The other day my 14-year-old got stuck with his mathematics homework & needed help. His dad always looks the other way when it comes to his homework and leaves the poor kid with lesser options. Surprisingly, I found myself not quite equipped to pitch in for a ninth grade mathematics homework. Syllabus & stuff have changed drastically. Gone are the days when we sought help from private tutors’ access to whom was restricted to kids from well-off families.
The advent of digital technology has been an enormous influence on the social dynamics as well. Today, help can be sought from online tutors from the comfort of your own home & as per your convenience. I was pleasantly surprised to find the professional help available instantly over the internet for a particularly challenging mathematics assignment.
Availability of such help is certainly a step towards social equality wherein all students irrespective of their social & financial status can seek support for their tough assignments and get an immediate professional resolve without any bias. It’s a fascinating move that is appreciated worldwide & gaining popularity with each passing day.
Advantages of tutoring:
No one, not even a highly qualified college professor can deny the support of tutoring. No wonder then, a lot of tutorials, study workshops have mushroomed throughout the city compelling even the modest income group parents to queue up before them to get their kids enrolled in a formal session post school.
With both parents busy in respective career and a drastic change in the school syllabus, we are bound to provide some external support to the children to ensure better grades in school. This is a personal belief that external support should be as much about fun as it is about grades. The tutors should be competent enough to captivate the students’ attention & make the subject interesting. Grades will automatically follow.
Once we are settled on the issue of having an external support for the children education, the next question arises as to whether or not we can depend on online homework help given the instant availability or go ahead with good old private tutors. Having said that, am completely aware of the mindset of some people who find it difficult to let go of their good old method of private tutoring their children & can choke me with their several rounds of logic & reasoning supporting private tutor.
Let us explore the pros & cons associated with online homework help vis-Ã -vis private tutor to find out which one is suitable for our precious kids. End of the day, all the exercise makes it worthwhile if we are able to choose the best for our children.
Pros &cons of online tutoring
- Online tutoring is availed using a computer and the internet which is found in homes of all income strata; to be precise in all homes of school going children.
- Online homework tutoring is focused on helping students with assignments, examination papers & test preparation.
- The support base targets students of high school & college.
- Tech savvy students are at liberty to carry out extensive research on their subject while looking for online support; this, in turn, helps them acquiring knowledge.
- Online tutoring is taken at one’s convenience, independent of geographical location.
- Online tutoring gives one access to more than one professional in the chosen area of expertise; for example, a student can seek expert help for his mathematics homework from a mathematics tutor & seek similar support for his geography homework from another professional having expertise in geography.
- From a perspective of cost efficiency, online tutoring will win hands down; a private tutor cannot have expertise in all subjects & a weak student might need help from more than a single private tutor to get good grades. Imagine the plight of the poor parents who have to afford many of them simply to ensure the child does not flunk in his examination. Online tutors are easy on pockets & you can afford as many you want to depend on the challenges you face in the subjects.
- Online tutoring is rooted in high tech advanced technology yet they share a personal rapport in the form of chat rooms where students can interact with professional experts free of cost.
- Is the amount of time a child spends in running between school, private tutor workshop and a home worth the effort? Online tutoring saves time that can be utilized in playing a game of football on the ground.
- Safety is another biggest concern that plagues parents of a teenaged child; we do not feel safe to leave our children in the custody of an unknown person for a long period of time going by the growing number of child abuse cases across the world. Online tutor despite the personal rapport sharing is devoid of such hassles.
- Online tutoring ensures the children is not spoon-fed but helps them overcoming their challenges.
With so many positive factors supporting online homework help, you might wonder that private tutors have lost their places forever in this digital twenty-first century. However, that is certainly not the case as private tutors are still much in demand evident from workshops &tuition classes carrying their nameplates & glow sign boards.
Pros & cons of private tutoring
- Private tutors provide personal care to an individual student; a weak student is given extra attention based on his needs & the tutor slows down if the student is unable to match the pace of the class. The tutors’ attention to detail supports the student understand the subject & get a grasp over it before the study for grades can even be started.
- Students with specific obstacles like dyslexia, impaired sight or hearing is much better off getting extra attention & care from private tutors who are particularly equipped to communicate effectively with such children.
- A private tutor does provide support in developing basic management skills related to studies apart from teaching the subject. Time management, summarizing skills, laying emphasis on the significant chapters are skills nurtured by private tutors through years of experience & unparallel expertise.
- A good private tutor has the competency to make the subject seem fascinating & intriguing to a student whose paradigm shift from getting good grades to learning the subject is vital to acquiring holistic knowledge during growing up years.
Learning a subject should not be merely confined to ‘getting good grades’ concept; it should spread beyond & enable the learner to obtain a holistic view of the entire world through the lens of the subject.
Parents should not end up pushing their children hard and make a nerd out of them. Instead, give them a patient hearing, understand their need and accordingly choose an option wise enough to support your child’s education without committing a blunder of spoon-feeding them.