At Metatutor, we only offer face-to-face tutoring. Even during the pandemic, when the choice was between offering online tutoring or nothing at all, I chose the latter. I of course had to consider online tutoring when the lockdowns were introduced, but having trialled it I determined it was not a valid alternative to face-to-face tutoring and decided against it. Personally, I believe that online tutoring does not work for maths. In this blog, I will outline the 5 main reasons why I think this. That is not to say that online tutoring doesn’t have its merits in other subjects – it’s perfectly possible that it works really well for subjects such as English or History for example. The main benefit of online tutoring is the logistical ease for the tutor, who doesn’t need to leave their home. This is obviously a real advantage, but here are 5 disadvantages:
1. Engagement of student
It is much easier to keep the attention of a tutee when you are sat next to them. You can’t force a tutee to put their camera on when in an online lesson, especially if they are shy – so how do you know that they are not on their phone or doing something else that is distracting them from what you are saying? It is much easier to lose interest when you are talking to someone on a screen rather than in person.
2. Technology
In my opinion, the technology required to conduct a proper maths lesson is not quite there yet (on a wide scale). If both the tutee and tutor have iPads or a gadget that allows you to draw freely on a screen then this will work really well. However not everyone has access to an iPad or the required gadgets. These items can be quite expensive which is yet another barrier for tutees from less-advantaged backgrounds.
3. Connectivity issues
Luckily my Wi-fi at home is very reliable, but not everyone is as lucky as me. To conduct an effective online lesson, both the tutee and tutor will need to have perfect internet connectivity for the duration of the session, as well as screen shares and microphones working. This is not always possible and when there are technological faults, the session quality will drastically decrease and the tutee and client will soon lose faith in the sessions. Again, like in number 2, the less well-off families will be likely to have worse internet and technology so you will see a further attainment gap develop between classes.
4. Lack of connection
Linked closely to number 1, being next to someone in person leads to a much better connection between the two parties. As earlier mentioned, you can put your camera on but there is no guarantee the tutee will put their camera on. So the interaction, which is already greatly limited online, will be even worse. Connecting and getting to know your tutor is a very important aspect of one-to-one tutoring, and leads to better results. So if this is lacking it will really hamper the effectiveness of the sessions.
5. Difficulty of teaching certain topics via a screen
This is the biggest bugbear for me and the most important reason we never did any online tutoring. To an extent, you can get away with doing simple algebra questions on a screen like solving equations for example. But when it comes to graph-based questions where you need to either draw a graph or draw on a graph with any level of precision, it is very difficult to do this online (without a state-of-the-art piece of software). Topics such as cumulative frequency, plotting graphs, histograms, transformations, inequalities on a graph, conversion graphs, bearings, distance-time graphs and velocity-time graphs will be very difficult to conduct a lesson on.
Visit our testimonials page to read about our excellent face-to-face maths tuition.
For some targeted topic-specific practice check out our worksheets.
I hope you found that useful. If your son or daughter needs help with any aspect of mathematics, book in a free (in-person!) taster session.
