Live online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online environment, with teacher and student interacting in real-time without necessarily being in the same place. This real-time element, whilst presenting a significant technical challenge, sets live online tutoring apart from traditional online tutoring as it attempts to mimic in-person interaction as closely as possible rather than simply facilitating knowledge transfer.
Background
Live online tutoring is a relatively recent concept, originally pioneered by NetTutor in 1996 and popularized by the live online tutoring platform Tutor.com from 1998 in the US. It has developed alongside far more widespread asynchronous online tutoring and learning experiences, in turn popularized by organizations such as Khan Academy, universities and other educational institutions with the introduction of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). These efforts were aimed primarily at people without local access to appropriate teachers and tutors, in an attempt to remove geographical barriers from education.
However, lack of certain key technology such as reliable remote video and audio communication, and a lack of widespread stable high-bandwidth Internet access, prevented these early efforts from including a significant live component in their offering. Early innovations came from remote language learning services such as italki, where a stable audio connection was sufficient to deliver a reasonable service. In most contexts, online tutoring was thus fundamentally different from face-to-face tutoring, more closely resembling correspondence teaching than sitting in a classroom. Today, there are hundreds of companies and academic institutions based around the world offering live remote learning in a huge range of subjects, both in the context of academic learning and industrial training. With current technology and increasing Internet penetration in the developing world, there is a renewed interest in live offerings as exemplified by Chegg's 2014 acquisition of InstaEDU for $30 million.
Common functionality
Existing live online tutoring services frequently include the following features to connect students and tutors:
Video link
Audio link
Text chat
Interactive whiteboard
Feedback
Some services also provide
Document sharing, upload and download
Synchronized document editing
Screen sharing and recording
Mathematics tools (equation editors, graph plotters, etc.)
The overall environment aims to reproduce the level of interaction present in a face-to-face session, and is fundamentally different from software packages and services for screen-casting and videoconferencing such as WebEx, where the focus is on one-way transmission of information.
Comparison with in-person tutoring
Live online tutoring has several advantages over face-to-face tutoring, although suffers from shortcomings in ease of non-verbal communication.
With the development of wearable technology, in particular smart headsets, richer interaction will become possible as companies work to mimic face-to-face interaction more closely. The language learning service Duolingo, for example, is already fully compatible with Google Glass.
Tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic
Remote learning in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced language composition gains to 70% and math gains to less than 50%, with greater learning loss among minority and low-income children who lack stable access to technology and for families affected by the economic downturn. Parents working full-time, managing other responsibilities, and who lack of familiarity with remote education, have fewer resources to assist their children in remote learning. One survey from Florida’s Broward County Public Schools reported that 52% of students do not feel motivated to complete distance-learning schoolwork and another 42% said they hardly receive adult help at home. EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit focused on connectivity in public schools, found that Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, West Virginia, Washington D.C.— states with larger concentrations of students of color— experience the largest percentage of unconnected students, ranging from 26% to 28%. Across the nation, students from low-income and historically-segregated areas are less engaged with remote learning on a regular basis.