more highly paid professors away from their other responsibilities.
Opportunities for this Tool
The benefits of this program made me wonder why virtual tutoring is not used more frequently. I never used a tutoring service as an undergraduate, and many of the students I worked with had never visited the center until they were required to. Some reasons for low adoption could include:
Lack of program marketing to students
Stigmas around requiring the help of a tutor
Perceived or actual difficulty navigating the tutoring platform
Resistance to virtual live meetings
Perceived lack of benefit to students
I also wonder if virtual tutoring can be applied in different settings. In a corporate setting, this might look like office hours with an SME or a facilitator. I think this could be highly beneficial but also run into the same challenges around the adoption rate. With employees’ busy schedules and the plethora of virtual meetings, one would have to look at how many people would really utilize this feature. However, an SME or facilitator would likely prefer a set time to answer questions rather than having to repeatedly handle one-off communications. I would love to hear I anyone has seen or implemented something like this in their training spaces!