Monday, February 28, 2011

How Often Should I Report to Parents About Their Child?

Not all tutoring sessions go smoothly as you want to, especially if the child you’re tutoring tends not to participate and cooperate with your lectures. Not only is this very disruptive to your well prepared tutorial session, but also it can result in complaints from parents of their child not performing well despite the tutorial sessions. Also, on a lighter note, you may want to update parents on the performance their child has in the tutorial sessions so that you can secure the tutoring session as well as provide parents with their child’s secure educational capacity.
Knowing when to report your child to his or her parents is important, especially if it will affect the tutorial session frequency and your child’s performance. If you have trouble knowing how often you should report to parents on their child, here are some guidelines you can consider.
Report when it’s necessary
If the child you’re tutoring is performing really well or slacking off too much, report it to the parents so that they can help reward or discipline the child. If you don’t report such action, especially if the child is too lazy, it might affect the tutoring session because of poor performance at school.
Report to instill good relations with parents
If you keep on tutoring without reporting on how the child is doing, parents may seem uncertain on the service you provide and this can lead to many misunderstandings. You should report weekly performance to build healthy relations with parents. This provides that their child’s education is well developed and well supplemented.
When you report to parents about their child in your tutorial sessions, you instill awareness and develop a better connection with them. This will help them gain wide insight on their child’s performance so that things will go smoothly throughout future tutorial sessions.
The bottom line is that parents want to know about their child’s performance and if they are paying you to tutor their child, then it is your duty to provide a frequent update within 72 hours of the tutoring session. In your tutoring guidelines, there should be a statement that informs parents or adult clients about when tutoring session notes or monitoring notes will be emailed to them.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Hiring Tutors 102: Interview Questions to Ask Prospective Tutors

If you want to hire the best tutor around, you better make sure he or she is qualified. Before hiring one, you should consider these interview questions that will guide you to choose the best tutor. These questions shall focus on allowing you to filter competent tutors from others.
“What subjects do you know?”
This question illustrates the basic need for you to know what the tutor can handle. This will also help you decide what subject areas you need help in.
“Do you have qualifications for those subjects?”
This is also important because you must know if your tutor really knows his or her material. Look for a degree or certification, or simply ask your tutor to explain a certain concept.
“How often are you available to tutor?”
Of course, you must agree on a schedule when you engage in a tutoring service. This will help you gauge your tutor’s availability and if he or she can meet your schedule needs.
“How do you tutor?”
Basically, this gives you an insight on the tutoring plan your tutor has. This also indicates how prepared and serious your tutor is in giving you his or her services.
“What are your rates?”
Any client must know how much a tutor would go for. This is one factor that everyone is concerned with. Including this as an interview question shall allow you to filter the right tutor that fits your budget.

Once you interview your tutor, you will know more about his or her skills and competencies that fit your desire. Make sure you find the tutor that suits your every need should you wish to have smooth tutorials given out to you or your child. This will make your tutor a worthy investment and beneficial in the development of knowledge at hand.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Science Resources to Keep on Hand When Tutoring

If you’re tutoring science subjects, you should keep these resources on hand in order for the tutorial to smoothly occur, especially with the interactivity and creativity these science resources offer your students. Here are some web links to places where you can find resources to keep at all times when tutoring. These will supplement your tutoring with the information that comes with the resources provided.
Frank Potter’s Science Gems – Offered is a search engine that you can check out for the top science books that you can use while tutoring. From the latest to the classical books, these science resources shall help supplement the lectures during your tutoring.
Educational Resources in Science – This list offers you links to many resources based on the subject matter you teach. You can find articles and latest curricular resources for your tutoring.
Science Education Resources – With a wide array of resources within a click away, you can surely check out these educational resources for your tutoring session with your students.
Resources for Science Learning – Guides are found that you can refer to whenever you want to supplement your tutoring. From videos to lecture materials, you can find them right here.
National Science Resources Center – A hub for all of your science resources, the NSRC contains media that will help you out in allowing your students to understand the material, especially since Science can be complex.
Science can be challenging to teach, especially considering the material to consider and the technicality of the matter. With these science resources at hand, you can surely provide a lecture that will secure your student’s effective learning. It becomes essential for you to bring these materials (whether charts, articles, or videos) with you when tutoring. Your students can easily pick up the topic that way, giving you an effective tutorial result after you’re done with the session.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Five Ways to Accept Payments from Clients

As a business, you should focus on the means of accepting payments from your clients. Of course, knowing how to receive your hard earned money must be convenient for both you and your client. Although it may be great for you to be flexible in how you accept payment, you should consider the pros and cons of each. As a result, here are five top ways to accept payments from clients.

Paypal
Probably one of the popular means of accepting payment, your clients can smoothly transact with you without fear of credit card issues or whatever problems they may have. Transactions are seamless and your money is readily received.
A downside to this service is that you should be linked to a bank to accept payments. Although, you can avail a Paypal debit card to help you out, you still need a card for verification purposes.
Direct-to-Bank
Direct-to-bank or bank transfers are another form of handling payment. The money is also readily accessible to you so you don’t worry much about delays.
You may be charged per transaction, which can affect your income as a total. Also, the client must have a bank, which can be a challenge for some high school students.
Direct Cash
Conveniently, this payment method effectively allows you to receive money right away. Direct cash is useful if you have clients in your local community where a digital transaction may be too troublesome to carry out.
The downside of this method is that if you engage in online tutoring, this will be almost an impossible. Moreover, you may be tempted to spend such money, especially since the money is right in your pocket!
Checks
This method of payment is effective for huge amounts of money, especially since you can cash it in the moment you receive the check.
However, it may take weeks for a check to clear, so you should consider this timeframe if you’re going through this method.
Money Orders
This convenient means of payment can allow the transfer of money to any location. With this in mind, your clients can send in their payments through this method as it is very secure and convenient.
A drawback is that you may wait a while for the funds to clear and also it may take time to deliver these funds to you.
With these in mind, make sure you specify a payment pattern to allow smooth transaction and easy money management. Whatever is convenient for your clients, work with that method.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

How Do I Find Clients to Tutor?

In tutoring, you may find difficulty getting clients to tutor or perhaps you want to enhance your tutoring to include a wider client base. With this in mind, finding clients involve some work to do and here are some ways in order to find clients to tutor!
Local Schools
Most students may have difficulty in their subjects. You can offer your tutoring help to these students. Not only can you do this every school year, but it is a continuing input of clients that you can benefit from. Students always need tutoring help and this will provide you the steady work you need.
Starting up a Website
You can use this means of obtaining clients, especially if you’re into online tutoring, as this form of search is widely used by today’s students. Make your site accessed by search engines to allow visitors to turn into new customers.
Putting up Posters
Traditional advertising still effectively works. You can put up posters near establishments for students to take a look at and consider your services. Make sure you get any permissions secured before putting them up, though.
Social Marketing
Almost every student logs on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media websites. This gives you a heads up on the clients you can find through advertising this way. Make sure you place your ads strategically. The best thing about this form of finding clients to tutor is that the costs are almost free and they last for a life time (as long as the social media sites exist).
With these in mind, you can consider these forms of reaching out to students in order to get clients for tutoring. Having a stable flow of clients can be gotten through effective advertising and pitching of services. Make sure you apply them correctly and wait patiently for things to turn out the way you desire.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Five Must-Have Teaching Resources to Tutor Biology

Probably one of your tutoring subjects would be Biology, and this is known as one of the most challenging subjects for students, especially High School Biology. If you’re going to tutor students in this specific field of science, make sure you have these five most important teaching resources in order to secure you an effective teaching approach.
Models
Biology is about life and in order for you to effectively teach this subject, bring models of the topics you are to discuss with you. This provides an effective retention approach that instills interactive learning. Moreover, students will learn a whole lot more by seeing and feeling the model instead of glancing at the page with a drawing.
Recent Articles
Another approach to consider is how Biology is important in daily life. Bring recent news related to the topic to instill interest for your student. This introduces the reality of Biology, which makes the subject more than just something complicated or boring.
Videos
For those topics that are best illustrated through a video presentation, prepare a video or two to show to your student. He or she will get the lesson quickly this way because of the visual presentation at hand. This is useful for illustrating cell cycles or animal topics that require audio visual help in teaching.
Charts
For comparison of data, charts are effective as they contain all of the necessary information needed for Biology. The flow charts and organizational charts are great examples of illustrating Biology concepts such as food chains, food webs, and food pyramids. You should prepare some of these in order to supplement your lesson.
Websites
For updated information, you can check out websites containing Biology notes and other facts to help your student learn a lot more about Biology in between sessions. He or she can check out Biology Online or Biology Reference as supplemental sites for your teaching.

Biology can be tough to teach, especially with its wide scope. With these five teaching resources, your students can grasp the subject a whole lot better, providing you with smooth teaching and better student performance.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The Pros and Cons of Writing a Press Release for my Tutoring Business

Writing a press release has been associated with introducing your business to the world. It is important because it provides people with insight on your business, especially when it comes to finding new clients. If you’re wondering whether or not to write a press release, here are the pros and cons that you should consider.
Pros
A press release is effective in grabbing attention, especially when posted on popular press release sites or other tutoring websites. This can allow you the opportunity for tutoring jobs after visitors learn a bit about your company. Press releases relay information and also links to your site and contact information where people can contact you. This will provide you an increased opportunity to gain clients later on. Using press releases for effective marketing is one step you should consider in effective
Cons
On the other hand, press releases can be difficult to write, especially if you want to condense much information for smooth reading. Moreover, it takes effort and chance for your press release to be seen by visitors, accounting for the uncertainty in securing more tutoring jobs. You should devote time to submitting press releases in order to get positive results, and this time consuming act can really affect your tutoring routine.
Overall Decision
Press releases make effective marketing tools when you wish to spread the news about your tutoring service. They help people learn more about your business, which allows more prospective clients for your tutoring business. In this way, you should consider the time it takes to write a press release and you should have the patience in order to reap such benefits.

When engaging in tutoring, you should think of marketing tactics that will effectively allow you to garner clients. Press releases engage your business with putting it on the market, for others to check out and learn about how your business works. With this in mind, you can smoothly allow your business to function as a tutoring service for your future clients.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Five Benefits of Volunteering in the Community

As a tutor, you may find out that your initial business performance may be low. Also, as you are starting out, you may need to find leads into building your confidence and also boost your career. Giving service to your community is one effective way of starting out as a tutor, by teaching others at community events. Here are five benefits of volunteering that can both fulfill yourself and enhance your tutoring career.
Better Understanding of the Community
Once you volunteer, you can grab an insight on what subjects students treat as a problem in your local community. You can learn about how to approach your tutoring service to the people in the community and this can help your business later on.
Fulfillment
Community volunteering provides you with the sense of fulfillment that you can obtain through this selfless act. The fulfillment of tutoring is highly a boost in confidence when you start out or enhance your tutoring business.
Values Instilled
Communitarian service instills you certain values that you can commit to in your business. Although not directly related to your being a tutor, it satisfies your humanitarian desire that will motivate you in your business.
Marketing Opportunity
As you are starting out in your tutoring career, you can hand over your business cards to parents and interested students so that they can call you later on. Community service can be somewhat of a taste of the services you offer.
Help to Your Community
The most important benefit of community volunteering is to help your community improve. Although you may be looking for students to teach to improve your career, helping your community out is a selfless act that develops your love for teaching.

Volunteering in your community as a tutor can be effective in starting up your career and satisfying your humanitarian side. These five benefits provide you with that positive view on tutoring as a community service for people who need your help.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Should I network with other tutors?--YES, YOU SHOULD and here's why

Working as a tutor is going to be tough if you’re doing it alone. You will be facing competition and finding consistent work won’t be easy. What you should do is network with other tutors so that you can work together to get tutoring jobs. If you’re wondering why doing so is an effective consideration, here’s what you need to know.
Social Connections Provide Opportunities
This is true for tutoring. When you are connected with other tutors, you shall find out the rates they’re charging and the type of material to discuss that are in demand. What problems are students having lately? With the connection, you can specify which scopes of study to develop in order to provide aid for these individuals that need your tutoring services.
Knowledge Sharing
When you network with other tutors, you learn a lot about the methods they use and the types of approaches implemented in the tutoring scheme. This knowledge sharing provides you with enough insight that will keep you ready for your next tutoring job. It is important that you maintain an updated approach to tutoring as it can shape your overall tutoring performance.
Learn Your Competition
As you network with tutors, you can structure your business plan accordingly. Once you learn your competition, you will be able to focus on improving your business through learning from the marketing strategies they employ. This advantage shall provide you with a better grasp of the tutoring business at hand, focusing on better performance for the individual you’re tutoring.

