The Tutoring Myth

By Allie Caton on July 31, 2017

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There can be a lot of misconceptions about tutoring: that it’s only for kids with bad grades, that it shows weakness, or that it’s shameful. None of this is true.

Getting tutored doesn’t mean that you are less smart than the rest of the students in your class — it’s not shameful or weak. Whether you are struggling or not, tutoring can only help you understand information that you are learning in class. If you are struggling, tutoring can be immensely useful in helping you grasp concepts and keeping up with your course.

Tutors can be helpful on a daily basis, a weekly basis, or even just before exam time. There is no harm in setting up a tutoring session to just go over information that you have to know for an exam. Being able to talk through concepts with a tutor and using them to relay the information to can be an extremely effective study method. A tutoring session is free of distractions; you don’t have your phone, laptop, friends, or bed calling out to you while you are in a tutoring session. Meeting with a tutor to study will help keep you on track and away from any temptations.

Additionally, they can also help you with your homework grade. One of the best ways to work with tutors is to work through homework together. By doing this, you kill two birds with one stone; you get instructed practice on the things you are actually working on in class, and you are able to work through your homework and know that it is going to be correct at the end of the session.

This then translates into a higher homework grade and, consequently, a higher grade overall. Tutoring can help hold you accountable for your homework. Oftentimes, homework isn’t absolutely mandatory in college courses which makes it hard to complete it all. This is, however, detrimental because homework is meant to push students to create a deeper understanding of the course material. Having a tutor to work through homework with means that you can’t skip it!

Learning takes time and it often takes help. If you are feeling yourself slip behind in the first couple weeks of a course, seek out a tutor or a tutoring service on your campus. The longer you wait, the less time you will have to understand the information and get caught up. If you set up a couple tutoring sessions right off the bat, they can help you learn and build the foundation of the course concepts, so that later on in the course you will have the tools to understand more difficult concepts on your own.

Getting one-on-one attention from your tutor could be the push that you need to be able to get through a course. Having one-on-one attention just in the beginning can help you understand basic concepts to expand on your own, or having the individual attention for the duration of the course might be necessary to help you come out on top.

Either way, having someone understand how you learn, think, and organize is the best way to understand difficult topics. This individual attention gives you confidence in your own learning style and can supplement the teaching that you are lacking or not connecting to in class.

Fortunately, many universities provide free tutoring services for specific majors. This usually comes in the form of peer-to-peer tutoring which is an awesome setup. Being able to tutor with other students who have taken your exact course before is an amazing way to get help for specific subjects.

In college, other students are your greatest resource for information. Tutoring with another student who knows exactly what you are going through in your class is a perfect support system to help you fully grasp what you are learning. Through this system, you are likely to make a new friend in the form of your tutor. They can act as an academic role model for you as well as a buddy. Studying is always more fun with friends anyway.

Tutoring is not shameful; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Tutoring can help you build confidence and motivation to do well in your courses. Tutoring can help you have a solid grasp on what you are learning so that you can build your knowledge and understanding on your own between tutoring sessions. Tutoring gives you the freedom to ask questions that you might not have the chance to ask in class because of class size or just because you don’t have the confidence to.

Getting extra help shows your professor that you really care about the course and you want to do well. This drive is reflected in your grades and is sure to impress your professor. There’s nothing better than having your professor know that you really care about what they are teaching.

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