Introducing: Student Canned Responses

As an online tutor, it can be tricky gauging how a student is feeling about a lesson or concept. Tutoring in-person, we draw upon non-verbal cues like facial expressions and body language to read a student, then adapt accordingly. In a chat setting, we are entirely reliant on the student’s ability to share this information with us.

This past week, we introduced a new feature that aims to take some of the guesswork out of determining a student’s learning needs. Student Canned Responses provide students with handy shortcuts for expressing themselves during a session.

Check out the following infographic which outlines the new student canned responses and provides tips for responding to them during a session:

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with feedback via the #new-ideas channel on Slack or via email at tutor.support@yup.com.

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup

New Live Whiteboard + Paid Survey Reminder

NEW FEATURE: LIVE WHITEBOARD

One of the most valuable ways to engage students is with visual aids that allow them to grasp a concept in ways that can’t be achieved with text alone. However, illustrating concepts and annotating images using the whiteboard does take time, and can unfortunately disrupt session flow.

To solve for this problem, we are introducing Live Whiteboard! We believe that if students can view tutors’ whiteboard in real time, this aspect of a session will feel less time-consuming. Imagine sitting in a classroom and watching your teacher write on the board; this feature mimics this experience to create a more engaging learning environment.

What does it look like for the tutor?

View of the whiteboard when the LIVE feature is engaged, featuring the LIVE indicator along with the "On/Off" switch in the top left corner.

What does it look like for the student?

When the whiteboard is live, the student can click the LIVE button in the top right-hand corner to launch the whiteboard view.

How does it work?

  • When the Live feature is enabled, your student will be able to see anything that you put on the whiteboard
    • You do not need to change anything you do! Just be aware that when you add items to the whiteboard, your student can see them.
  • It is still important to send an image once you’re finished working on it
    • If you don’t send an image, your student can see it but won’t be able to refer back to it later on (and you won’t be able to reuse it from the gallery.)
  • A stable internet connection is vital in order for the feature to function
    • The live option whiteboard will be disabled if either your internet connection or the student’s isn’t stable.

This feature will be launching next week for most students. As always, please let us know about any feedback (good or bad!) in the #new-ideas channel on Slack!


REMINDER:  TUTOR SATISFACTION SURVEY

If you haven’t done so already, please take a moment to complete the compensated Yup Tutor Satisfaction Survey.

Because this survey covers a lot of areas of being a Yup tutor and will take time to complete, we are offering 1-hour of compensation for completing the survey thoughtfully and within the given deadline. We ask that you complete the survey no later than 11:59PM PDT on Monday, May 13th.

Complete Paid Tutor Survey  › 

Your responses will aid us in making important policy changes and feature improvements while giving us a general sense of what we can do to ensure you are having a rewarding experience on the Yup team!

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

New Feature + General Reminders

NEW FEATURE: IN-SESSION PROMPTS

Yup tutors have a lot to do in-session. Remembering which tools to utilize and when, using growth mindset language, and typing quickly – all while teaching math and adapting to students’ needs! This role requires a significant cognitive load, and with so many specifics to remember we know it isn’t easy to stay on top of everything.

In-Session Prompts are designed to encourage appropriate use of teaching tools and growth mindset language. The feature will prompt you when it’s appropriate to use these levers:

We hope this will increase student satisfaction and learning while making your job easier. As you notice the prompts this week, please tell us what you think in the #new-ideas Slack channel! We review comments regularly to inform future feature requests and changes.

GENERAL REMINDERS

  • Is your student using an unfamiliar or unusual solution method? Avoid discrediting the student or their teacher’s method, which could come off as rude or disrespectful.  Instead, ask for a snap of their notes or textbook to gain more insight into the method or check with #tutor-chat (or Google) for support!
  • Coverage Reminders: Both Riemann Sums and calculating volume with integrals fall within Yup’s concept coverage. Please take a moment to brush up on these concepts if you are not already familiar.

 

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

New Features + Student Feedback Award

NEW FEATURE UPDATES

Tutor Biographies are live!

Recently we reached out to the tutor team to collect fun biography facts – everything from your favorite food to your dream job. We have used these answers to create tutor bios which students can access from the session screen. This feature is live as of today!

We believe that providing students with context about their tutors will create a more human learning experience. Your student can interact with the cards and ‘heart’ them if they enjoy the fact. Some students may even ask you about your answers – we invite you to engage with the student while keeping professionalism in mind!
New Whiteboard Updates

Today, we released an whiteboard update that will enable you to zoom in on and rotate student and whiteboard gallery images to speed up the image reviewing process. As part of this update, we also gave the whiteboard tools pane a refresh.

Check out the new whiteboard guide for details and instructions!

Whiteboard Feature Guide

  • Another part of this update are fixes to commonly-encountered whiteboard rotation issues – if you select a landscape image from the session images pane or the chat stream, the whiteboard orientation will now automatically adjust to landscape.
  • Coming soon: when students take photos in landscape orientation, we will attempt to detect that and display the image in landscape orientation without you needing to rotate it first.

OUTSTANDING STUDENT FEEDBACK AWARD

Congratulations to Bryan Rock for earning the Outstanding Student Feedback Award! This award is given to tutors who receive consistent, outstanding written feedback from students over several weeks along with demonstrating excellent overall performance. Way to go Bryan!

Some of Bryan’s exceptional student feedback comments include:

  • “Thank you for your help! That problem was confusing me, and the sample my book had did not make much sense. Thanks for helping me learn how to solve it!!”
  • “I understand now! We finished right in time, and I now know what the steps are! Thank you!”
  • “You make algebra seem simple! Thanks for your help!”
  • “I hope i get him again i loved his teaching it was great I totally recommend him for other students.?”
  • “Thank you very much! I’ll be able to do the rest of the problems on my own now :)”

 

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup

Referrals, Tutor Survey & Whiteboard

TUTOR REFERRAL PROGRAM

We’re excited to announce a new opportunity for tutors to invite their math-minded friends and colleagues to join us on the Yup team – and for both parties to get rewarded in the process!

  • TIMEFRAME: The referral program launches today, February 22, 2019. This initial referral window will be open until March 22.
  • INCENTIVES: You can earn up to $125 per new referral and your friend can earn up to $75 based on performance. You can also claim $25 for each past referral of a current Yup tutor performing to standard.
  • HOW TO REFER: Simply have your friend apply via the standard Yup application page. When prompted to answer “How did you hear about Yup,” they should select “From a friend.” – we’ll follow up from there.
  • HOW TO COLLECT: Yup will track new tutor referrals and award the bonus once eligibility is met. (To claim a past referral, please contact tutor.support@yup.com with the name of the tutor(s) you referred.)


Check out the Tutor Policies slide
FAQ page for more details!

FEBRUARY TUTOR SATISFACTION SURVEY

This month’s survey will ask for thoughts on the Achievements feature. How often are you sending Achievements? How can the feature be improved? Take the survey to let us know!

> > February Tutor Satisfaction Survey < <

WHITEBOARD UPDATES

This week, the engineering team released a new feature that makes the whiteboard touch-screen friendly! If you have a laptop with a touchscreen, you can now draw directly on the whiteboard. Engineering also released a fix for a common bug that was creating issues with rotating and horizontal images.

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup