The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tutors
Dip your toes into the ocean of test-prep options, and you might find yourself swimming with sharks! There are countless operators in the test prep industry, and many are predatory, luring in families with flashy promises ... only to leave them with little more than giant-size bites in their wallets.
So, what makes a great tutor? Here are seven hallmarks that distinguish the top practitioners from the rest in a crowded, and often confusing, field.
Works One-on-One -- For what is perhaps the most important academic exercise of his or her high school career, your child deserves the undivided attention of one educator. Classes might be more economical in the short run, but years of experience suggest that your child can go farther, faster meeting one-on-one with a competent tutor. Be it online or in person, a “cheap” class can be a very expensive mistake to make, not only in dollars wasted, but in time lost.
Is Real — Never before have there beens so many self-directed learning opportunities online. While a few of them, like Khan Academy, are of high quality, many students lack the discipline to exploit such resources to their maximum benefit. More often, even committed students don't know how to explore online options effectively. There are many tasks that teenagers should indeed “figure out” on their own, but test prep shouldn’t be one of them.
Knows the Test, Studies the Student — At MightyPrep, our tutors’ value, over and above their knowledge of the test, is their ability to determine exactly where and how your child struggles with the SAT or ACT. In other words: We pinpoint student weaknesses. There are a lot of smart folks who can teach all the requisite concepts with authority, but that is only half the battle. You need someone who will teach -- and, if need be, re-teach and re-teach and re-teach -- the specific concepts with which your child struggles.
Is Experienced — The whole model of tutor marketing is wrong. From giant corporations to mom-and-pop shops, test prep companies prioritize their tutors’ education over their experience. While superficially impressive, this approach makes no logical sense. After all, you can't get a degree in the test-taking. A Ivy League education is a marvelous thing (Go Princeton!), but it’s largely irrelevant to the task at hand. The real metric is the number of students with whom a tutor has worked over the course of her career. And this statistic is rarely (if ever) mentioned because the majority of tutors contracted by the big firms are inexperienced.
Uses Quality Materials, Quality Metrics — Research has shown that students must work through +2,000 practice questions to be fully prepared for their first real test. A quality tutor will have the appropriate materials on hand and keep careful track of your child’s results. Likewise, a true professional should be able to explain and catalogue every one of a student’s wrong answers -- and then provide him or her with a written record of how similar problems should be approached in the future. And, because such a detailed record of achievement exists, after several weeks, a competent practitioner should be able to provide families with reliable predictions regarding the student’s performance on the Real Deal.
Excels at Communication — Parents should expect lesson notes, detailed records of practice scores and, at the appropriate time, score projections for their son or daughter. More importantly, both parent and child should feel that they can contact their tutor outside of session and having meaningful, specific discussions about their progress. These conversations should be included in whatever fee you agree to pay and never should be considered “extra.” They are part and parcel of the service the tutor is providing.
You’ll find that searching for the above characteristics reduces a sea of options to a small pool of choices. Thus the final litmus test can be applied: Does your child like the tutor? Trust her? Find him funny? Approachable?
Compatibility — Prepping for these exams is intense and requires a partner whom you and your child can trust from Day One. It’s entirely appropriate to schedule a “meet-and-greet” with a prospective tutor without any large upfront financial commitment. It can be tough finding the right fit, but the rewards -- and results -- can be staggering when you do!
At MightyPrep, we strive to live out these hallmarks everyday. Call us at 424-253-5263 to set up a free meet-and-greet with one of our remarkable educators. Let’s Get Ready to Get In!