I recently posed this question to our tutors in the hopes that one or two people would give me a unique insight into what makes TutorSource so special. What I got was overwhelming – I received so many fantastic responses that I’ve decided to share excerpts here, instead of the usual practice of dedicating a post to a single response.

Without further ado, these are some of the reasons that our tutors think you should hire a TutorSource tutor:

Judith Davis:
“It’s fast, easy, and effective. With our new website, it’s fast and easy to find a tutor in your area who tutors the subjects you need. With some tutoring companies, you have to search their website for the link you need, or you have to call and explain your request to someone who will try to find a tutor for you.

So, with TutorSource, you’re in charge- you don’t have to take a chance on someone who is assigned to you about whom you know little. With just one click, you can find a tutor yourself!"

Adam Gottlieb:
“A TutorSource Tutor has integrity. They manage themselves and hold themselves accountable for all of their own actions. If they perform poorly it directly affects their reputation and their livelihood, and decreases their status as a tutor. When a tutor has something so personal to protect, something so dire at stake, they are bound to give you the best tutoring experience possible. Isn’t that exactly what you want?”

Karen Lincoln:

“The reasons for hiring a Tutorsource Tutor are the same as why be a Tutorsource Tutor…the hard parts are already done. The Tutor has been verified, you already know what their specialty is, what geographical area they will service, and what you can expect the fee will be. And your first meeting is guaranteed, so there is no harm in trying them out. Because all of this is determined ahead of time, you can concentrate on the real substance of the job, what you will be tutoring and how you will accomplish your goal of helping that child.”

Karen Price:

“You as a student may be struggling with Math, English or another subject and want a way out. Well we are here to help both of you. We are here to help the parent, by helping the student. We are here to give the student resources to help them in life. That is what school is about, is giving the student tools to help them succeed in life. Our job is to teach the student how to use these tools that are given to them. "

And finally, my personal favorite:

Rachele DeMeo:

“The final factor someone should look at is where to hire a tutor from. There are many places that offer tutoring at various prices. An individual serious with tutoring should research the following: how long the company has been around, how reliable the company is, how professional the company appears to be, what type of experience/education/training the tutors have and whether the prices are reasonable. TutorSource meets those requirements which in turn pleases students and fulfill their needs. So why not hire a TutorSource tutor now?”

Now that you know a little more about how our tutors view TutorSource, let me ask the same question Rachele asked: Why not hire a TutorSource tutor now?

The emergence of online instruction continues to lower the barriers of entry for both learner and instructor but does not mitigate the need for supplemental tutoring.

This increased access has also allowed for a number of other creative and flexible arrangements with respect to the learning experience. Students can now sit through any number of courses from the comfort of their own home or workplace. However, having working in technology to e-learning platforms and having served as a tutor myself, I know that the online experience can only go so far. When gaps occur in the learning process, the online experience, even with access to an online tutor, can fall short of student expectations. Maybe it’s an inability to grasp the user interface or perhaps it’s that students equate their best learning experiences with face to face interaction. Regardless, I believe that TutorSource is in the unique position to address this need.

TutorSource addresses a critical gap in the online learning experience by providing in-person, customized and flexible tutoring.

An example is when I served at an IT consultant with one of the Big Four. I was studying for a number of continuing education units (CEU) that involved Cost Accounting and even Oracle Peoplesoft Financials. Having issues grasping some of the more technical parts of the system, I needed a basic accounting tutor to refresh my book knowledge that had faded from memory. Had TutorSource been available then, even when I was on the road at the client site, I could have arranged for a local accounting tutor to meet me at the local Starbucks for a few sessions after work. This would have greatly shorten my learning curve and supplemented my online learning experience.

Most professional organizations promote internal training and some even require CEUs. I suspect many adult learners may be in the same position with their current professional role. It’s hard to reach out for help on the job, especially if you are looked to in a leadership role. TutorSource could be your answer.

My suggestion is to take any required online training or courses and supplement them with an in-person TutorSource tutor at a time, place and price that is convenient to your busy schedule.

What else can a parent do in supporting their child and their tutor?
I am a firm believer that the best relationships are born out of objective questioning and an environment where mistakes are acceptable; as long as you learn from them.
The parent has a leadership role in creating this environment. The following questions are meant to provide a questioning framework so that parents can maximize the parent-student-tutor relationship as objectively as possible.

