Category: Tutor Dashboard

Tutor Dashboard Performance Tips + Tutor Bios

TIPS FOR OPTIMIZING TUTOR DASHBOARD PERFORMANCE

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A common concern we hear from tutors is that the Tutor Dashboard is slow, unstable or failing to perform as expected. Often these issues can be due to technical bugs which the Engineering team must investigate and resolve. Other issues however, may be related to your computer, operating system/browser settings, or internet connection.

The following is a list of guidelines that will ensure both tutors and students are having the best possible experience using the platform. As we work towards a more stable Tutor Dashboard, we ask that you adhere to these guidelines until further notice – this will increase the likelihood that any bugs being reported are an issue on our end rather than yours:

  • Avoid watching videos or using applications in full screen
    For many operating systems this will cause notifications to fail and sessions to be unknowingly passed 
  • Avoid streaming media or downloading large files
    Because these activities require more bandwidth and memory, they may reduce dashboard performance 
  • Disable Chrome’s ‘background timer throttling’ 
    This feature was introduced to prevent backgrounded tabs from using up system memory. For apps like Yup’s Tutor Dashboard, this setting has a negative impact on performance and may cause passed sessions. To disable the setting, copy and paste chrome://flags/#expensive-background-timer-throttling into your Chrome address bar and disable “Throttle expensive background timers” – as shown below:
    .
  • Limit open tabs and applications during a shift
    Keep your Chrome tabs to a bare minimum during shifts to avoid using up memory. Running programs in the background along with Chrome may also have negative consequences for the Tutor Dashboard. We recommend  a computer with 4 GB of memory at the very least.     
  • Ensure reliable internet connection (5- 10 mbps min.)
    See our latest post for more information: Practice Dashboard + Internet Connectivity

 

TUTOR BIOGRAPHIES FOR NEW TUTORS

If you are newer to the Tutor Team and have not been asked to complete a Tutor Biography, please take a moment to do so:

UPDATE YOUR TUTOR BIO   › 

Read more about Tutor Biographies in our post from last Autumn:
Tutor Biographies (2018/10/09)

 

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup

Practice Dashboard + Internet Connectivity

NEW: PRACTICE SESSION DASHBOARD

Introducing the Practice Session dashboard! The Engineering team created this invaluable training tool for both new and veteran tutors alike – a mock tutor dashboard that allows you to interact with all the features of a real session chatroom, but with a training “bot” rather than a student.

The Practice Session dashboard can be accessed from the dashboard menu at your convenience (see image) or by going to yup.com/tutor_dashboard/chat_practice. The bot will then guide you through various exercises that show off all that the dashboard has to offer. Practice your whiteboard skills, check out the content card library, or simply make yourself more comfortable using the Yup platform to teach!

INTERNET CONNECTIVITY POLICY + SURVEY

Another recent feature Engineering has developed for Tutor Operations is a system allowing us to monitor the quality of tutors’ network connections while in a shift. Now that this feature is up and running, we are concerned to see that many Yup tutors do not have sufficient bandwidth to reliably connect to the Tutor Dashboard, often leading to session issues, high pass rates for tutors and high drop rates for students.

It should go without saying that having a reliable internet connection is fundamental to working for Yup. In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out a new policy surrounding internet quality – this will likely involve bonus incentives for tutors who improve their poor speed, along with negative consequences for those who fail to do so.

If your internet speed is not consistently at or above 5 – 10 mbps, we strongly recommend that you reach out to your internet service provider ASAP to upgrade your network plan, or explore other options for internet connection.

In order to give us a better understanding of any internet or Tutor Dashboard issues you may be facing, we ask that you complete the following mandatory survey before Wednesday, January 16th.


> > INTERNET SURVEY < <

 

Thank you for your participation – have a great week, all!

— Team Yup

 

Inactive Student Bug + Holiday Schedules

INACTIVE STUDENT BUG

As many of you may have noticed, we have recently seen an increase in sessions affected by a bug which triggers the inactive student auto-end feature, even when the student is active in the session.

