How many hours of tuition per week?
At Good Tutors Finder we are constantly approached by busy parents who would prefer their children not to have more than one tutoring hour per week. We consistently reject this, as both our personal experience and scientifically proven evidence show that only systematic learning with a routine that includes at least two sessions per week (the more, the better) can produce tangible results. In order to make this as pleasant as possible, our services are available either Online or have a tutor at home, for example tutoring in Switzerland, including places such as Zurich, Basel, Bern, Zug, Geneva, Lausanne, and all the other cities. This way neither parents nor students have to worry about transportation and can go through the day more stress-free.
The reasons for the effectiveness of several tutoring sessions are simple and are organically related to the mechanisms of human memory, which can be defined as the ability to store and retrieve different types of information. In order to avoid the trap of the forgetting curve and to help learners not only to remember information but also to use it successfully, the teaching process must include a suitable repetition system. The first repetition should take place at the end of a lesson. Another – the following day (that is why parental involvement, e.g. in the form of playing a CD on the topic, is really crucial), then after three days, a week and a month. This is especially true for foreign languages, such as German and French, but of course also for other subjects, such as Mathematics and Science.
For a tutorial to be highly effective, it must be taught twice a week, as this frequency is synchronized with the functioning of human memory. Furthermore, by clever distribution and teaching of the contents, we can eliminate the effect of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve – which is why we recommend that you choose a good teaching method for young learners. Of course, all our tutors at Good Tutors Finder are familiar with these, and in addition, they are all proficient in the IB Diploma, IGCSE, AP, and Gymi syllabus, so that they can get the best out of the student.
As the experiments conducted by Ebbinghaus, the author of the so-called forgetting curve, show, a typical human brain forgets up to 56% of the previously studied material in just one hour, and in the next nine hours, we lose another 8% of the knowledge acquired. After one day we retain only 33% of what we learned, after six days 25%, and after 31 days only 21% (which is approximately 1/5 of the original learned material).
Therefore, the first repetitions should take place as soon as possible after learning new material, so each lesson must end with a short repetition. Otherwise, students will forget most of what they have learned as soon as they leave the classroom. In addition, in a learning system with one learning session per week according to the data discussed above, tutors are confronted with the Sisyphean task of teaching the same material over and over again.
To overcome the forgetting curve, we must create favourable learning conditions, taking into account that both we and our students:
- understand the material better if we learn more often
- learn better by heart if we divide the material into smaller pieces (therefore the course content should be divided into modules, with sessions twice a week; weekly lessons, even if they are longer, do not lead to more information being memorized or to better language skills)!
- can more easily access information in conditions similar to those in which we learned(the reintegration process takes place in our classrooms)
- better memorize, if the number of repetitions is higher than the amount of content to be learned
- are better remembered if the repeated information is important to us,
- memorize the information better when repeating it out loud
- remember better if we repeat the whole information and not only smaller parts (the totality principle)
- remember better if we are convinced that we can (confidence in our own abilities)
- better memorize if we avoid interruptions in the learning process
Research data confirm that an appropriate teaching method contributes to improved learning and teaching results. At Good Tutors Finder we try to promote processes that support the acquisition, memorization and retention of knowledge. This is only possible with at least twice-weekly classes, a carefully selected teaching method and the parent-teacher-tutor cooperation.
To find a tutor has never been easier. With Good Tutors Finder, you can monitor everything online, eliminating the need for face-to-face meetings or phone calls. Check availability in your city now and book your tutor today.
