How to Handle Tutoring More than One Student at a Time

By Alyssa Laffitte on January 14, 2018

Tutoring in college a great way for students to make money while helping out younger students who are struggling academically. Tutoring even one student requires lots of time and patience, especially if your tutoring sessions are recurring. But what if you are tutoring more than one student at a time?

Tutoring more than one student is a challenge, but it is definitely doable if you are willing to be a little more organized and careful with each one of your students. Here are some tips to help you handle tutoring more than one student at a time.

college tutoring tips

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Know each student’s individual needs

A good tutor knows their student’s strong points (specifically, their learning type- how they learn best), weak points, and how to help them compensate for the weak points. For example, it helps a lot when you know your student is a visual learner and is struggling in math. You can bring visual tools to help the student physically see what is happening when you subtract

Knowing this information helps you and your student work together as a team to help the student learn and succeed. When you tutor multiple students, you have to keep track of this information for each of your students. (Being organized will help you with this!) If you know each of your students’ individual needs, you will be much more prepared to meet them, and to meet the needs of your group as a whole.

Dedicate one-on-one time to each student

Even though you will be tutoring more than one student, each student deserves individual attention. As I said before, you should get to know each student’s individual needs so you can better help them learn. Talking to each student individually will help you learn about them. Also, taking time to help each student individually will make the student feel like their needs are being met. If you don’t spend enough time with them, they might feel like you aren’t giving them enough attention.

Have them work together to solve problems

In college, there is a big emphasis on working in teams. Having your students work together to solve problems will not only help them learn the subject you’re tutoring them in, but they will also learn the teamwork skills they will need later in life. Bonus points if your students have different learning styles, since the strength of one student could be the weakness of the other, and they can help each other!

Have them teach each other

I love teaching because when you teach, you learn. Plus, teaching will help you identify the areas of the material that you don’t know (so you will know what to spend extra time reviewing the next time you study). For that reason, having your students teach each other is a great way to help them learn and to keep them busy. Again, bonus points if your students have different learning styles. Having students teach each other is a great way to spend your tutoring time.

Don’t let them get distracted

When you are tutoring more than one student, it’s easy for them to get distracted or to distract each other because they might be tempted to talk amongst themselves. This is especially true if you are tutoring elementary or middle school aged students who know each other. Remember that you are in charge of this tutoring session, so you are allowed take control and bring their attention back to the lesson if they get distracted. Let your students collaborate and learn from each other, but keep the discussion on-topic for the lesson of the day.

Make sure everyone is participating

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned that some students might be social butterflies and distract each other, but the opposite can happen, too. On the other hand, you might have students who are very quiet and don’t want to participate. You want your students to collaborate and learn from each other, so you must make sure everyone is participating in your tutoring session. If it makes the shy student feel better, let him/her get to know you on a one-on-one basis before inviting him/her to the group tutoring session. This will make the student more comfortable with you and more willing to participate. Make sure the students are getting the most out of your group tutoring sessions by encouraging them to participate.

If you want to make extra money by tutoring in college, especially by tutoring more than one student at a time, I recommend you go for it! Of course, it will take more time and patience than tutoring only one student, but if you are organized and can care for each student individually, all of your students will be able to gain something valuable from your group tutoring sessions.

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