Mentorship Program + Dashboard Fixes

MENTORSHIP PROGRAM LAUNCH

We are proud to announce the official start to our Tutor Mentorship Program! After an initial trial run, we have made some exciting improvements, including the ability to set personal goals with your TQM mentor and complete targeted exercises, such as annotating your past sessions to get a sense of how they could have gone better.

Check out the following document to find out more about the program and keep an eye on your inbox – we will be contacting those who qualify to be in the program soon!

Yup Tutor Mentorship Program

TUTOR DASHBOARD FIXES/UPDATES

  • Many of you have reported a bug causing issues with the post-session survey page at the end of the session. If you are having issues submitting this form or are seeing the form return after you have already submitted it, please refresh the page to ensure the Tutor Dashboard loads back to the session waiting room.
  • This week we will be releasing updates to the Tutor Dashboard, specifically the whiteboard, that will fix many reported issues while adding a very exciting and long-awaited new feature: a built-in image gallery! This gallery is will continue to grow and we welcome your suggestions in the New Ideas room on Slack.

As always, please keep us posted with bugs you experience by following the Bug Reporting Instructions . (Check out specifically the step that explains the Dev Console screenshot – this is the most important step for diagnosing the problem.)

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

Updates: Bugs, Positive Language & Science

TUTOR DASHBOARD BUGS

As the Engineering team works towards making the newest version of the Tutor Dashboard bug-free, we want to extend a huge thank you for your patience and understanding during this process. A special thank you to everyone who has been following the Bug Reporting instructions to take screenshots of bugs with the Dev. Console and sending them our way!

Here are some tips for avoiding some common Whiteboard bugs:

  • Problem 1: The “Send” button is missing
    • Solution: The send button will appear as soon as you start using the whiteboard. To send an image without editing it, make an inconspicuous marking to activate the send button.
  • Problem 2: Whiteboard error message: “Error loading the image. Reason Failed to fetch”
    • Solution: The following instructions will allow you to use the whiteboard when you see the above message until we issue a fix:
  • Problem 3: The line tool is behaving erratically
    • Solution: After using the line tool to draw a line, right-click to commit the line to the board OR continue to draw connected lines.
  • NEW FEATURE TIP: Click on the triangle tool and enter a number “n” in the provided box to drag out a polygon with “n” sides. (Try it now in the Whiteboard Practice Link!)


ENCOURAGING LANGUAGE REMINDER

Quick reminder for Standard 3.3: Please ensure you are always using encouraging language when interacting with students! We realize this may be a challenge when the student isn’t succeeding, but this is the most important time to praise the student’s efforts in order to keep them motivated.

Here are some phrases that are better than a simple “Not quite.”:

  • When the student gets something completely wrong:
    • “Good effort, Mike, but not quite! Let’s take a look at this step together.”
    • “Nice try, but not quite! Don’t worry, we will get there in no time 🙂 ”
  • When the student is wrong, but not far off:
    • “I see where you are going with this! Let’s talk about this step a bit more.”
    • “Very close, Mike 🙂 Let’s build off that idea!”
    • “Nice effort! Let’s make a few minor fixes here.”

See the Yup Teaching Standards  or the Tutoring Template slides on Standard 3.3 for more tips!

SCIENCE UPDATE

As some of you may be aware, in July we made the decision to stop offering assistance with Chemistry and Physics subjects. This change will allow us to focus all our energy on offering top-notch math homework help, which the overwhelming majority of users are coming to us for. We hope to bring back these subjects in future, however we do not currently have a concrete plan to do so.

Let us know what questions you have!

— Team Yup

New Login Method + QA 3.0 Adjustments

NEW LOGIN METHOD

If you are facing issues with the new login method, please refresh the page to bring up the old login method and sign in using your username or Facebook details. If both of these methods are not working, please email us at tutor.support@yup.com so we can assist you.

If you were unable to start a shift on time this week due to the login method change, rest assured that this will not be held against you.

QA 3.0 ADJUSTMENTSRelated image

This Spring, we made major changes to our QA System and key tag definitions. Since then, we’ve identified a few more tweaks that will make our system more fair and accurate:

1. Tutor Fault Tags earned during new user sessions will no longer be weighed heavier. As always, treat new users with warmth and enthusiasm!

2. The 4-week limit for the absolute number of Tutor Fault Tags will be lowered to 15. The relative limit will remain at 25%.

