Live online tutoring

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Live online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online environment, with teacher and student interacting in real-time without necessarily being in the same place. This real-time element, whilst presenting a significant technical challenge, sets live online tutoring apart from traditional online tutoring as it attempts to mimic in-person interaction as closely as possible rather than simply facilitating knowledge transfer.

Contents

Background

Live online tutoring is a relatively recent concept, originally pioneered by NetTutor in 1996 and popularized by the live online tutoring platform Tutor.com from 1998 in the US. It has developed alongside far more widespread asynchronous online tutoring and learning experiences, in turn popularized by organizations such as Khan Academy, universities and other educational institutions with the introduction of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). These efforts were aimed primarily at people without local access to appropriate teachers and tutors, in an attempt to remove geographical barriers from education. [1]

However, lack of certain key technology such as reliable remote video and audio communication, and a lack of widespread stable high-bandwidth Internet access, prevented these early efforts from including a significant live component in their offering. [2] Early innovations came from remote language learning services such as italki, where a stable audio connection was sufficient to deliver a reasonable service. In most contexts, online tutoring was thus fundamentally different from face-to-face tutoring, more closely resembling correspondence teaching than sitting in a classroom. Today, there are hundreds of companies and academic institutions based around the world offering live remote learning in a huge range of subjects, both in the context of academic learning and industrial training. With current technology and increasing Internet penetration in the developing world, there is a renewed interest in live offerings as exemplified by Chegg's 2014 acquisition of InstaEDU for $30 million. [3]

Common functionality

Existing live online tutoring services frequently include the following features to connect students and tutors:

Some services also provide

The overall environment aims to reproduce the level of interaction present in a face-to-face session, and is fundamentally different from software packages and services for screen-casting and videoconferencing such as WebEx, where the focus is on one-way transmission of information.

Comparison with in-person tutoring

Live online tutoring has several advantages over face-to-face tutoring, although suffers from shortcomings in ease of non-verbal communication.

AttributeLive online tutoringFace-to-face tutoring
Verbal communicationAudio linkConversation
Visual non-written communicationVideo linkBody language
Written communicationText chat, whiteboards, synchronized document sharing and editingReading and writing together
Lesson quality control and accountabilityLessons can be recorded or monitored unobtrusivelyLessons must be recorded or observed in person by an external party
Lesson asymmetryExperience of tutor and student during lesson can differ significantlyExperience of tutor and student during lesson is largely shared
Ease of lesson scheduling, planning and executionNo travelling required, resources available privately to tutor during lessonsTravelling required, tutor has access to limited resources during lessons
Safety concernsNo physical contact, lesson can be monitored unobtrusively and halted immediatelyPhysical contact, monitoring with ability to halt lesson immediately requires close third party supervision

With the development of wearable technology, in particular smart headsets, richer interaction will become possible as companies work to mimic face-to-face interaction more closely. The language learning service Duolingo, for example, is already fully compatible with Google Glass. [4]

Tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic

Remote learning in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced language composition gains to 70% and math gains to less than 50%, with greater learning loss among minority and low-income children who lack stable access to technology and for families affected by the economic downturn. [5] Parents working full-time, managing other responsibilities, and who lack of familiarity with remote education, have fewer resources to assist their children in remote learning. One survey from Florida’s Broward County Public Schools reported that 52% of students do not feel motivated to complete distance-learning schoolwork and another 42% said they hardly receive adult help at home. [5] EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit focused on connectivity in public schools, found that Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, West Virginia, Washington D.C.— states with larger concentrations of students of color— experience the largest percentage of unconnected students, ranging from 26% to 28%. [5] Across the nation, students from low-income and historically-segregated areas are less engaged with remote learning on a regular basis.

Research conducted by the Urban Institute noted six unique obstacles for students in addition to poverty: linguistic isolation, parents in vulnerable economic sectors, single parents, crowded conditions, child disability status, and lack of computer or broadband access. [6] Each barrier is a unique student-need that can be compounded by COVID-19 and require specific mitigation strategies. Researchers at the Urban Institute recommend that states and districts can address language and disability barriers through direct alternate communication systems, translators and specialists, and restructuring grading assessment with public health concerns. [6] For students in economically-vulnerable families or single-parent households, schools should provide contact-free reduced lunch programs, emergency child care, counselor outreach, and additional resources for community pantries or free resources. [6] Additionally, for families facing crowded living conditions or that lack access to the internet or computers, districts need to provide noise-cancelling headphones, free devices and hotspots, family guidance counselors, professional development for teachers, and hard copies of learning materials. [6] All provided examples are needs-based resources that address learning inequities and tangible action steps for states and districts to consider.