1. What is the message I want to communicate to my child’s classroom teacher about their tutoring progress?
While it is certainly not a requirement to consult with your child’s classroom teacher, they may have additional insight into your child’s academic experience. This can help with evaluation of the right tutor. Also, hiring a tutor can be a strong signaling device to your child’s classroom teacher. If your child is taking on the responsibilities of private tutoring this may go a long way with a teacher, who then views your child as trying to improve performance. Additionally, if your child is improving with your tutor, you want to know that they are improving in the classroom.

2. Recognize that your child is a product of the classroom and home environment as well as their innate cognitive abilities.
There is a question that has racked the brains of many social scientists: are great leaders born or made? I believe the same is true with learners: are great learners born or made? In my experience I have seen both. But the learners who win in the long run are the ones willing to put in the time and effort to learn a difficult subject. Nothing worth having comes easy and as a parent you have a lot of influence on your child’s current learning environment. So I encourage parents to invite their tutor into their home, and of course, be present when tutoring takes place. This does not mean sitting at the table with the tutor and your child. It means providing an extra layer of emotional support by simply being around, within ear shot of your child’s learning experience.

3. How will I support my child’s learning efforts after my tutor leaves?
It could be as simple as turning off the TV and limiting time on the phone. However, not all solutions to academic issues are as simple as that. Simply put, let your child know their academics are a priority and this is something that is important to you and them. Set priorities, then develop an internal plan for you and your child to sit down and discuss homework, progress and any new issues that have developed that could affect getting that “A” or passing the next test.

4. Am I open to coaching and mentoring from my tutor?
As the parent, you hired a tutor for a reason, their expertise. Be open to advice provided by your tutor. If there is an issue, for example, with the learning environment at home, be ready to address it with a personal bias. In fact, take a proactive approach as the parent. Ask the tutor to evaluation the learning environment, your child’s attitude and perhaps even, your attitude as the parent.

I welcome your thoughts as parents, learners and tutors. Please post comments or questions below.

Parents know they need to be intimately involved with evaluating their child’s academic progress.
However, through my conversations with our parents, it is hard to know what are the right questions in evaluating academic progress.

Here are several questions a parent should be asking their child’s tutor, both before and during the tutoring process.

1. What is your tutoring history?
A very simple question on the surface, however, a parent needs to have an understanding of their child’s own demographic before they find the right tutor. For instance, in questioning a prospective tutor, make sure you let the tutor know your child’s age, subject difficulty, learning history, type of learning environment at school, relationship with their current teacher, competing interests (e.g. soccer practice). Only then can you, with your tutor, effectively evaluate a tutor’s track record and a good fit with your child.

2. How will you evaluate my child’s progress?
Your tutor needs to have a diagnostic tool in order to determine exactly what the need is and what the tutor is going to do in addressing this need. This is not a long and drawn out report card of your child’s strengths and weaknesses. It is an initial evaluation of your child’s needs, based on question 1 above. Your tutor needs to be able to tell you how they plan on reporting any progress based on your child’s initial needs. For instance, based on the initial conversation about your child, a tutor could tell you they believe your child needs help on long division, fractions, multiplication and addition. Your tutor would then need to come to the table with an initial plan for reporting any new progress against how your child did week 1 – 4 on long division.

3. How will I receive these reports on my child’s progress?
After setting a reporting schedule with the tutor, a parent should then focus on how they will receive this information. Will it be a periodic phone call with the parent and tutor? Will it be through email? Tracking progress is necessary so that a parent knows they are spending their money with the right tutor. Fortunately, TutorSource provides an online tracking system for both parent and tutor. In fact, each TutorSource tutor is required to input notes from each session. As the parent, you should be evaluating these comments and making sure they are detailing exactly what progress is being made and in what academic areas.

4. How will you deliver feedback to my child?
The parent knows their child best and should pay particular attention to how a tutor answers this question. Sending the wrong message could derail your child’s efforts. A discussion with the tutor is needed to make sure that agreement is reached before tutoring is started. A tutor needs to provide a forthright assessment of how a student is proceeding, both to the parent and child. However, tone can make all the difference and it is important to make sure that your child develops their own positive self-image. Continuous communication and continuous improvement in your child’s performance are positively correlated.

I welcome your thoughts as parents and learners. Please post comments or questions below.

An hour can go by fast! Even 2 hours, if the tutoring lasts that long, can go fast, and for it to be productive, there are some things that can maximize the time:

Be prepared

First of all, be prepared and start right on time! This applies to both student and tutor. Books, homework sheets, dictionaries, pens or pencils, and any other study props should be on the table, and both student and tutor should be ready to go.