Networking with other tutors is important if you wish to secure a smooth business. It provides you with better opportunities, more knowledge to be shared, and a better understanding of your competition. With this in mind, you can redirect your focus toward a better tutoring business with the help you receive.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Five Elements That Should Be in Your Tutoring Business Plan

Every tutor must have a business plan in order to secure an effective function in his or her career. This business plan must constitute five important elements that will provide a consistent tutoring business plan. With tutoring being a booming business with prospective income you can expect, it is important to devise a correct tutoring business plan.
Description of your Business
Naturally, you should have your business described to the tee on everything. This will help you legally in the manner where your business shall be defined through every aspect. What is important is to define the scope and limitations that your business covers, so that continuity shall set in place.
Competency Analysis
In any tutoring business, being able to consider the competition is important in the event of tutoring. You should inquire around for tutoring rates so you can adjust your plan accordingly in order to secure great output.
Market Strategies
You should be aware of the government programs that pertain to tutoring services to help boost your tutoring service. For instance, the No Child Left Behind Program provides you the opportunity to earn income from the government as it supports tutors.
Operation Plan
With your tutoring business plan, you should offer operation plans that will suit your business function. This includes hours of operation and any personnel that pertain to the business plan. An operation plan is integral in the function of any business plan because of its direct approach to how your business service functions.
Financial Functions
Part of your business plan is to contain financial functions of your business. This involves knowing how money flows in an out of your tutoring business. This is an important element that focuses on how you handle your business.
These five elements should always be in your tutoring business plan because they establish effective functions that support the overall plan at hand. As a tutor with a business in mind, you should make sure that your plan is as complete as possible.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Hiring Tutors 101: What to Look For in Tutors

So you want to hire a tutor but you don’t know what you need? Here are some guidelines that will make sure you receive the best tutor for your child or yourself. It is important in understanding the different aspects of tutoring in order not to be cheated and also in order to provide you with insight and skills that will let you or your child pass the difficult school subjects present.
Time Awareness
Since the high paced hustle and bustle of today’s society becomes an issue of timeliness, a good tutor must know how to pace his or her instruction well. This will optimize the time you have allotted for the tutor in order to convey his or her knowledge to your child or yourself.
Subject Material Expertise
Of course, your tutor must know what he or she is talking about. Make sure that your tutor considerably understands everything about the subject matter to be taught. This will increase the fluency and grasp of you or your child in the tutoring session.
These two traits of a tutor are very important in allowing him or her to convey his or her tutorial ability for you or your child. You should take this into consideration if you wish to hire a tutor.
Passion
Passion must be present. Otherwise, tutors may bail when the “tough gets going”. The desire to help others learn and grow can be detected by the students or adults in whom tutors work with. Therefore, it is very important to think about why tutors decide to offer their services to others.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Five Online Tutoring Jobs Worth Taking a Second Look

There are many opportunities for tutoring online, and as a result, you can enhance your tutoring through taking these jobs. Whether you are starting out or that you just want to polish your tutoring skills, here are five online tutoring jobs worth taking a second look at.
Tutor.com - This tutoring site offers you a wide range of opportunities for you to work as a tutor. The application process is smooth for you to start developing your tutoring skills right away.
WyzAnt - The in-home tutoring service provides you with the chance to tap into your tutoring potential and help others through this service. There are many subjects that you can tutor and this will help you in your tutoring career.
SylvanOnline - This tutoring site allows you to engage in many types of disciplines that will help students learn more about the subject matter they are concerned with. Apply as a tutor here and you can enhance your tutoring through the many sessions provided for clients. This also builds credibility.
jobs4tutors.com - This is a dedicated site where the tutoring services are done from a personal edge. This will allow you to further expand your tutoring by means of this dynamic tutoring site.
The Tutoring Annex – Offering a wide selection of subject fields, you can apply as a tutor here and help students out through this service.
These tutoring jobs can offer insight on developing your tutoring skills, especially when you apply for these companies. You can continue to develop them effectively as you engage in the tutorial sessions set out by these companies as you work with them.