Across the nation, dozens of non-governmental initiatives, nonprofits, and agencies have also provided remote academic services to address learning barriers during COVID-19. JAMA Health Forum points to Tennessee Tutoring Corps Program (TTC), as a potential model for preventing learning loss and supporting low-income families by pairing college-level students who need summer jobs with K-12 students. [7] The missions of the Tennessee Tutoring Corps and another non-profit Pandemic Professors are quite similar: both aim to pair qualified, passionate college students with K-12 students who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 learning losses. However, the TTC works on a more narrow scope, focusing on summer recovery learning, typically among elementary-level children, and providing summer stipends to tutors of up to $1,000. [8] In contrast, Pandemic Professors is entirely volunteer-based, provides year-long services, and tutors in a broader variety of academic fields and at a larger age-level range. [9] The core model for both organizations seek to utilize online meeting platforms to provide regular academic and personal support during remote and distanced learning throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The inherently personal relationships between tutors and students has led to a growing formal profession worldwide, with tutors inheriting an increasingly crucial role in the academic and personal development of youth. In 2020 alone, one national online tutoring platform, Nerdy, hosted “418,000 paid online sessions serving 44,000 online active learners” and over half a million online learners in Nerdy’s large class format. [10] CEO of Nerdy, Chuck Cohn, reported that the global direct-to-consumer learning market is accelerating rapidly due to COVID-19 and is currently worth over $1.3 trillion. [10] Yet not all students can participate in this private learning lifecycle and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this accessibility gap. Private tutoring can range between $25–80+ per hour on average, although dyslexia tutors and other specialized tutors can cost up to $135 per hour or more. [11] [12] Local tutoring centers can range from $150–$200+ per month. [13] For economically vulnerable families, such additional costs under the strain of COVID-19 mean that countless minority, low-income students will not be able to access the necessary academic support. Researchers reported that specialized tutoring is likely a highly-effective strategy to reduce COVID-19-related learning losses and one 2016 Harvard study found that one-on-one tutoring was especially beneficial to minority, low-performing students. [14] Los Angeles Unified School District, where 80% are reportedly low-income, announced its partnership with several nonprofits, including Step Up, to provide free weekly tutoring for K-8 students. [14] Countless free online or remote tutoring services have emerged across the country, oftentimes in partnership with local school districts and community centers.

See also

Related Research Articles

Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tutoring</span> Instructor who gives private lessons

Tutoring is private academic help, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telehealth</span> Health care by telecommunication

Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, conditions due to outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provide distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration. Telehealth could include two clinicians discussing a case over video conference; a robotic surgery occurring through remote access; physical therapy done via digital monitoring instruments, live feed and application combinations; tests being forwarded between facilities for interpretation by a higher specialist; home monitoring through continuous sending of patient health data; client to practitioner online conference; or even videophone interpretation during a consult.

Asynchronous learning is a general term used to describe forms of education, instruction, and learning that do not occur in the same place or at the same time. It uses resources that facilitate information sharing outside the constraints of time and place among a network of people. In many instances, well-constructed asynchronous learning is based on constructivist theory, a student-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of peer-to-peer interactions. This approach combines self-study with asynchronous interactions to promote learning, and it can be used to facilitate learning in traditional on-campus education, distance education, and continuing education. This combined network of learners and the electronic network in which they communicate are referred to as an asynchronous learning network.

A learning management system (LMS) or virtual learning environment (VLE) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learning management system concept emerged directly from e-Learning. Learning management systems make up the largest segment of the learning system market. The first introduction of the LMS was in the late 1990s. LMSs have been adopted by almost all higher education institutions in the English-speaking world. Learning management systems have faced a massive growth in usage due to the emphasis on remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online school</span> School that teaches students entirely or primarily online or through the Internet

An online school teaches students entirely or primarily online or through the Internet. It has been defined as "education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students. Online education exists all around the world and is used for all levels of education. This type of learning enables the individuals to earn transferable credits, take recognized examinations, and advance to the next level of education over the Internet.

Technology integration is defined as the use of technology to enhance and support the educational environment. Technology integration in the classroom can also support classroom instruction by creating opportunities for students to complete assignments on the computer rather than with normal pencil and paper. In a larger sense, technology integration can also refer to the use of an integration platform and application programming interface (API) in the management of a school, to integrate disparate SaaS applications, databases, and programs used by an educational institution so that their data can be shared in real-time across all systems on campus, thus supporting students' education by improving data quality and access for faculty and staff.

"Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting... Effective technology integration is achieved when students can select technology tools to help them obtain information on time, analyze and synthesize it, and present it professionally to an authentic audience. Technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in South Africa</span> Overview of education in South Africa

Educational Systems in S.A

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telepsychiatry</span> Mental-health care by telecommunication

Telepsychiatry or telemental health refers to the use of telecommunications technology to deliver psychiatric care remotely for people with mental health conditions. It is a branch of telemedicine.

Online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online, virtual, or networked, environment, in which teachers and learners participate from separate physical locations. Aside from space, participants can also be separated by time.

