Online Learning: What Works, What Doesn't

Successful online learning involves personal interaction, ease of access, and a suite of integrated, digital tools.

Let’s cut to the chase: online learning has distinct advantages over the live classroom—yes, I said advantages—when you take the right approach. The problem for most teachers is they’re stuck wedging a round-pegged live model into a square-shaped digital environment, and they’re having to do so at lightning speed. It’s an unenviable position, and no doubt teachers are doing their best to make it work. More favorably and flexibly, though, we professional tutors can draw on our robust experience with online content and delivery that we’ve been developing and offering for several years, informed by the latest pedagogy and digital best-practices.

 So let’s start with what doesn’t work. Then I’ll focus on three advantages online learning offers and how our platform harnesses them: personal interaction, flexibility and ease of access, and powerful, integrated digital tools.

Watching a Video ≠ Learning

A lot of the early buzz around online learning was about equitable access, especially in higher ed. Elite universities took massive lecture-hall classes and made them even more massive by broadcasting them online. Admittedly, some of this content is excellent. But this also seems to be the baseline approach to so-called “online learning” that many of us now dread—and for good reason.

First, these were already cavernous, impersonal learning environments that relied on a teacher talking at students from a stage, with little or no interaction. Second, such classes only suit a certain kind of student and largely run against the grain of student-centered learning—a pedagogy with a much better track record for engaging students of all stripes. As I already mentioned, the lecture format has its time and place, but it’s not hard to see why a model originally designed to extend the reach of rockstar Ivy League professors doesn’t adapt well to your typical middle or high school classroom and its students. They need active engagement that does more to harness the medium’s potential.

Personal Interaction

I love the experience of teaching with real humans in front of me. It can be remarkably rewarding and effective. And for working parents trying to run a meeting while also re-learning Algebra II, it’s easy to long for a return to normal, in-person instruction. 

But from a teacher’s point of view, a room of thirty 14-year-olds is not an ideal learning space, either. What is ideal? One-on-one, interactive instruction. What can you do really well online? One-on-one, interactive instruction. Given that  school this year will involve lots of conference-style Zoom meetings, where it’s easy to be anonymous, synchronous, one-on-one virtual tutoring is an engaging antidote. With multiple cognitive processes engaged—listening, speaking, writing, watching—learning outcomes tend to be much stronger, which is exactly what our system offers.

Flexibility and Ease of Access

The obvious benefit here is that you can access individualized online support from almost anywhere. Last-minute family trip out of town? No problem. Bring along the laptop and you’re good to go. Prefer a small group class with a few other students? You got it. We offer those, too, with all of the same tools. 

But flexibility and ease of access also means accountability and progress are easier to track. A student’s entire support team—from parents to counselors to other tutors—can access the same resources at any time, and we can quickly update and share new materials.

Powerful, Integrated Digital Tools

One of the problems my students often run into is the disconnect between their experience at school and the various digital platforms their teachers use. Designing a program with online learning in mind from the outset allows you to better use those tools and fully integrate them into the learning experience. Right alongside our students, our system utilizes live video, screen sharing, document and image upload, chat, document drafting, and unlimited virtual whiteboard space, all of which a student can access at any time. Within a virtual  whiteboard, tutors and students can even model complex math equations or annotate a PDF in real time. There’s also no app to download. Everything is accessible from a browser window and on any device. It’s powerful, integrated, and purpose-built for online learning.

We understand the value of the live classroom, but we’re well-equipped to make online learning a rigorous, satisfying educational experience—because we’ve already been doing it.

Get in touch to start designing an individualized plan suited to your student’s unique learning needs.