Understanding systems

Some time ago I read an article on what makes a good tutor. It explicated many of the things I do when tutoring, so obviously I thought it was a great article. When I had a side gig as a private tutor, I covered mostly maths and physics, so that’s how I’ll frame things in this article. The same thing applies to other fields too, but it might be harder the further away from maths they are.

The main thrust of the lost article (as I remember it) was that effective tutors are highly empathetic to the level of motivation of their student, and they quickly adjust the lesson to that. That’s it. That’s the main thing good tutors do differently. If motivation decreases, they switch to lighter content, or even transition into non-lesson conversation. If motivation increases, they ramp up the difficulty of the lesson. Tutoring is, say, 80 % motivation management.

Okay, but that undersells it a little. Lesson difficulty is not fixed for any topic; it depends on the student. Annoyingly, it even depends on the student’s level of motivation! The tutor must somehow know what is going to be difficult and what is going to be easy for their student, in every specific situation.

(Continue reading the full article on the web.)