5 Tips for Boosting Collaboration Between Student and Tutor

You are about to enter a tutoring arrangement, and you’re a bit nervous. Whether you’re the tutor or student, you are about to have to communicate on a high level with a stranger so knowledge can be transferred. So, how do you have productive communication with a stranger? Here are five tips for boosting collaboration between student and tutor:

Clearly Explain What You are Looking for From Your Tutor

There are five universally accepted types of tutoring: remediation, maintenance, support, test prep, and enrichment. Before your first meeting with your tutor, do some research on what each of these is so you can inform your tutor of what you require. By establishing your needs early on, it allows the tutor to adjust their methodology to fit in with your desires. The ship will run smoother from the word go.

Contact Each Other Daily to Develop a Stronger Relationship

In most cases, the communication between tutor and student is restricted to the tutoring sessions. This is a mistake, as a remaining business only could hamper communication between the two of you. Healthy communication is all about knowing the other person and how to best relay your message to them. So, text, email, or call them every day so a friendship can blossom. This will make communicating during tutoring sessions much easier, as you both will know each other better on a personal level.

Set Your Goals Together

In order for both of you to have seamless collaboration, you need to both know why you’re doing this in the first place. As the student, you will need to have a goal or set of goals in mind going into the first session that you can relay to your tutor. You can talk these out with them, so they can be refined, and you guys can set the goals together. This way, both of you are on the exact same page from the start. You’ll both be communicating from the perspective of completing these goals, so everything will be much smoother.

Be Able to Adjust Your Vision in Order to Move Forward

There are going to be snagged in your relationship with your tutor. It happens. But, if you are both on opposite sides of an issue, you both are going to have to cooperate in order to move forward in a productive way. So, going into this tutoring arrangement, you need to come to terms with the fact that not everything is going to go your way. You are going to have to compromise your vision for the sake of progress. Communication will go much smoother if both parties come to terms with this fact.

Be Honest With Each Other

I think it goes without saying, but any relationship can be improved with a healthy dose of honesty, especially a strictly professional one. You have nothing to gain by lying to the other person in this partnership. As a tutor, you need to be honest with your student as to how they’re progressing and what they need to do moving forward, even if it hurts. As a student, you need to be honest with your tutor about your progress. If you’re struggling, make sure that’s clear so the tutoring sessions can be adjusted to accommodate you. The whole point of the sessions is to teach the student and lying will only prohibit that learning.