I am what they call an old-school educator, and not just because I went to school so long ago that I learned cursive in 2nd grade. I believe firmly in fundamentals of learning like reading on paper instead of screens and writing notes by hand. That conviction about the classic ways being best explains why I kept the Chariot Learning offices open all through the pandemic even though we were working with students exclusively through online channels. I firmly expected to return to the same bustling learning environment we enjoyed before 2020.
But a funny thing happened…
The students that could come back to the office chose not to. Engagement in our in-person activities waned while remote programs grew rapidly. Finally, the SAT went digital in a big way. So, with equal parts regret and relief, we closed our physical offices and went 99% remote.
What changed?
COVID was hardly my first experience with distance learning. I’ve been teaching, tutoring, and training teens and adults remotely for over a decade. The pandemic provided the perfect test case to explore ways to improve efficacy and engagement screen to screen rather than elbow to elbow. Once the mighty Chariot Learning team proved capable of helping our students meet or exceed their goals through remote tutoring, we accepted that in-person is not inherently superior to online–especially for SAT & ACT Prep. Here are 7 strong reasons why:
1. FORMAT
First and foremost, today’s tests are moving away from yesterday’s paper media. The SAT is exclusively digital, and the ACT is expanding national computer-based options as well. Even the calculator option of choice for many test takers–the mighty Desmos–is an online program. Since we preach the message of “practicing how you want to play,” we cannot shrink from device-oriented instruction for device-administered exams.
2. LOGISTICS
The digital format of the SAT provides a logistical challenge for in-person tutors: how exactly can two or more people review someone’s practice test in their Bluebook app without encroaching on each other’s physical space? As a long-time tutor, I’m very sensitive to maintaining respectful distances from students. While elaborate and expensive technological workarounds exist to make in-person screensharing easier, nothing works quite as well as working remotely on an instruction-enabled platform.
3. CONVENIENCE
The most obvious benefit for students and their parents who embrace online tutoring is relief from the inconvenience of travel. I’ve had students drive (or be driven) over an hour each way for tutoring sessions, often doubling their time commitment in a highly time-constrained high school schedule. Parents used to consider our close proximity to Wegmans a desirable feature with hours to kill between drop off and departure. With remote tutoring, all that interstitial travel is ended.
4. SCHEDULING
Students and parents are not the only beneficiaries of the elimination of the commute. Tutors who work from their home offices don’t have to travel either, which frees up more tutoring time and expanded scheduling options. These days, we find ourselves willing to work with students much earlier or later in the day than we would have at the office. Plus, shorter sessions for those who need them make more sense in the absence of travel.
5. RICHNESS
In classic curriculum-based instruction–a critical component of my educational practice–students and teachers work through the same designed lessons for specific content areas. Challenges inevitably pop up when students request or require more examples for certain concepts or question types; in a physical space, a tutor may not have access to or be able to locate supplemental material. When we work remotely, though, entire libraries of appropriate instructional supports are at our fingertips. That goes double for full practice tests and official question banks.
6. QUALITY
Chariot Learning is proudly based in Rochester, NY. Thanks to our strong community connections, at least half of our students at any given time live within 30 miles of our old office. However, we work with plenty of students across the country. At the time of this writing, we have students in every time zone from Eastern to Pacific. Once you embrace online instruction, you are not constrained by your local limits. I don’t want you to work with Chariot Learning because we deliver the best instruction in Upstate New York but because we are among the best anywhere! Case in point, we’ve had students earn 34+ or 1500+ in all of the last year’s test administrations, which is to say that the opportunity to work with the best tutors for you no matter where you live really pays off for perfect score potential students.
7. COST
All of the aforementioned elimination of travel and office overhead benefits the consumer. Our tutoring rate is low for premium level prep in our industry, in no small part because we don’t have to charge for expenses that do not directly accrue to the quality of instruction. Expressed another way, if you want to meet a tutor in person at a beautiful office newly refurbished with all the technology necessary to facilitate prep for a digital test, you are going to pay for it. Consider how much of your tutoring rate goes into securing the most experienced and effective instructor possible and how much goes somewhere else.
**EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE**
That said, remote instruction is not the solution to every educational challenge. Certainly, we find that groups of seven or more students work better in the same physical space, which is why we partner with schools and community education programs to offer in-person SAT/ACT Boot Camps. And, despite the abundant benefits of online education, some students get more out of in-person tutoring. When exploring the topic with my friend and colleague Ariel Akselrad Lieberman, she explained that in-person is preferable for learners with profound attention or executive function deficits.
Even taking those considerations into account, most students seem to learn as well or better with an expert tutor trained to teach effectively screen to screen. The students we work with tend to embrace the autonomy, convenience, and richness online instruction provides and connect as strongly with their tutors as prior students did pre-pandemic. Old school values still apply: real learning happens when a motivated student meets an expert educator. We just don’t necessarily need to be in the same school building or even city anymore!
Don’t equate online tutoring with the misery of COVID-era Zoom school. If you’re looking for ideal outcomes like higher test scores based on real learning at a reasonable investment, give the right remote tutoring a try.
Mike Bergin