Stay on track

Small talk should be kept to a bare minimum. Getting acquainted should be done in the first few minutes of the first session. After that, unless one of the goals is to practice speaking a foreign language, all conversation should relate to the subject matter, and not the weather, the student’s dog, sibling, or friend, how the school day went, or any other irrelevant topics. Every minute counts! It is up to the tutor to keep the student on track and to make the most of the time. Small talk can be allowed after the session is over.

Avoid distractions

The student should also have a snack and use the bathroom before the tutoring session so that he/she can concentrate on the lesson without getting hungry or needing a break.

It’s not just about answers

When working on homework or study sheets, the tutor should, whenever possible, guide the student towards figuring out the answers or completing assignments. The tutor should never just give the correct answer, but try to help the student figure it out him/herself. That way, he/she can apply what they learn to other challenges. Sometimes, solving a simpler problem can make the problem at hand easier, and will be remembered longer.

It should be a conversation

Lecturing belongs in a lecture hall. Too much talking on the part of the tutor can indicate that the student is not engaged in grappling with the material. Making mistakes is not something to be embarrassed about, as long as the student is encouraged to continue seeking a better understanding. What the student comes to understand will remain with him/her much longer than if simply told by the tutor.

Checklist

• I study and try to the best of my ability, but I still don’t understand the concepts.
• No matter how late I stay up or what method I try to implement, I struggle on the tests.
• With everything that I’m involved in, my time is limited and I need a little extra help.
• I have tried to pass the state test, but I fail every time.
• I think I produce ok work, but my parents want me to do better.
• I think I produce ok work, but I want to do better.
• I go to class and try to pay attention, but I find myself daydreaming.
• The teacher explains things in a way that I don’t understand.

When you go through this checklist, if you can relate to any of these statements, you may need a tutor. Needing a tutor is not admitting that you somehow are not capable or incompetent in any way. Honestly, it is admitting that you are smart. Knowing you need a little help and being able to seek out that help is the mark of a mature, resourceful person.

Ok, so you need a tutor? Now what?

Decide what the key areas are. The clearer you can communicate your needs to your tutor, the more specialized the help will be, and consequently, the more successful you will be. Is it study skills? Is it writing? Is it reading comprehension? Maybe it is formatting for a research paper, or understanding the Pythagorean Theorem. Be specific. Don’t force your tutor to guess what you need.

Find a credible source for your tutor. You need to be able to rely on the quality of your tutor’s abilities. A service that screens its tutors is professional and worth trusting. There is a better chance you will get what you pay for.

Finally, make sure there is a good fit. You have to be comfortable with your tutor. Don’t choose someone that will be more of a distraction than help. Choose someone that you can be wrong in front of and not feel embarrassed, and someone that is patient and understands the way you think. Finding the right tutor will make all the difference in your stress level, confidence, and academic success.

Hiring a private tutor can be a valuable experience for all students. Students who need remediation or are failing a certain subject are not the only children who can benefit from tutoring. Tutoring services can also be provided to enrich learning and to take learning to the next level for students who need to be challenged. Here are some of the benefits of tutoring.

One-On-One Instruction

This is the greatest benefit of tutoring for most students. In today’s schools, children who are struggling cannot receive the attention and repetition of the skills needed in such a short time span as the school day. Although teachers do their best to differentiate for all students, they can get lost in the crowd. In a tutoring session, the student can receive specific instruction to meet his/her needs and have the confidence and freedom to ask questions as needed. There is no competition and the tutor can move the student through the material at his/her own speed.

Individual Learning Plan

Working with a tutor allows the students individual needs to be met in a specific way. When teachers, tutors, and parents work together, a plan can be created for the student to increase the specific skills that are lacking. This enables the student to work on skills they were already taught that they may not have mastered the first time around. There is also time for the repetition needed to master specific skills. Through continuous practice and assessment, the tutor can meet each individual need of the student. The plan should cover a few of the most important goals for the student and how they will be met. The goals should be constantly assessed and rewritten to meet the needs of the student.

Improved Confidence and Motivation

Working with a tutor allows students to build confidence in their skills without competition or the fear of failure. Improving confidence in an area that was once weak for the student helps to motivate the student to work harder. When students see their own gradual progress, they want to do better and continue to work towards the goals set for them. The new found confidence leads greater motivation to succeed.

Provides Enrichment Experiences

Not all students receive tutoring services for remediation. Students who are working on grade level can still benefit from a tutor. Schools teach to the grade level standard and provide instruction for those above and below the standard. Many times there are students that fall well above the standard and could benefit from enrichment in certain areas. Tutors can provide a plan for the student to challenge their skills so they grow as students also.

Improved Academic Performance

Improving academic performance is the end goal of tutoring. This does not mean that the process should stop once a student meets his/her goals. A child who has improved grades may still need remediation, even if just a few days a week. Some children will need the extra help often and throughout their school career. This is one of the best things about a good tutoring program—it grows with the student and continues to meet their changing needs.

I love seeing TutorSource at work. I get to sit back on my computer and watch the messages from clients come in and see all the tutors sending their responses. Eventually, the messages change color when a client hires a tutor. A match has been made. Tutoring can begin.

Sometimes, though, it doesn’t always work that smoothly. People have questions: is the site safe? Who are these people I’m speaking with? What if I don’t like my tutor?

A big part of my role here is to address questions like these. Yes, we are a real company (I love this one). Yes, our tutors have all had background checks. Yes, that professional tutor really only charges $45/hr. No, there aren’t any more fees at checkout.

What most people don’t realize is that most professional tutors only get paid $25-$45/hr at tutoring agencies. You only pay more there because you have to pay for buildings, staff, textbooks, and salesmen. Why pay $50-$150/hr for buildings and books? You have a home, you have your books from class, and your staff is right in front of you. For most tutors, you only pay us a few dollars an hour, and the rest of the fee goes straight to the tutor.

That last statement is what makes TutorSource great. We’ve built a company where we can grow and keep growing, even though we only make a few dollars when our clients use us to find a tutor. How can we do this? Just like this:

#1. Attract and promote the best tutors we can find

#2. Let them charge whatever they want

#3. Pay them every cent

#4. Rinse and repeat

What makes TutorSource work isn’t people like Paul and Ramit (meet them here). It’s in our tutors, the people who do the real work for us. We discovered a long time ago that keeping your tutors happy is the best way to grow your tutoring business. If they want to work through us, they’ll be more responsive to customers and more likely to do a great job for years to come. This in turn brings in more customers, which helps us grow and grow, despite only making a little bit at a time.

From my desk here in Santa Monica, I get to talk with clients and tutors all over the country. Have a question? Give me a call. I’ll be here, watching my screen light up.

Choosing to hire “a” tutor may be a fairly pragmatic decision. Your child needs help—you get help. Choosing “the right” tutor is more complicated because it involves the blending of a business decision with a matter of the heart.

Learning is an adventure

No good parent is looking for a knuckle cracking, drill sergeant tutor who will snuff any vestige of the love for learning right out of their child. Yet, somewhere beneath the frustration of poor report cards, as a parent you realize that well-ordered learning instruction is exactly what your child needs. You’ve heard the old rhetoric that “Learning Can Be Fun” and you are now questioning what planet the person who coined that phrase lived on! For a struggling child, formal learning can be misery.

As an educator, I have found that while learning can be fun, sometimes it isn’t. Mostly it is a lot of work. A better paradigm in tutoring is to think of work as an adventure. Adventures have challenges; satisfaction comes in looking back at the end. Having a realistic approach to what tutoring is, and what it is not, is the first and ultimately most vital step in choosing a great tutor.

Find the right fit

The second step ought to be looking for a tutor with a compatible personality. You know your own child better than any professional educator. You know his ability, his character, and his dreams. Unlike a school where your child is assigned to a teacher, in a tutoring situation you get to control which teacher is assigned to your child. Make the most of this parental power!

The wonderful thing about TutorSource is that every tutor you find here has a profile where they make a personal statement and tell you their tutoring approach. I spent considerable time researching different tutoring companies before I signed up here and I chose this one because it is one of the best sites in the market for helping parents make informed choices. Read the tutor profiles carefully. Look for answers that step beyond the standard clichés to find a statement that clicks in your heart. You know your child deserves more than simple computer-matching by zip code.

Qualifications are important, but not everything

A third consideration for choosing the right tutor is the credentialing. It is important, but not all-important. The reason I say this should be fairly obvious; if a college degree and state certification were all it took to make your child a star student, you would not be looking for a tutor now. Every child could put in their thirteen years at school and graduate as a genius.