In order to address this issue, we have removed the trigger altogether – this means it will be up to tutors to end sessions in which the student stops responding. Here are the two situations for which you would need to manually end the session:

  • The student does not send a message to the chatroom within 2 minutes of the session beginning
  • The student does not respond to a question for 5 minutes and is unresponsive when checked on

We have added new Canned Responses to the Session Ending category to accomodate to the above situations. Please be sure to send the appropriate Canned Response before ending the session.


HOLIDAY SCHEDULES

As the end of the year grows near, preparations have begun for the upcoming holiday break during which schools will be closed and traffic will be greatly reduced.
 
  • If you are hoping to take time off in the coming weeks, please fill out the Scheduling Form using the “Time off Request” option as soon as possible so we can plan accordingly.
  • Note that even if you do not request time off, you will likely see a temporary reduction in your weekly hours to adapt to the expected decline in traffic. If there are certain shifts you would prefer to give up, please use the Time off option in the Scheduling Form to let us know.
  • We will be in touch in the coming week to share your temporary holiday schedule, which will likely go into effect for the period of 12/24 – 1/6.

 

Have a great weekend, tutors!

— Team Yup

Features Survey + Outstanding Feedback

NEW FEATURES SURVEY

Recently, we released two significant features that enhance they way tutors interact with students in-session. The following survey will give you the chance to share your thoughts and feedback on both the new Achievements feature, which was released last week, and the Concept Cards whiteboard enhancement which was released earlier this month.

Now that you all have had the chance to try these features out, we would love to hear your thoughts based on your first-hand experiences with the features. Your feedback is extremely valuable and will be shared with the product and engineering teams to make sure we are improving and evolving these features as needed!


NOVEMBER OUTSTANDING STUDENT FEEDBACK

Congratulations to Kathleen Kasper 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.

Some of Kathleen’s exceptional student feedback comments include:

  • “You helped me so much today, and I’m beyond grateful for it. I came in not knowing any concepts, and now I know so many… Your humor, teaching style, and elaborations are some things I definitely enjoyed in our session. Thanks again for all your time and guidance :)”
  • “Thank you for helping me with this problem you helped me realize that the big problems aren’t always as hard as they seem Thanks!”
  • “I liked how fast the tutoring went by. I would love it if I were paired with you again.”
  • “Thank you for helping me with this problem you helped me realize that the big problems aren’t always as hard as they seem Thanks!”


Way to go Kathleen!

Have a great weekend, tutors!

— Team Yup

New Whiteboard Feature: Concept Cards

WHITEBOARD LIBRARY EXPANSION

Today (Wednesday, Nov. 7th), we will be adding new resources to the image library that we hope will take using the whiteboard to the next level! The engineering team will be expanding the image bank to include Concept Cards covering dozens of  concepts from the FOIL Method to the Quotient Rule.

These explanation cards can be used just as you would a normal image from the whiteboard library – use the search function to find the relevant card, click (no need to drag!) to add it to the whiteboard, then drag to resize. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of this feature:

  • Be mindful of the appropriateness of the image for the student you are working with. For example, if a student is lost or frustrated, sending a lot of new information at once would not be the best way to adapt to the student’s situation
  • Depending on the student’s level, it may be necessary to talk the student through the information on the card or annotate the card itself to help facilitate their understanding
  • Check with the student after sending to make sure the concept card makes sense to them, or to see if they have any questions about the information you shared
    Click to Expand Concept Card

    Click to Expand Concept Card

NOVEMBER SURVEY REMINDER

If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment to complete the November Tutor Satisfaction Survey! This month’s survey is focusing on bugs, so your feedback will be very helpful for helping us diagnose some of the Tutor Dashboard issues we’ve been seeing.

> > November Tutor Satisfaction Survey < <

Happy Tutoring!

— Team Yup