If your child didn’t understand it when the teacher explained it in class, why would hearing it from a tutor be any different?
It’s a fair question, and it’s at the heart of the tutor and teacher difference. In other words, what is the tutor doing after the lesson that is supposed to help my child understand now?
While teachers and tutors share the same goal of helping students learn, the way we work toward that goal is completely different.
And understanding that difference is the key to seeing how tutoring can help your child keep learning and reinforcing concepts even after the classroom lesson has ended.
A classroom teacher’s role is to teach the curriculum for that course. Each course has themes and topics that must be covered, and the teacher works hard to present those concepts so as many students as possible can learn them. But because they are responsible for many students at once, they must choose one main way to teach a concept. There might be time to try another approach, but in most cases, class time is limited.
As a tutor, my goal is to help a student be able to do the skills they are expected to do now or will be expected to do later in school. If a student does not understand something, my job is to help them understand it one way or another. Teachers with large classes may need to move on, but as a tutor I can stay with the student until we find a method that works for them.
When I work one-on-one, I begin by asking what the student already knows. If they ask me how to do a question and have no idea, I ask what topic they think it is about. That way, I can guide them toward the right idea so they can look in their notes or recall what they have learned before.
If it becomes clear they know nothing about that topic, I start with the general idea and then go into specifics. Over time, I have developed different ways to teach each concept because I have seen so many students struggle in different ways.
Some of my students look forward to our sessions because they know they will understand what they were taught in class better after we work together. That confidence matters. I don’t have a teaching magic trick, but I take the time to figure out what they already know and help fill in the gaps from there.
Sometimes we run out of time before a new skill fully clicks. For example, we might start a new concept 40 minutes into the lesson, and by the end, they still have questions. In those cases, I often keep thinking about how to explain it after the session is over.
One student of mine had trouble telling which variable is dependent and which is independent. If the two variables were cost and weight, he could not grasp why cost depends on weight. He argued that you could simply give someone ten dollars and they would give you the corresponding weight.
I did not have the perfect answer in the moment. But later that week, while I was at an Italian deli, I overheard a clerk cutting meat for a customer and asking, “Is 130 grams okay?” I snapped a photo to show my student later. In our next session, I walked him through the situation: the customer orders a certain weight of meat, but it is not easy to cut exactly 100 grams. Instead, the clerk cuts as close as possible and charges based on the weight. It would not make sense to take the money first and try to cut exactly that amount’s worth of meat. This real-world example helped him understand why cost depends on weight, not the other way around.
Yes, sometimes I do. It depends on the student and what will best prepare them for what is coming next in class. For example, in Precalculus 12 there is a unit on exponents and logarithms. This unit requires strong skills with exponent laws, so if the student needs a review, I do that before the unit starts.
If they do not need the review, I begin preteaching exponents and logarithms at the precalculus 12 level. That way, when the topic comes up in class, they already have a foundation and can focus on the finer details.
Understanding the tutor and teacher difference is about recognizing that each plays an important role in your child’s education. The classroom introduces new concepts and provides a shared learning experience, while tutoring creates space for review, targeted practice, and learning in a way that fits your child’s needs.
If you want to see how personalized support can help your child keep learning long after the school bell rings, contact me today to see if we could be a good fit. Together, we can build the skills and confidence they need to thrive in math.
