I've recently got hired as an independent contractor at an 'educational management company' i guess you can call it. I'm going to be tutoring grade school students in all aspects of Algebra, but I lack experience in tutoring. Is there anyone who has tutored or is tutoring right now? What was your usual tutoring session like? Was there a particular obstacle that was overbearing as a tutor? Do you have any recommendations and advice to a future tutor? How much did you charge your 'tutees'? Any past experiences with tutoring middle school/high school students will be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

can you tutor me on first year chemistry? lol
gain experience

I have a friend who tutors at my uni, he charges 18-20/ hour
and sessions usually last 1-2 hours
lol i hope that helped you some how

I totally would if you didn't live in Canada. Does he get a lot of clients to tutor? Even university students? I didn't think college students would get private tutoring because colleges have their own tutoring centers.

You're tutoring grade school kids so I don't think that there is alot I can tell you since I'm tutoring at uni. The best method in my opinion is to make the student think for themselves, basically let them work through it and when they hit a wall give acouple clues but don't tell them the answer unless they have no idea whats going on. I find that by doing it this way the learn alot more and as a result think that its something that youre doing when its really them doing all the work. This is of course alittle difficult to set up since most gradeschool kids and even highschool kids are spoonfed all the information they need and dont really need to think that hard for themselves, but once you get it going then they'll get used to it and they'll learn alot faster and more reliably than if you were going around telling them how to do things.The downside to this is that if you can't pull it off you come across as someone who doesnt do anything

Also whats important is the mood that you set for the session, if you make it too formal they start to feel intimidated. Since i'm still a student myself i general talk to them as i would anyone my age to keep it casual. true youre getting paid for it but i dont think they will want to keep coming if they dread coming to tutoring because you seem cold. keep it cool and let them know that you know how they feel since youve been through what theyre going through now

My 'boss' told me today that I have to finish most of their homework by the one hour duration I'm tutoring. I don't agree with that, but he said it's what makes the parents happy and it's an incentive for the students for having a tutor. I think it's pretty bull that it's my main priority to finish their homework. And I do agree with everything you said. I should be helping them out when they need the help not actually be teaching and doing their homework for them. It's not my job, but... it's what makes the parent's happy Do you agree that I should basically do their whole homework for them? I don't agree with that, especially for mathematics...

Maths is a subject you learn through practice, some relationships are hard to see until you do enough questions on your own. I am against what they are suggesting but if its what they want then you dont really have a say in it unless you think you can make management see differently. It is they who have to take their exams, not you. If the students do not get the results the parents want then that is also a problem, the best thing is probably to work through the homework getting them to understand it and be able to do similar questions on their own.

I'm pretty experienced with tutoring since it's one of my favorite activities. I usually don't care whether I'm paid or not, but if it's officially part-time/private, stuff like that, I charge pretty low, $8-12/hr. Normally, people charge $20, but I think that's unfair. w/e the case...

when you tutor,
you need to get close to the student mentally, as in you need to know how that person thinks when doing schoolwork, and then adapt yourself to fix their needs. Never do their homework or spend your hours helping them through all the problems.
you need to first ask what they're doing to make sure they know what's going on in class.
then ask for specific things they need help in- usually you don't get an answer for this though.
look at their material, and be honest whether about your confidence with that subject.
do examples, good place to look is in their hw. You can work through the first few(the easiest ones) and then ask the students to do the rest, half with help. half at home on their own.
make up your own problems and ask your own questions.
explain using clear methods
be patient-never get frustrated.
make some jokes or talk about things/relate to keep the students from dozing off or being bored. (of course don't overdo).
take short breaks if needed. bring a snack if it's for a gradeschooler-don't do this all the time though for obvious reasons, heh.
you need to be nice too, haha.

those are the basics.
The main thing you need to remember is that you're doing this for the student, not selfishly for money or w/e. Your goal is their satisfied parents, not those new kicks you always wanted or you get what I mean.

I've tutored kids all ages so I kind of know a little bit about each group grades 5-12.
The thing for me is that I'm always shy, so I always overcome that obsticle by getting to know them, you know becoming buddies. Do some type of get to know you activity if its a bigger group (the thing with me is that I have tutored a group of 3 kids at a time, so thats where the activities thing comes from). If it's just one kid then I ask them about school, their strenghts and weaknesses, a joke once in a while is good, as long as you dont let him/her think that you are their best friend. Most of my tutoring was volunteer work, so I didn't charge. ^^ I hope that all helped.

Aww damn, why do I have to live in Canada? jk i love it up here
but anywho~

Yep he gets quite a few clients (smart guy), and though we do have tutoring centers here. Even then you don't necessarily get all the attention or help you need. I actually see a lot of older 3rd and 4th year students tutoring 1st and 2nd years it's a good way to earn cash on the side. My friend is a 3rd year and he's tutoring one of my friends in calc I. And I'm actually looking into getting a tutor next semester for intro calc based physics, since i only took physics in gr 11 and skipped 12 altogether so I'm a bit disadvantaged.