Online Tutoring Skills

Are you interested in being an online tutor? Distance learning is a field in which online tutors are often employed. However, the students’ success in distance learning is often dependent upon the competencies of an online tutor. What are the skills that you will need to be a competent online tutor? Here is a list of some of them.

1. Teaching skills
This is obviously the most important skill necessary for an online tutor. These skills may have been obtained through formal courses or through experience. If you have not had any formal training, it may be a good idea to get some. There are always new things you can learn and you may even be able to take some courses through distance learning!

2. Technical skills
You don’t need to be a computer expert to be an online tutor, but you do need to be competent in using the technology that is being used by your organization. Since all technology has its strengths and weaknesses, you must learn to make good use of the strengths while minimizing the weaknesses. You do need to be able to use email and possibly audio, video, or text chat.

3. Ability to engage students
Showing enthusiasm and encouraging the students to be enthusiastic will help to keep students engaged and participating in the course.

4. Building relationships
Welcoming students to the course, setting clear rules and expectations, and providing feedback will help you build good relationships with the students.

5. Good communication skills
Being able to communicate tactfully will be very helpful in most of the activities as an online tutor. You will need to provide guidance and support in the online discussion and in group activities. The students will not be able to see your physical movements such as facial expressions and gestures. That means that you must be able to communicate extremely well through writing in an online course.

6. Ability to be innovative
You may have a textbook that you follow but often you need to supplement it with more interesting or more up-to-date materials that will be more inspiring to the students. As well you may need to be innovative in the way that you use the course learning system so that it better meets the needs of the students.

7. Planning skills
Planning activities and assessments throughout the course is necessary so that you and the students know how they are doing in the course. Time must be planned at the beginning of the course to allow you and the students to get to know each other and feel comfortable with each other. Planning with some flexibility included can help to prevent lack of interest or a flurry of activity packed into a short time period.

8. Organizational skills
You need to follow a schedule to make sure that students’ emails are answered in a timely fashion, that you are making your presence known in the discussions, and that you are providing feedback when necessary. You will definitely need to keep your email organized and you will need to keep records of the students’ progress. Sometimes you must organize groups in the course.

These are some of the skills that you may need if you are interested in being an online tutor whether you are tutoring individuals or a group of students. If you are an online tutor, you will develop your skills in all of these areas over time through experience. However, you should try to develop as many of these skills as possible in all of these areas if you have an interest in working as an online tutor in distance learning programs.