1. Introduction to using TutorGroups as a Teacher
2. Dedicated Email
3. Private Forums
4. Live Seminar Rooms
5. Online Testing, Handouts and Learning Resources
6. Applying for permission to use Tutorgroups as a Tutor (Optional)
7. Using TutorGroups as a tutor (Optional)
8. Frequently Asked Questions

This guide has been written to provide you with an introduction to using TutorGroups^TM as a teacher.

TutorGroups has been created for teachers working in schools / colleges that do not currently subscribe to ExamsTutor, either becasue the school can not afford to do so at this time, or because they are based outside the UK.

By subcribing to TutorGroups, teachers can use ExamsTutor with their students, allowing them personal access to virtual learning environment facilities normally only offered through ExamsTutors institute wide subscription package, alongside inidividual teacher access to a subject area of their choosing. Whilst also providing their students with facility to subscribe individually to ExamsTutor for a greatly discounted fee, with added facilities including persoanl email, and access to their teachers TutorGroup area on Examstutor.

Easy to use

Without any technical knowledge, tutors can easily create their own virtual learning environment, including

• dedicated email accounts
• private forums
• live seminar chatrooms
• interactive online tests
• downloadable handouts

with access to all these resources being restricted to the teacher and their students only.

you are in control

TutorGroups has been designed so it can be used to complement your face-to-face teaching in class. Enabling you to offer your students additional support outside of classes. Giving you complete control over the level of additional support you wish to offer, and opening up the potential, if you wish, to provide Online Tuition to other students in the UK and Overseas.

Within TutorGroups each teacher has their own private @examstutor.co.uk email account, and email management system. When students join your TutorGroup they are also provided with their own private @examstutor.co.uk email account.

This helps TutorGroups ensure all email communication between teacher and student is secure. All email accounts reside on the TutorGroups dedicated Sever. When you email a student, using your @examstutor.co.uk email account the email remains within the TutorGroups Server, and does not travel round the web in the same way as a personal email account. This prevents anyone intercepting your emails online. In addition the TutorGroups Server is SSL encrypted, the same technology used to protect online credit card transactions. So when you open or send an email for any PC, your email message is encrypted, helping ensure that no one can intercept and read emails sent between teacher and student.

SSL encryption technology is applied to all areas of the TutorGroups environment.

ALL email communication between teacher and student, must only take place through your secure @examstutor.co.uk email account, use of personal email accounts by either the teacher or student is prohibited.

As well as helping to ensure online safety, use of this dedicated email account also eliminates the need for the teacher or student to provide each other with their personal email address. Keeping tuition communication, separate from personal communication with friends and family.

Using your @examstutor.co.uk email account you can

• send/receive/reply/forward and store emails
• create folders for email storage, ideal for storing communication with each student separately, or communication on specific topics, which can then be reused with other students.
• send and receive attachments, including word processed documents, powerpoint presentations and spreadsheet files.

Because your email account is permanently accessible through examstutor, you can check and respond to messages from anywhere with internet access, be it at home or school / college, by logging into your TutorGroups area on examstutor.com, using the unique username and password you will be provided with by TutorGroups, once you have subscribed to the service.

Whenever possible your email account will be in your name, in the form

yourname@examstutor.co.uk

Practical Guide to Using Email for teaching and tuition

Email is an example of Asynchronous communication, i.e. time-delayed communication. Use of email is suitable when time is required to consider your response to a communication, it also does not require the teacher / tutor to be online at the same time as the student / tutee. It is therefore extremely suitable for tutoring purposes, and is often used as the primary method of communication by tutors online. The following advice is based on actual tutor experience of working online, and will help you manage email tuition.

