5 ways to excel in your teaching/tutoring profession ---- From an Online Math Tutor

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Hi budding teachers/tutors! You have completed your formal education and you have a passion for teaching. So your plan is to become a teacher or a private tutor either online or offline. Excellent! Here are some valuable tips which will assist you to excel in your profession and be one of the most respected and popular teachers amongst your students.

1. Go through the entire syllabus.

Go through the entire syllabus that you have to cover before the first class that you take.
Estimate the total number of teaching hours that you will be getting to complete the syllabus.
Distribute the total time amongst all the chapters according to their lengths, importance and complexities.
Keep some hours for revision lessons that have to be taken before the examinations.

2. Do your homework before every class you take.

Revise the chapter that you will be discussing.
Prepare a lesson plan. Write down the major topics that you will be covering in your lecture in a list form sequentially with spaces in between to add extra information. Jot down the points or sub topics under each topic that should be explained.
Write down the questions, examples or sums that you will be asking or covering in the class.
Write down the homework that you will be giving.
If the class is a revision session where the students can ask questions to be solved or explained by you, practice ample problems yourself before going to the class.
Finally, memorise the lesson plan, the points written in it, so that you do not have to see it often while teaching, else the attention of the students may get lost.

3. Be truly concerned in your students.

Now, that you are well prepared with your academics, enter the class with confidence and with a smile. It will cost you nothing if you smile, but it will help you create an ambience which will be conducive to learning.
If you are addressing a group of students, make sure that you look directly at each of them throughout the entire session. Direct eye contact is essential. Do not look at only the intelligent students. It will give them, especially the weak students a feeling of importance, a feeling of security, they will know that you care for them.
Promote active participation of your students in the learning process by asking questions, making them come to the board to solve a sum or to recapitulate the portion taught in the last ten minutes. This will assist in better understanding of the current topic and it will also help to retain the attention of the students.
Show related models or videos whenever possible.
Attempt to understand the body language of the students to know who are listening attentively and who are inattentive. Inattentiveness can result from not understanding of the topic that is being taught or simply for not wanting to study. Ask questions to bring back their attention in the class. This way, you will come to know about the difficulties that they are facing in understanding the concept. It will also work as a mild warning for the negligent students.
Your body language should communicate a friendly gesture, always quick to assist your pupils.
You may sometimes crack a joke or say some funny things related to the current topic to lighten the environment of the classroom.

4. Teaching should be both verbal and written.

Learning happens best when we hear and see a thing simultaneously. So, do not forget to use the blackboard or the whiteboard that is in the class. This should be followed even if you are a language teacher teaching some poetry. First of all, you may write the name of the poem, then the synopsis of every paragraph that are present in the poem. This will aid in the memorisation process of the students.
I am an online Math tutor, so may not be able to give proper suggestions for teaching subjects related to the Humanities field. Any teacher or tutor ready to help me with this topic and in turn help the newcomers to this field?

5. Some miscellaneous advises.

If you have parent teacher meetings in your institutions, talk to the parents to know more about your students, their attitude towards spending time and learning your subject at home, their easiness in completing the homework and any other relevant details that you can think of. But if you are a tutor, then make sure that you get the parents’ feedback about your students regularly.
If you are a tutor, then try to go with the class that your student is in. If a student is learning about the digestive system in his/her class, teach the same topic in your tutoring session else the student may not find any interest or may forget whatever he or she is learning because your student is learning two new topics simultaneously.

Please feel free to add any other suggestions that you think would help our juniors to be awesome in their professions. Feel free to ask me questions related to this topic. I would be more than happy to assist you.

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