The significance of any credential is that it marks a baseline for proficiency. Beyond that, it says very little about whether a tutor will be a good match for your child. Tutoring is very different from classroom education. It’s personalized with immediate feedback, customized explanations, and individualized pacing. Choose a tutor who is competent in the subject area where your child needs help, and then has the ability to work outside the conventional classroom rubric.

One point that is easy to overlook when choosing a tutor is the learning style. Perhaps you are aware that your child learns best by seeing pictures, or by hearing explanations, or by doing hand-on projects. These are classified as visual, auditory, and kinetic learning styles respectively. Most people learn by all these means, but have one area that is predominant. Teachers have teaching styles too. A highly visual teaching style will have the greatest success matched with a visual learner. If you are aware of how your child learns best, it can be helpful to have a discussion about learning style during the emailing stage of tutor selection.

Consider the tutor’s experience

Tips on choosing the right tutor would not be complete without commenting on the value of experience. Just as every tutoring situation is unique, so is the importance of tutoring experience. Sometimes it is critical and can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes it is totally superfluous. I have seen a 10-year-old be more effective than a tenured professional at teaching her younger sibling how to read. It is not the norm, but it happens. In this case, the younger child admired and trusted her older sister far more than she admired or trusted Dr. Dryasdust, and it was the experience of the sisters’ relationship, not the academics that made the difference.

If you are seeking tutoring, the norm probably hasn’t been working for your child either. The importance of having experience, which often comes with higher tutoring fees, depends largely upon why your child needs tutoring. By hiring an experienced tutor, you will be improving the chances that you get someone who has dealt with your child’s struggles before. Children with processing disorders and certain learning disabilities are those for whom having an experienced tutor is more important. Children who need a tutor to catch up after an illness or who are seeking tutoring to help them excel in advanced placement may do equally well with a less experienced college student who can explain the material effectively. As a parent, you are the best qualified person to make this judgment call. Perhaps the best way to put it is that experience is very important, but rapport can trump experience.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, remember that you are choosing a mentor for your child. He or she may not have the hottest picture in the profile, or the lengthiest resume on the list, or the catchiest quip on the page, but they ought to be a person who loves their job and shares the values that you want your child to emulate.

Dear Parents and Students:

Today is a milestone in TutorSource’s journey as an idea, a mission and a company.

• Based on direct feedback from our external customers and internal team, we are launching a number of enhancements to our TutorSource website.


• In listening to our clients – parents, students, adult learners – we are continually taking steps to fulfill our mission of providing greater access to affordable tutoring for anyone that needs it.

Our latest enhancements have only served to strengthen the TutorSource commitment to our core values and our family of students and tutors.

• Build a positive community of parents, families, students, tutors and learners of all ages.
  Pursue lifetime learning and personal development while creating an environment that reduces fear and embraces change.


• Enable the creative, the open-minded and the entrepreneurial talents inherent in all of us.
  Build the systems necessary to transact painlessly, increase knowledge transfer, empower learners, and reduce costs.


• Do this with passion, commitment, humility and dedication to a cause greater than our own interests as individuals.

It has been over one year since TutorSource launched on October 31st, 2008 and we will continue to meet the needs of our family of students and tutors.

• During this time we have created a trusted online meeting place where tutors of all levels and experience could directly connect with parents and students; thus lowering the costs for all involved. In stark contrast to a traditional tutoring agency model, not only are we are proud that 80% of every dollar is paid directly to our tutors, but also more money stays directly with our parents and students.


• For our clients, our hope is that no matter the budget, our team of tutors will meet that need.


• For our tutors, we offer an online platform that helps you share your expertise, while helping others achieve academic success. We provide our tutors the tools to grow their own business and effectively promote their expertise, background and teaching philosophy.

Through your commitment to us, as evidenced by the number of parent, student and tutor relationships created over the last year, TutorSource has grown rapidly into all major metropolitan areas in the U.S.

• Every day, we continue to build our team of tutors, who number in the thousands. In bringing TutorSource to an even wider audience, we are making it faster and fairer to connect parents and students with top-notch local tutors. While TutorSource has reduced the costs and complexity involved with hiring a tutor, we also know the relationships we have helped to create will build stronger local communities and smarter people.

Our team looks forward to this next chapter of TutorSource and continuing to learn from our family of parents, students and tutors.

Respectfully,
Paul

Paul Lanzillotti | Director | TutorSource | 1-877-987-TUTOR