Online communication between home and school is the use of digital telecommunication to convey information and ideas between teachers, students, parents, and school administrators. As the use of e-mail and the internet becomes even more widespread, these tools become more valuable and useful in education for the purposes of increasing learning for students, and facilitating conversations between students, parents, and schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paper (company)</span> Educational technology company

Paper is an educational technology company that partners with school systems to offer unlimited, on-demand access to academic support including tutoring, writing review and coaching, college and career support, AI-powered fluency practice, and gamified vocabulary and math practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic</span> Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease itself and efforts to quarantine it, including political, cultural, and social implications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic affected educational systems across the world. The number of cases of COVID-19 started to rise in March 2020 and many educational institutions and universities underwent closure. Most countries decided to temporarily close educational institutions in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. UNESCO estimates that at the height of the closures in April 2020, national educational shutdowns affected nearly 1.6 billion students in 200 countries: 94% of the student population and one-fifth of the global population. Closures are estimated to have lasted for an average of 41 weeks. They have had significant negative effects on student learning, which are predicted to have substantial long-term implications for both education and earnings. During the pandemic, education budgets and official aid program budgets for education have decreased.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children</span> Overview of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children

A systematic review notes that children with COVID-19 have milder effects and better prognoses than adults. However, children are susceptible to "multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children" (MIS-C), a rare but life-threatening systemic illness involving persistent fever and extreme inflammation following exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

There was a resurgence of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic to help students return to school. Innovative parents sought to create solutions to their individual dilemmas by organizing local groups. These variations of homeschooling include micro schools and educational family co-ops. The first usually involves hired professionals to teach a small group of kids. The second is a parent-organized co-operative where families take turns educating and minding their kids during the week. Both are largely available only to the well-off, as costs in time and money are high. 'Pandemic pod' is the fashionable term used to describe one of these arrangements where all group members agree to participate under well-defined and strictly enforced health rules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities</span>

Individuals with disabilities are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and have higher mortality rates compared to those without disabilities. This is particularly true for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, those residing in care facilities, and women with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities face heightened risks of mental health issues related to the pandemic, such as increased feelings of loneliness and isolation. They were also more likely to face domestic violence and abuse during the pandemic. People with disabilities are more likely to experience unemployment as a result of the pandemic and may require changes to the types of accommodations they require for work. Children with disabilities experience complications in their educational programming. Remote learning poses a host of challenges for children with disabilities, including disruptions to physical and occupational therapies and access to assistive technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in Ghana</span>

Most governments decided to temporarily close educational institutions in an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As of 12 January 2021, approximately 825 million learners are affected due to school closures in response to the pandemic. According to UNICEF monitoring, 23 countries are implementing nationwide closures and 40 are implementing local closures, impacting about 47 percent of the world's student population. 112 countries' schools are open.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migration</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted migrants throughout the globe. Low-skilled migrants, refugees, and internally-displaced migrants are at a higher risk of contracting the virus. The pandemic has also aggravated the dangers of already-dangerous migration routes. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, international organizations have recorded a spike in human rights abuses suffered by migrants, especially in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The restrictions on travel, imposed as a measure to contain the virus, have resulted in a rise in "stranded migrants," individuals who want to return to their home countries but cannot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in the United States</span>

In 2020, school systems in the United States began to close down in March because of the spread of COVID-19. This was a historic event in the history of the United States schooling system because it forced schools to shut-down. At the very peak of school closures, COVID-19 affected 55.1 million students in 124,000 public and private U.S. schools. The effects of widespread school shut-downs were felt nationwide, and aggravated several social inequalities in gender, technology, educational achievement, and mental health.

References

  1. ↑ Berg, Gary (31 October 2009). Cases on Online Tutoring, Mentoring, and Educational Services: Practices and Applications. Hershey, New York: IGI Global. ISBN   9781605668772.
  2. ↑ Chi Ng, Kwok (March 2007). "Replacing Face-to-Face Tutorials by Synchronous Online Technologies: Challenges and pedagogical implications". The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8 (1).
  3. ↑ "TechCrunch article, June 2014".
  4. ↑ "Article on TheNextWeb.com, June 2014".
  5. 1 2 3 Tawnell D. Hobbs, Lee Hawkins (5 June 2020). "Wall Street Journal". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Blagg, Kristin; Blom, Erica; Gallagher, Megan; Rainer, Macy (April 2020). Mapping Student Needs during COVID-19: An Assessment of Remote Learning Environments. Urban Institute.
  7. ↑ "JAMA Health Forum". 2020. doi: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2020.0724 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. ↑ "Tennessee Tutoring Corps". 2020.
  9. ↑ "Pandemic Professors". Pandemic Professors. April 18, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
  10. 1 2 Knox, Dave (March 2021). "How Nerdy Is Revolutionizing Online Learning To Expand Minds... And Its Business". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  11. ↑ "Rates & Availability". The Reading Guru. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  12. ↑ "2022 Tutoring Prices | How Much Does a Tutor Cost? // Tutors.com". Tutors.com. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
  13. ↑ "2021 Tutoring Prices | How Much Does a Tutor Cost? // Tutors.com". Tutors.com. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  14. 1 2 Newberry, Laura (2020-10-13). "Parents are paying up to $100 an hour for tutors, driving up demand and worsening inequities". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
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