ONLINE FOR SUCCESS
One-on-one video tutoring offers flexible — and immediate — help
L EADING up to college, Irene Micholas-Yeterian was concerned about her inability to focus. Raised in South Hampton, N.Y., Micholas-Yeterian struggled with attention deficit disorder and dyslexia.
“I couldn’t stay focused for 10 minutes [before] I had to move around,” she says.
While her mom paid for tutoring at local centers, “They mostly get you to do work on your own,” says Micholas-Yeterian, now 21.
When she started Manhattanville College in January of 2016, she found “a lot more work. I feared I could fail classes and be held back.”
Micholas-Yeterian’s mother searched out other tutoring options and discovered Varsitytutors.
com. The live, online learning platform connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate achievement.
Micholas-Yeterian was paired with tutor Chris for her microeconomics studies.
“He was so patient. I have a lot of time to process everything. I’ve taken up a lot of note-taking strategies and he got me to think creatively. I have him twice a week for at least one and a half hours at a time. He got me from an F to a C grade within one semester,” says Micholas-Yeterian.
Currently, the company offers 1,000 different academic subjects through its portal, which serves kindergarteners through collegiate and adult learners, says Chuck Cohn, CEO of the company. Roughly 20 percent of users are college students.
“We can connect you with any of our credentialed tutors across the country,” says Cohn. “You can have tutors come to your home or video chat. It’s true instant tutoring.”
All that’s required is a computer and a web cam. Next, students select specialties.
“You can choose someone who has been to an Ivy League school, someone who is a native speaker in a certain language — you can be as specific as you want,” says Cohn.
Session prices vary but nationally, the average cost is $55 per hour.
For Micholas-Yeterian, the convenience and stress-relief of having a tutoring session on her schedule in her own comfortable place has proved invaluable. For someone with a learning challenge, Micholas-Yeterian highly recommends giving online tutoring a shot.
“With in-person tutoring, all you hear is talking. Online, you have many options of how you want to learn. The interactive tools available on one site, including a white board, are pretty cool,” she says.
Chegg.com is another leading online tutoring platform. Founded in 2005 as a text book rental business, in 2013 the company expanded into digital services including online homework and study help.
“We have an interconnected platform,” says Erik Manuevo, general manager of Chegg Tutors. “If you’re on Chegg Study, you can access a text book solution. If you still don’t understand a concept, you can use our 24/7 quick chat function [with messaging, video and audio] to connect you directly with a tutor.”
With 70,000 registered tutors across 5,000 subjects, college students make up 80 percent of Chegg. com customers. Cost ranges from 40 cents to 75 cents per minute.
With Homework Help, an ondemand tutoring service from The Princeton Review (princetonreview.com) college students can take advantage of thousands of tutors who can provide help in over 50 subjects.
“Our service connects you in less than a minute, 24 hours a day,” says Joan Rooney, vice president for instruction at the company.
“We’ve updated our online classroom with great tools, including a graphing calculator and a code editor,” says Rooney.
Pricing starts at $39.99 an hour for a month.