Category: Tutor Contributions

QA 3.0 Tag Changes + Building Warmth Examples

Upcoming Tag Changes

Earlier this month, we announced a number of improvements to our Quality Assurance System that have changed how your performance is assessed and how you are rewarded for high-quality performance. Another aspect of QA 3.0 that has not yet gone into effect will change how certain tags are applied.

Starting next Monday, April 30th, TQMs will be grading sessions according to the following updated tag definitions for Gave Answer and Wrong Answer. We will also be introducing a new tag – Wrong Format:

1. GAVE ANSWER:

  • ? Old Definition:
    Tutor directly gives the answer to the student OR fails to involve the student in fundamental steps.
  • ✨ New Definition (starting 4/30)
    Tutor carries out a full step OR confirms a final answer without any participation from student.


2. WRONG ANSWER:

  • ? Old Definition:
    Student leaves the session with an incorrect solution to their problem.
  • ✨ New Definition (starting 4/30)
    Student leaves the session with an incorrect solution to their problem due to a major incorrect step, calculation, concept, or method.


3. WRONG FORMAT (New):

  • ✨ Definition (starting 4/30)
    Final answer contained minor issues with notation, units, rounding, or format.
  • ✨ Wrong Format Transition:
    • Starting Monday, April 30th TQMs will tag these sessions as “Other (tutor)” and share their rationale in the comments.
    • In mid-May, “Wrong Format” tag will become available.

Create your own user feedback survey

Building Warmth Annotatations

Based on the Tips for Building Warmth post survey results, an overwhelming majority of you expressed interest in seeing concrete examples of Helen’s tips for building warmth. Helen has created the following annotations from her own real Yup sessions to exemplify these tips:

Tips for Building Warmth – Annotated Snippets

 

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

Tutor Contribution + Solution Goals

Tips for Building Warmth

Have you ever been marked down on Standard 3.3:  Encouraging Language or wondered how to create a learning environment that is more comfortable for the student? This is one of the trickier aspects of online tutoring – if it is an area you feel you can improve in, you are not alone!

Yup Tutor and TQM Helen Herring seems to have an innate ability to make students feel at ease during a session and has drawn upon this skill to compile Tips for Building Warmth to share with the team. These suggestions are all very simple to implement, but they come with a huge impact!

Tips for Building Warmth

Although there are quite a few ideas to consider, we would recommend reading through the list to see how many of these you already implement, then slowly starting to fold 2 or 3 of these suggestions at a time into your daily teaching. Once they become habits, start adding in more so that you, too, can master this skill.

Helen will be receiving a bonus for proactively writing this article – and you can too! If you have an idea for something that would benefit the tutor community, please let us know at tutor.support@yup.com. Maybe it is a skill you have like staying in-tune with the student’s perspective, or tricks you can share for an area in which other tutors struggle, like keeping the student involved. We hope that you will consider writing articles for us so we can bring tutor contributions back to newsfeed posts!

Create your own user feedback survey

Guiding Students with Solution Goals

When your student feels stuck, there are a few key factors like positive language that make a world of difference in whether they give up or persist. One of these factors, and one that we haven’t discussed much, is the student’s awareness of how the current step fits into the overall purpose of their problem.

If students don’t understand why your questions or explanations are necessary, then it’s common for them to become impatient or disengage from the learning process. Instead, give students a sense of direction and context throughout the session by making objectives clear all the way to the solution. This way, students will better understand how their own participation will bring them closer to the solution, and will feel more willing to participate.

The brief infographic below uses examples to illustrate the ideas above. Check it out before your next session!

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

Discussion:

The Art of Pushing Information, Part 1

Let’s say you’re in a session with a student who’s visibly stuck and frustrated by a lack of progress. You’ve just asked some guiding questions, but with no success.

What’s a tutor to do now??

We know how tricky this scenario can be, given our dedication to student involvement.

While it’s definitely bad for a student to get so much help that they fail to learn, it’s just as bad and often worse for the learning process when they get so little help that they give up completely.

Instead of asking more guiding questions that the student may just guess on or not answer, here’s an initial list of tips for inspiration. Future posts in this series will expand on tactics like these.

  1. Walk the student through increasingly simple, targeted examples.
  2. Provide encouraging, motivating, and supportive language.
  3. Give increasingly specific hints about what the next step requires the student to use, find, or do.
  4. Assure the student that they’ll get to the answer AND feel comfortable with this material in the future if they bear with you for a while longer.
  5. Further break down explanations you’ve given earlier in the session, focusing on what the student is having the most trouble with.
  6. Do a small part of the work for the student, then have the student take over.
  7. Discover more of what the student DOES understand and build on top of it.

What other tactics have helped you in these situations? Please discuss and tell us what you think in the comments section below!

-Team Yup

Discussion:

Session Analysis

After reading through the following session, what are some ideas that come to mind for increasing the likelihood of the session reaching Gap Bridged?

 

 

We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

— Team Yup

Reminder: Please complete to the computer survey before Friday, July 14th if you have not already done so. Thanks!

Discussion:

Session Analysis

After reading through the following session, what are some ideas that come to mind for increasing the likelihood of the session reaching Gap Bridged?

 

 

We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

— Team Yup

Discussion: