BlogStudyResults in Tutoring – How to Observe and Measure Them

Results in Tutoring – How to Observe and Measure Them

 

Results in tutoring - Featured Image

Tutoring is a big investment in terms of time, effort and money, so it can be very frustrating if it feels like it’s not working. But how can we know if we’re getting results in tutoring?

There can be a lot more than just the student’s marks that indicate success and that makes it important to understand different ways we can measure progress, and how we can make use of both of them.

Read on to learn 4 steps that will help you observe and measure results in tutoring!

Step #1: Understand the Difference between Marks and Performance
Step #2: Talk to Your Child
Step #3: Talk to the Tutor
Step #4: Try and Reframe Success

Step #1: Understand the Difference between Marks and Performance

We often make a bad habit of thinking only about the numbers — after all, they’re what everybody else is going to use to judge a student in the future. But there’s a lot more to success than that. Just as (if not more) important is what we call “performance”.

It’s not as easy to measure as marks, because we have to consider how the student felt about their attempt, and what mark they achieved relative to their ability level. Consider this:

A student dislikes maths, and consistently performs poorly because they can’t understand how to think logically and interpret questions. Their marks float around 30%. After two months of tutoring, they receive a mark of 45%, and they can clearly explain their thought process for solving questions, which they could never do before.

It’s essential to consider:

  1. What’s the relative change from the prior assessment?
  2. How does that compare with the rest of the class?

From a marks-only perspective of success, these results in tutoring still indicate a failure — by most standards, 45% is a failing grade. But from a performance perspective, it’s a huge success: 50% increase in marks for this student, coupled with a progress in understanding reflected in their ability to explain their thought process.

With our tutoring over the last decade, we’ve seen massive improvements from our students in their learning — on average, their performance has improved by over 20%!

Mark improvement - Results in Tutoring

Our tutoring doesn’t just look at improving academic performance — it’s about providing students with the tools to increase their confidence, manage their time better and feel motivated! By not just focussing on simply improving marks but all these holistic aspects too, 93% of our students feel they have gained confidence in succeeding with future study.

AOS stats - Results in Tutoring

As mentioned, we also need to look at this mark compared to the rest of the class. For all we know, 45% is one of the higher marks received for the assessment — so when looking at a mark, it’s necessary to put it into context.

If the rest of the class has received marks within the 30-50% range, while these aren’t the best marks, it shows that the student is on track and doing just as well as their peers.

It’s important to take these factors into consideration because it means the student hasn’t learnt how to pass, but how to learn, which will give them to the ability to continue succeeding even without help in the future.

Step #2: Talk to Your Child

Ultimately, all success comes from the student. So it makes sense that we should talk to them to see how they feel about their own progress. Things like self-confidence and understanding won’t always show in exam marks, but they’re just as important for long-term success.

Talk to your child about how they feel with the material, and whether it still threatens them the way it used to. Do they feel better equipped to sit exams, and do they feel like they’re more competent than when they started? These are both important parts of learning.

You can do this by asking these simple questions for each of their assessments:

  1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how would you rate how you’re feeling about your assessment last term?
  2. How would you rate how you’ve been feeling about the content this term, particularly before you went into your assessment?

This will give you a better understanding of how they’re progressing and if they’ve been able to absorb the content well.

Step #3: Talk to the Tutor

Remember, your tutor in is the business of bringing about success, and most of the time, they’re trained in recognising not just an increase in marks, but so-called “light-bulb moments” — when students finally click with the material and begin to be able to apply it.

Sometimes, it may not feel like your results in tutoring are improving at a rapid pace — but learning is a long process and there’s no silver bullet that’s going to fix everything in one go. Exams test application of material, or what David Kolb calls active experimentation but first, students need to go through the “abstract conceptualisation” stage. There’s a chance your tutor is working on this stage before giving more exam-focused help.

Make sure there’s an open dialogue between you and the tutor so you both understand the other’s goals.

On a related note, try to be realistic about your goals. You pay the tutor for a reason — they are the expert. Try to articulate your goals in terms of “do you think my child can achieve” rather than “I want my child to achieve” — this serves the double purpose of both removing your goals from your child’s education and making sure your goals are realistic.

Step #4: Try and Reframe Success

Hopefully, you can distance yourself from the idea of marks being the only indicator of success. Think about what’s more important to you — that your child is happy and satisfied with their efforts, well-equipped for the future, or that they’re achieving to some arbitrary standards in a test that no one will ever care about.

I know I picked my words carefully there to try and trivialise marks and overplay the value of success, but I hope that you understand that I only do that because we typically tend to do the reverse.

Basically, remember that marks are the final stage of success, not the first!

Looking for some extra help with your child’s HSC studies?

We pride ourselves on our inspirational HSC coaches and mentors!

We offer tutoring and mentoring for Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campuses for tutoring in Hornsby or tutoring in Castle Hill!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational tutor and mentor get in touch today!

Give us a ring on 1300 267 888, email us at [email protected] or check us out on Facebook!


Matt Saunders is a huge nerd who first got into writing through fanfiction. He’d known science was the path for him since a young age, and after discovering a particular love of bad chemistry jokes (and chemistry too), he’s gone onto to study Forensic Chemistry at UTS. His HSC in 2014 was defined in equal parts by schoolwork and stagecraft, which left him, weirdly enough, with a love of Maths strong enough to inspire him to tutor any level, along with 7-10 Science and HSC Chemistry.

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