What Are The Requirements For Being An Online Tutor? How Do I Teach Online?

Learn about the requirements for being an online tutor and the qualities necessary to become a successful online tutor.

Online tutoring is taking the world by storm without any element of doubt!

Nowadays, students are also opting for online tutoring classes as, through this means, they can broaden their skill set without traveling or investing any additional monetary or physical efforts. 

With online tutoring being a hot career in demand, you must be wondering how to become one?

Well, we have got you covered! 

In this article, we will highlight the requirements for being an online tutor.

So, let’s get started! 

What Does An Online Tutor Do?

As much easy as this job sounds, it is not, because like a traditional school and college teachers, online tutors also have duties to perform and a few tasks to fulfill.

Online teachers instruct and educate students of all ages and their students are from all over the world. 

They use computers, the internet, and various internet tools.

They teach different subjects online, depending on their strong pursuits. 

The base of their tutoring depends upon their previous teaching experiences and training and also upon the education they acquire.

This is either a full-time or part-time job, online tutors do have the flexibility of hours in their job. 

The plus point is they do not have to travel to teach in fact, they can teach anywhere they travel to.

This is the fun fact about online tutoring that you can teach by sitting at the same spot every day. 

Though online teachers have several duties too, to perform, such as:

  • Designing lesson plans
  • Creating assignments/projects
  • Keeping students engaged during class hours
  • Assessing students’ performance
  • Providing them a motivating feedback
  • Maintaining availability hours
  • Tracking attendance

These tasks are not quite easy or relaxing but then, every job has its perks with a few engaging tasks. 

And in our opinion, online teaching has many more perks to it than any of the disadvantages.

Online tutoring also requires some skills from the tutors and their qualifications to become one.

Whenever this job sounds so easy or non-valid to you, keep this in mind that online tutors are also professional educators who provide instructions to their students; children or adults.

That is why they ought to have proper communication skills, they ought to know how to communicate to students about learning & building all essential skills; reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Online classes mostly require listening and reading skills. 

Tutors should know about micro-listening to train their students about it.

Students can only focus on and encode the information they understand, so teachers have to tell them about micro-listening. 

Not many tutors and students know about this important information but it is essential to be trained about it.

See! The work is not so quite simple, as we told you before. 

That is why having proper skills, educational background and training is important for tutors.

Some mandatory skills are mentioned below: 

  • Leadership:

This is a great attribute and quality of online tutors. 

It makes them able to maintain discipline in a virtual classroom which makes it easy to guide students towards the goals of each lesson plan.

  • Motivational skills and strategies: 

This quality learned by online tutors lets them encourage students to learn. 

It further makes students able enough to focus on their projects and education.

  • Communication skills: 

This skill is most important for any tutor, especially online because they have screens and distance between them and their students, so, if their communication skills are not good, they are not going to deliver the content successfully. 

It will keep their students confused all the time which will result in low grades of students only because of the tutor.

  • Computer skills: 

These are important in a way that without having these, all tutors will stay confused and they will not be able to guide students too about growing these skills. 

Which we all know that for working online you need to grow these skills.

  • Analytical skills: 

These are used by tutors to evaluate student work and their ongoing progress.

Requirements For Being An Online Tutor

Online tutors must have a bachelor’s degree in their chosen discipline to perform their job successfully. 

Let us look at different qualifications for tutors.

1. English Tutoring

All English tutors must have a 100-hour TEFL certification which is internationally recognized and it should be done from an accredited institution.

It is no wonder that to attract potential employers and letting them take your education seriously, you need to have the certificate from a reputable source, so they may hire you for their online positions.

There is also another certificate we would recommend you to achieve, so to let yourself stand apart from other competitions, which is the 120-Hour Specialized Certificate in Teaching English Online.

We should also tell you that some online tutors’ requirements include certain types of university degrees too. 

Well most of the time, those online companies who hire merely demand a bachelor’s degree in any field, and its proof, they do not demand more than this.

Nonetheless, teaching English also requires prior work experience. 

This can also vary from company to company, some will be satisfied with only 1year experience and some will demand more.

Keep this in mind that tutoring, volunteering, completing teaching practicums and mentoring also counts as teaching experiences.

2. High School Tutors

For online instructor positions, educational requirements can vary, based on different institutional guidelines, demands of job-posts, and the subject being taught.

Instructors usually teaching at 2-year colleges and vocational institutions merely need a Master’s degree to teach.

Whereas, postsecondary instructor’s job posts demand a doctoral degree at Brick-and-Mortar 4-year colleges, in related fields.