3. The 4-week limit for key tags will be lowered to 15%, and the absolute limit for each will be lowered to 10. We expect that very few tutors will exceed these amounts. Our interpretation of the Gave Answer tag is likely to change in the coming month due to new initiatives aimed at improving teaching pace.

4. Tutors will be placed under review if their Composite QA Score falls below 8.0 during their first 4 weeks, 8.5 after their first 4 weeks, or below 9.25 for Tutor Quality Managers.

5. The bonus for earning zero Tutor Fault Tags will be based on the calendar month rather than on 4-week periods, and the minimum will be raised from 10 to 20 eligible sessions. To make up for the lower frequency and higher bar of eligible sessions, the amount will increase to $100.

These changes will take effect on Monday, June 18th. We will not enforce the new rules for sessions that happened before Monday, June 18th, meaning you can not be placed under review due to these policies until July 16th.

Let us know what questions you have!

— Team Yup

Webinar #2 + Student Bugs

TUTOR WEBINAR: Thursday 4/19 @ 9am PDT

We’re really excited to be hosting our second Tutor Webinar tomorrow to go over QA 3.0 and the recent changes that have come with it!  Many thanks to those of you who filled out Sharon’s survey and took the time to share questions or confusions you had.

Webinar #2 will be held tomorrow – Thursday, April 19 at 9:00 AM PDT. The following instructions need to be followed closely in order for your attendance to go smoothly:

  1. Please visit the Webinar Link well before the start time tomorrow so you can download Zoom (the webinar service we are using). While you are there, please also test your computer speakers.
  2. Please make sure you are on time (@ 9:00AM PDT tomorrow, 4/19) – we don’t want you to miss any of it!
  3. During the webinar, if you think of a question or  comment, please send a message to the chat. If it is a longer question that will take some time to type up, simply type “question” so Sharon is made aware.
  4. The following is a link to the questions we will be answering in the webinar. We recommend having this open as you tune in so it is easier to follow along: Webinar Questions

Last Months Webinar: We apologize for the delay in getting the March webinar video to you, but here it is! Keep in mind that since this webinar we have disabled refunds, so the information on refunds is no longer applicable.


Student Bug Protocol

Sometimes, students are affected by bugs that adversely impact their sessions. For example, tutors have recently encountered a bug that causes a student’s message to repeat many times over. While this issue may appear like the student is spamming you, it is essential for you to handle these situations with care and not assume that it is deliberate:

  • Just like we hope students are understanding when bugs affect us, we too must exhibit that level of understanding. We request that you calmly explain what is happening on your end and respectfully ask the student to close the app and submit a new session request.
  • An example of a line you can send the student is, “I’m sorry, but there seems to be a bug that’s significantly affecting my ability to read your messages. Can you please try closing the app and connecting again?” Please then tag the session as “Potential Bug”.
  • While it is important to block students from our service that are behaving inappropriately, sessions where there is likely a bug on the student’s end should not be tagged in this manner.

Happy tutoring! As always, please let us know what questions you have.

— Team Yup

Tutor Chat Bugs + New Users

ADDRESSING TUTOR CHAT ISSUES

Recently, we’ve been looking into issues involving message lag within Tutor Chat. For some tutors, the site occasionally takes a long time to respond to typing and/or drawing. As a reminder, whenever an issue hurts your ability to teach quickly and effectively, please follow the instructions below!

If you’ve run into this issue, we ask that you email tutor.support@yup.com with a description of the circumstances in which this issue tends to arise. The next time it arises while you’re conducting a session, follow the ‘Dev. Console Instructions’ as laid out in the bug reporting doc:

Yup Bug Reporting Instructions

Then, email a screenshot of the Dev. Console to tutor.support@yup.com.

We normally do NOT want you to refresh your browser while you’re in a session, but if this issue comes up for you, please give it a try, and let us know in your bug report whether or not it helps.

It can be tough for our Engineering Team to debug without having specific system errors to reference, so thank you for your cooperation and patience!


WORKING WITH NEW USERS

With the recent addition of the New User flag, which identifies new Yup students within their student profile, we encourage you to become more aware of how your interactions with these users may influence their newly forming opinions of Yup.

We’ve laid out a few ideas to keep in mind when working with new students to make sure they’re having the best possible experience. It’s important to note that while these practices should be applied to every session, they take on even greater importance when you’re matched with a new Yup student:

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup