How to Keep Online Students Engaged During Tutoring Sessions
Keeping students engaged during an online tutoring session is not always easy. Without a physical classroom setting, students can get distracted, lose focus, or be afraid to get involved.
The answer is having an interactive, well-structured and focused lesson. With the right tools, tutors can increase online student participation.
1. Set Learning Objectives
Explain what students will learn or achieve in the session.
For example:
"By the end of today's session, you will be able to solve three different types of quadratic equations."
Learning objectives provide context to students.
2. Ask Questions
Avoid long lectures by asking questions. Ask questions to drive the lesson and give the student an active role in the session. Avoid questions like "Do you understand?", and ask open-ended questions like:
"What do you think the next step should be?",
"Why did we use this formula?",
"Can you explain this in your own words?".
This keeps the student from sitting passively and listening to the tutor.
3. Use Interactive Examples
Give students examples they can engage with and relate to. Examples of real-world applications, short problem solving exercises, diagrams or scenarios can help students relate to difficult concepts. This is especially important when tutoring math, sciences, languages, or any other practical subjects.
4. Encourage Students To Participate
Students should not sit and listen for the entire session. Give students the opportunity to solve, explain, share their opinion, read aloud, demonstrate their own method or ask questions. Active participation can make the session much more memorable.
5. Break Long Lessons Into Smaller Activities
Do not try to explain one idea for an hour at a time. Break long explanations into small segments and separate them with interactive segments, questions, or practice.
6. Use Visual Explanations
Visual explanations can help students grasp abstract ideas. Diagrams, charts, presentations, whiteboards, images, screenshots or video can all be useful teaching aids. Avoid using visual aids just for show. Every visual aid should aid the explanation.
7. Include Practice Exercises
Give students the chance to apply what they have learned in the session itself, instead of leaving it all for homework. Including short exercises lets the tutor see how well the student understands the material, and lets the student get more out of the session.
8. Let Students Explain Concepts
One great way to determine whether students understand the material is to ask them to explain the concepts back to you. This can help a tutor address misunderstandings. For example, you can say:
"Let's imagine you're explaining this to a classmate. Tell me how would you explain [concept]?"
9. Adjust The Lesson According To The Student's Needs
Some students need more help than others to understand a concept. Pay attention to how the student is responding to the lesson, and plan the session around how fast the student is able to grasp new ideas. If the student seems to struggle, give a simpler explanation. If they seem to understand right away, move on to more advanced concepts.
10. Give Constructive Feedback
Give students specific feedback that helps them identify what went well and what they need to work on. In most cases, avoid simply stating what went wrong, and explain how to do things right. This can help students grow while still giving them confidence.
11. End With A Small Recap
Use the last few minutes of the session to have a small recap. You can ask the student:
"What did we learn today?",
"What was the easiest part?",
"What was the most challenging?",
"What should we practise for the next session?"
A small recap can help reinforce what the student has learned, and give you useful feedback for the next session.
Quick Engagement Checklist For Tutors
At the end of your session, ask yourself these questions:
Did I set clear learning objectives?
Did I ask questions throughout the lesson?
Did the student participate actively?
Did I include any examples or activities?
Did I adapt the lesson to the student's needs?
Did I give any constructive feedback?
Did we have a small recap?
If most of your answers are yes, you have delivered a session full of opportunities for students to actively participate.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I keep students engaged during online tutoring?
Set learning objectives, ask questions, include interactive activities, encourage participation, include practice sessions and adapt lessons according to the student's needs.
What makes an online tutoring session engaging?
A combination of informative explanations, participation, interactive examples, visual learning, practice exercises, questions and constructive feedback can make an online tutoring session more engaging.
How can tutors make online lessons interactive?
Tutors can make online lessons interactive using questions, quizzes, practice exercises, whiteboards, screen sharing, demonstrations, and asking students to explain concepts.
How long should an online tutoring session be?
There is no ideal length for online tutoring sessions. It will vary according to the students' ages, the subjects being taught, their learning pace, goals and many other factors. Always make sure to include a few changing activities in long sessions.
Final Thoughts
Keeping students engaged online means avoiding the traditional lecture model and putting students at the center of the learning process. Through participation, practice, questioning, feedback and a clearly defined structure, tutors can give students a more engaging online learning experience.
