Tips for Getting Your Child Ready for Online Tutoring
Online tutoring provides your child with the educational support they need in the comfort of their own home, at the times that are convenient for them. Prep Academy Tutors is offering online tutoring services across Canada to digitally connect students with our certified and experienced tutors.
If you are considering online tutoring to continue and enhance your child’s academic development, there are a few things you can do to optimize the benefits of the digital service. At Prep Academy Tutors, we collaborate with parents to ensure that each student’s private tutoring is a fulfilling and enriching experience that is catered to their unique needs.
You can help your child get ready for online tutoring to make sure they are fully equipped to learn online, and continue their education journey in an environment that is focused, constructive, encouraging, and enriching.
With the right tools and resources, online tutoring can provide your child with the tools they need to keep up with their peers, get ahead, and reach academic success. Learn how you can set your child up for online tutoring with Prep Academy Tutors:
1. Find the Right Tutor
Every child learns differently and has different educational needs. It is important to find a compassionate tutor who can create a strong bond with your child and fill these unique needs. The right tutor will create an environment that is low-pressure, personal, constructive and empowering.
Whether your child is in need of a remedial tutoring program or subject-specific tutoring, Prep Academy Tutors will pair your child with the tutor that will best suit their unique needs, preferences, and learning style.
2. Set Academic Goals
Encourage your child to set academic goals. This gamification of learning will help encourage your child to challenge themselves to set and reach their personal academic goals with the support of an educational professional.
The tutors at Prep Academy Tutors offer personalized one-on-one online tutoring to help students better understand course material and gain the academic confidence they need to succeed.
3. Organize a Work Station:
It’s commonly suggested that a great way to increase productivity when you work from home is to get up from the bed and work in a designated workspace. This is supposed to help you mentally and physically avoid distractions.
The same thing goes for your child when online learning; get your child up, ready, and dressed to head to their work station — the bed is for sleeping, not learning.
When you and your child set up their learning workspace, they can distinguish the workspace as a place for learning and not playing, eating, or any other activity.
It’s important that this workspace is organized (also shown to benefit productivity), and out of high traffic areas where people will be in and out of. Online tutoring requires some uninterrupted time during which your child can focus on learning and both interpreting source material and applying knowledge of said material.
Giving your child the freedom to design their workspace can help to get them more excited about their online learning as they can look forward to utilizing their personal space to learn and advance their education.
4. Schedule the Day
A schedule will help keep your child on track and encourage them to learn how to balance tasks. Routines give kids a sense of security and help them develop good time management habits.
It is important to help your child schedule their day because, the reality is, they probably have responsibilities other than online tutoring. When you schedule their day, you can help them to better manage their time and split up their daily responsibilities.
If a student needs to write an assignment, engage with a tutor for feedback, make their lunch, and fold their laundry, a great way to help encourage them to be productive and get everything done is to guide them through a schedule-making process.
A schedule can help students visualize what their day will look like and how much time should be allotted to each task. By making daily or even weekly schedules, your child will also learn how to manage their time and schedule their tasks independently as time goes on.
5. Gather Supplies & Keep Them Handy
Not having everything handy can pose as a distraction. If your child doesn’t have a pen, notebook, or even a charger for their device on hand, they then have to go looking for it. This disrupts their learning routine, takes time away from their learning, and impairs their focus. Make sure that your child has all the tools they need on hand to settle down, and focus on their online learning.
Supplies you will want handy include:
- Chargers
- Pens/pencils
- Erasers
- Notebooks
- Calculator
- Dictionary
- Snacks
- Water
6. Secure Your Internet Connection:
An essential part of online learning is the digital aspect. If your child is receiving online tutoring, they will likely need to send files back and forth and download resources. To do this effectively, they will need a secure internet connection and operating device. There are many affordable options for laptops and tablets that will help your child maintain a seamless online tutoring experience.
7. Work with the Tutor
When you enrol your child in online tutoring, it can be helpful to form open communication with their tutor. By working with your child’s tutor, you cannot only understand their progress but also identify ways to integrate their education and learning into day to day activities like cooking or baking.
For example, if the tutor is working on fractions with your child, you can bake with your child to help them make the connection between what they’ve learned about fractions and real-life scenarios.
At Prep Academy Tutors, our tutors offer phone calls and other means of communication to keep you updated on your child’s progress and answer any of your questions you may have about your child’s educational journey.
8. Encourage Discussions
What did your child learn today? At Prep Academy Tutors, we believe in open communication to ensure that parents are aware of their child’s progress. In addition to scheduling phone calls with our tutors, you can also work with your child to discuss what they’ve learned throughout their tutoring experience and encourage them to make connections.
You are one of your child’s greatest educational assets as you can encourage them by asking them questions, and answering their questions.
The Importance of Continuing Education During the COVID-19 Outbreak
The Ontario Government has closed private and public schools for two weeks following March Break (week of March 23 and March 30) in response to the WHO and the CDC advising against public gatherings due to the outbreak and impacts of COVID-19. These closures are also present across the country in Quebec, where schools will remain closed until at least May 1st and all Quebec provincial exams have been cancelled, Alberta (until further notice), British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and other provinces.
This cancellation is meant to encourage the social distancing between children and adults alike to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus. These moves are necessary for the safety of both the public and the health care system, which is why parents, educators, and the school board are all coming together to create an alternative option for continuing education at this time.
At Prep Academy Tutors, we are offering online tutoring to help students continue their education in the safety of their homes. Our tutors across Canada are making themselves available to provide personalized educational support and resources online to help students continue their education at this time.
Learn how our private tutoring services can help to maintain student’s educational progress at this time.
Although school may not be on everyone’s mind at this time, there are many reasons why continuing education is crucial right now for students:
Education & COVID-19
Global News has reported that Doug Ford has confirmed schools will likely not open on April 6th, but the provincial and federal governments continue to look for ways to maintain education at this time.
Toronto’s Minister of Education has shared in a statement that they “are working to ensure that students will be able to continue their coursework and credit accumulation, even when we aren’t able to be in a classroom setting.” They are expecting to do this by expanding existing online learning tools.
Educators are looking for digital ways to provide assignments, and even lessons, to help students to continue their learning. Online tutoring will help support your child with any of these online tasks and will continue to act as an educational resource.
Consistent Knowledge & Development
The reality is that not all schools and teachers will be able to continue education digitally, which means that many students’ learning will come to a halt. Even the suggested online learning assets from the school boards may take a while to establish and develop as rules and regulations have not yet been set, and different schools accommodate different needs.
Children are constantly learning and developing, and this progress is important to maintain. By pausing learning for two weeks (or longer), it will be that much harder for students to retain information and build upon information they’ve already been taught. Continued knowledge is essential for the academic fulfillment of students.
Our tutors teach material that aligns with curriculum material taught in the classroom so that the billions of students who are no longer in school can continue to learn while being in a safe and familiar setting.
Routine
Routine is essential for children. It keeps them on track, organized, and helps them to space out their daily tasks and responsibilities like meals, education, chores, and downtime. Education is not only essential for the knowledge and development of your child, but it also provides a sense of structure in their day to day schedule.
A lack of daily structure can make it challenging to get your child to focus on a task, and will make it that much harder for them to get back into their daily routine once school starts back up again. That said, there is no perfect routine for everyone.
There is no right or wrong way to react in this situation, and by bringing education into your home through online tutoring, you will have full control of your child’s new routine and educational progress. The thing is, any routine will provide them with a sense of normalcy, productivity, and empowerment.
Even if you integrate a couple of hours of learning into your child’s daily routine, it will be beneficial. With online tutoring, you can implement a schedule that will ensure your child is learning at the times that work best for you and them. This way you can also facilitate other elements into your child’s schedule like downtime, reading, crafts, meals, etc.
Challenge Their Minds
It is important for your child to continue to challenge themselves. As much as it’s nice to give your child the opportunity to escape by playing video games and watching Netflix, it is also important to keep them thinking and mentally challenged.
This will help them to continue to develop their cognitive skills and abilities so that they can continue to problem solve, think, and both apply and develop their knowledge consistently.
Unknown Timeline
The state of COVID-19 and the government’s responses are changing every day. There is no knowing how things can change and when students will be able to get back into their school routine.
To ensure your child is still getting the education they need to expand their knowledge and build the skill for future educational success, plan ahead. Find a means to continue education like online tutoring.
Education is still Feasible
It’s important to continue education during this time because, bottom line, we can. The internet and online resources make it possible to connect with professionals like our certified tutors through online tutoring, find resources like worksheets, and submit assignments. As long as it is possible to maintain education, albeit with a shifted approach, we can all play a part in helping your child to continue their learning.
Plan For Learning in Different Circumstances
There are a variety of reasons why a child may need to shift their approach to education in the future whether it be due to homeschooling, injury, illness, or safety reasons. By introducing (or continuing) at-home education, your child can learn how to accommodate and facilitate learning in various different scenarios.
Circumstances are always changing, and online education is becoming increasingly more prevalent as an alternative educational resource. It is important for both children and parents to be able to pivot and continue education in different scenarios.
Continuing to learn at this time is about ensuring your child can still get the educational support they need to learn, achieve academic goals, develop their mind and skills, and maintain physical and mental health. Incorporating a routine into your child’s life by integrating education at a pace that works for both parents and children helps students to continue to learn and creates a sense of normalcy for them.