• Many tutors develop pro-forma / templates for their email text, which can be reused to set tasks, provide feedback, welcome tutees, or close a tuition course. Using standardised emails will also help your tutees become familiar with your style of tuition.
• When you type any tuition email, think whether you should save a copy of the email for future use with other students. Your email account provides you with the facility to save copies of all sent emails.
• Manage tutee expectations of response times to emails, by agreeing from the start of a tuition course, the time you will need to respond to emails - perhaps 36 or 48 hours.
• Get into the habit of checking your email everyday, to provide you with the maximum time to respond to tutee email.
• DO NOT respond to every email in detail, often a response you have previously given in your private tuition Forum, or information contained in one of your downloadable handouts, will be appropriate. If so, direct tutees to these resources in a brief email response, perhaps providing a link to the appropriate resource within the email.
• If you author a detailed email on a particular topic, consider posting an edited copy of the text of the email in your tuition Forum, so future tutees can refer to this material.

Help is always at hand

TutorGroups provides online support to all subscribers, an online helpdesk is manned 7 days a week, with an email response time commitment of 24 hours maximum. If you ever need help using any element of the TutorGroups environment simply email our support team at

helpdesk@examstutor.com

     my TutorGroup forum

As a teacher using TutorGroups you will be provided with your own private discussion forum, access to which is only provided to you and your students*.

A forum is an online notice board, onto which you and your students can 'post' comments, which can be 'replied' to by subsequent 'postings' made by you, and your students. The initial posting and subsequent reply postings are referred to collectively as a 'thread'.

In your TutorGroup forum you can

• engage all your students, in discussion of selected topics, creating forum seminars
• build a record of responses to frequently asked questions, to which all your students can refer
• allow your students to share their understanding of the subject with each other.

This state of the art forum includes easy to use features for those new to forums, and more sophisticated elements that will interest those teachers and students familiar with the use of forums. Features include

• post and reply to topics
• emoticons
• interactive voting polls
• topic ordering option ....

* your students are automatically assigned access to your TutorGroup Forum when they sign up, using the unique TutorGroups Reference Code we supply you.

Plus, you will also be given access to our Tutor Forum, a private meeting place for all teachers / tutors using TutorGroups, enabling you to share experience, knowledge and resources with fellow teachers / tutors.

Practical Guide to Using Your Private Forum

Your private forum will reduce the time taken to respond to students individually on similar topics, it will help you encourage a collaborative approach to learning amongst your students, in which your role is seen more as a facilitator of learning. There is significant evidence that students can gain a lot from sharing their thoughts with fellow learners and often make significant advances in their own thinking through trying to communicate their ideas online.

• Your private forum is the only means by which your studnets can communicate with each other online through TutorGroups. Tutees are encouraged not to give each other any contact details, including their @examstutor.co.uk email account details, to help ensure their online safety. Your forum is therefore your most powerful tool in developing collaborative learning amongst your students.
• Build up Frequently Asked Question threads on specific topics, that can be referred to by your students.
• Use ice breaking tasks to introduce new students to the online group. A commonly used online device is to ask a new student to post a brief profile and 3 interesting facts about themselves, one of which is untrue, and to ask fellow students to guess / vote which fact is untrue, having asked the student questions about the statement in the forum. Your TutorGroups forum has a polling facility, ideally suited this type of activity.
• Check postings in your forum regularly, and respond to new student postings promptly, to encourage student confidence in the forum as a means of communicating with you.
• Encourage all your students to participate in forum discussions, by setting tuition tasks which involve group discussion in the forum. If you set marked tasks, consider allocating marks for participation in forum discussions, prior to the submission of an individual student response to the task.
• Email students about existing or previous discussions in your forum which may be of interest to their current studies, inviting them to contribute.
• Know that the most active discussions will occur when the students themselves identify an issue they wish to discuss.
• Set standards of behaviour within your forum by example, keep postings in a thread focused on the original topic of the posting. Create new threads for new topics. Moderate discussions in your forum, to ensure that they are not dominated by just one or two students.
• Understand that students will interact in online discussions differently, sometimes a single posting from a student, having considered all prior postings in a thread, is more valuable than several immediate postings by a student.
• Use your forum for Synchronous - real-time, as well as Asynchronous - time delayed, Group Seminars. Real-time or time delayed, question and answer seminars about a specific topic can be held with groups of students in your forum. With the entire thread of a seminar being recorded in your forum, for future reference.
• Use your forum to refer students to other resources - announcing for example the addition of new online tests, downloadable handouts / files or external links.
• Allowing your students to use the forum for general discussion, not specific to your subject area, will encourage use of the forum, and a sense of community amongst your students. Care however should be taken to moderate such discussions to ensure the safety of your students online.

     no chat - just tuition

The SeminarRoom is TutorGroups own real time private chat room facility, but without the chat. Only the teacher / tutor and their individual studentd can enter the seminar room, and communicate in real time through this TutorGroups service.

