Communicating with your students will let you know what to focus on in your syllabus.
You’re tutoring in NYC, you’re teaching a subject that’s important to you, and you’re gathering a network of students eager to learn. Now what? How do you organize that material in a compelling manner that’s also conducive to each individual child’s learning process? We decided to compile some tips, so as to make tailoring a syllabus while tutoring in NYC a more streamlined process.
Work In Tandem With Any Academic Obligations
If you’re tutoring a child in accordance with a subject they’re learning at school, make sure that the basic progression of your material meets any pertinent deadlines and watermarks of what’s happening in class. You don’t want your students to fall behind, but considering that all students learn and digest information at a different pace, be careful that your time is measured out between topics as appropriate.
Talk To Your Students
This is their time after all, and as such, they should be allowed to let you know both what they’re interested in and what they may be struggling with. Guide your curriculum around their interests and weak points accordingly, while always leaving time open for more, thus allowing for a more flexible learning experience provided that anything changes. You never know when a student will suddenly get interested in something or abruptly find something difficult, so budget your time accordingly.
Have Your Material Progress Logically
Like a good piece of writing, each idea and concept should ideally flow into the next, thus culminating as an ultimately fluid progression that keeps building on what came before. Of course, this is not always possible, and if you’re brought in to tutor someone on just a few weak points, you can’t really craft a syllabus like this.
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Chris McEwen is an NYU Media, Culture, & Communication major, who spent his formative years in New Jersey, though he'd prefer if you didn't hold that against him. He has large portions of The Big Lebowski committed to memory and is probably eating a Dos Toros burrito right now.