Master’s degree consists of a two-year program, which includes course work and a thesis; research study.

Whereas, a normal Doctoral degree entails a 3 to 4 years program, which mostly consists of most of the research work and teaching.

Doctoral degrees can vary in length, although the U.S. BLS reported that it mostly takes about six years to complete some of the programs.

To earn a doctoral degree all researchers must complete their coursework (if it has any) and finish the dissertation, which are long research papers that have key issues to discuss within a particular field of study.

3. K-12 Online Tutor

Many education programs amalgamate formal classroom teachings with online teaching technologies, which is quite a productive approach for education.

Though, other programs provide complete online school experiences, which has certainly become a new trend in our world.

But whether you are likely to teach a complete online experience for K-12 learners or go with a mixture of classroom-online environment, most public school tutors need to meet basic education prerequisites. 

These mostly are earning a bachelor’s degree along with the fulfillment of tutor training programs and gaining supervised teaching experiences to earn licensure.

Many private schools often have less stringent requirements for tutors.

But, we should know this as well that those individuals who plan to teach kindergarten through 5th or 6th grades, generally require a broader knowledge and perception about all key subjects which include English, Maths, and Science.

4. Online College Professor

To become an online college professor one has to earn a Master’s degree in either education or their related field of study. 

They also need to acquire licensure, the qualification for which can vary from state to state.

Generally, enrolling in some distance learning undergraduate or graduate classes can help prepare these individuals for their careers as online professors.

A Master’s degree, as we have already mentioned above, is about 2 to 4 years depending upon the particular field of study. 

So, to have admission to a Master’s degree you have to have a Bachelor’s degree too, in a related field, obviously with a good CGPA.

Along with a Master’s degree & the appropriate teaching qualifications, online professors can aim for employment with a brick-and-mortar school that offers various online programs.

Other than that, they can also apply to private schools which are entirely based online.

Some of you who want full-time work, as an online professor at a 4-year university, might be aiming for tenure positions.

You need to attain a doctorate in your particular field then.

And as we have talked about it, doctoral degree programs require the completion of a master’s degree program and take about 2-6 years to complete, depending on previous education, research time is allotted in the area of study.

5. Skills And Craft Courses

As an experienced creator or artist, you are ideally placed to share your skills and knowledge as a tutor.

Along with that you also add an extra revenue stream to your creative business.

The most fun part about this is that if you love meeting new people, enjoy talking about your crafts, and inspiring others to be more creative and learn new skills, then you are going to be the most perfect tutor of skills and crafts.

Generally, there are no compulsory qualifications required to teach arts and craft workshops, but it is always beneficial to have some experience or understanding of teaching methods. 

There are so many things which you can teach as an arts & craft tutor, for instance:

  • Life drawing
  • Blacksmithing
  • Stone carving
  • Mosaics
  • Pen & Ink art
  • Wire & Clay sculptures
  • Wood spoon carving
  • Machine embroidery
  • Cyanotype printing
  • Water & oil painting
  • Ribbon work
  • Photography
  • Wild foraging
  • Willow sculptures
  • Mixed media sculptures
  • Botanical illustration
  • Animal husbandry
  • Cheesemaking
  • Glass fusing
  • Bread making
  • Candle making
  • Chocolate making
  • Floristry
  • Furniture making & painting
  • Cake making & cake decorating
  • Cardmaking

There are so so many fun fields for you or arts and crafts items among which you can pick your strong pursuit and teach it to others, obviously while having fun!

Other Skills And Qualifications For Successful Online Teaching

We have written so many articles on online teaching and online tutors and as you are reading this article, you probably are interested in knowing this stuff too.

You must know by now that there are various skills and tactics on which online teaching depends upon, these skills make online tutors worthy of watching and listening too.

So let’s make a list of these skills just to revise and keep them in mind for good.

Now those skills which make any online tutors best are:

  • They should be comfortable with technology.
  • They should be imaginative about using online formats in new ways.
  • Their habits must entail their inquisitive, creative, and curious side.
  • They are to be passionate about connecting with students.
  • Patience and resourcefulness are pertinent to be in them. 
  • They need to be organized and careful about time management.
  • They also should be devoted to learning, otherwise, they cannot keep their students interested in their classrooms.
  • They ought to be attentive to details.
  • A lover of reading and books.
  • If they are service-oriented, everything will be easy peasy for them.
  • They need to be excellent at oral and written communication skills.
  • They should be highly knowledgeable in their subject area.

Conclusion:

So these were the requirements necessary for being an online tutor.

We hope we cleared your quereies and you found this article helpful.

Let us know in the comments! 

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