Host live online seminar sessions with students, regardless of their location, and back up your sessions with online tests, email, and downloadable teaching resources, all through your TutorGroups area.

In addition, all communication within the SeminarRoom is recorded on the examstutor database, so that both teacher and student can revisit the content of the seminar at a latter date.

A guide to using and working in the SeminarRoom is provided to all new students.

Practical Guide to Using Your SeminarRoom

You may have envisaged prior to reading this guide that online tuition would primarily involve you providing regular one hour live chat / conferencing sessions with the tutee. This is a common misconception, in reality an effective and more manageable online tuition course does not rely solely on bursts of Synchronous - real-time communication between tutor and tutee. Instead, support is provided on an ongoing predominantly Asynchronous - time-delayed format, with live chats being used only when appropriate and for possibly shorter periods such as 20 to 30 minutes on a specific topic.

• Synchronous communication can be used to mark key events in the course such as the start and end of activities.
• Brief the tutee about the aims and objectives of the real-time session via email, prior to the session itself. It is common for people to meet in real time spaces and see what happens and, although this can work, it is better to brief everyone beforehand, this helps overcome some of that initial anxiety.
• Link to other resources, for example instruct the tutee to download a PowerPoint presentation, or spreadsheet model that can be referred to during the live seminar.

• Pre-prepare your script, for those new to live chat, there is a tendency for them to type frantically often without fully registering what is happening on the screen …to control that tendency you need to avoid typing in a similar fashion. The aim is to try and get participants to slow down and 'listen' to each other. By having your script prepared, you can copy and paste responses and any directions very quickly. This in turn helps you to cope more easily with that initial frenzy. Although you may need to depart from your script it often helps you across most situations early in a course or session. It also buys you reading and thinking time.
• Build up a portfolio of saved scripts, that can be called upon when appropriate in a live seminar session.
• Consider adopting some conventions for working together online. For example agree that the tutee type a single question mark when they wish to speak, and to wait until this is acknowledged by you the tutor, before speaking/typing. Additionally, agree to end a line with a series of dots or full stops like this…
  to indicate that you have not finished speaking. This avoids any concern that can arise in the minds of participants if no messages are coming up on the screen. Too much delay can result in participants typing at the same time as a response to that uncertainty. This strategy also allows you as a tutor to say a little more and offer it in more digestible chunks (it offers the same opportunities for the students as well).
• Another technique used is to...
  break lines of typing up…
  into bits…
  like this…
  just to help the text scan more easily and appear like speech rather than cold text.

You can create your own online multiple choice tests in your TutorGroup on examstutor.

Only your students will be able to access the tests you create, copyright of which will be retained by you as the author. All student attempts will be automatically marked by examstutor, and these marks are then permanently recorded on the examstutor database.

Once created you can use these tests as part of your teaching, and set completion of a test as home-work. In the lead up to exams, students can use these tests to check their understanding of a topic you have taught.

Teachers can review each of their students performance in any online tests they take, by viewing a students 'Report Card' from within the TutorGroups area.

TutorGroups provides each teacher with 10 Megabytes of online file storage space, on a dedicated server. Allowing you to upload / publish your own teaching resources, be they word documents, presentations, spreadsheets, pdf files..

Making them available for your students, and only your students, to download as part of your teaching. Copyright of any uploaded material will remain with the original author of the material, in this case you the teacher.

publish spreadsheet models
or, upload presentations..

• create and publish handouts on topics to be read by students, after or prior to, class sessions
• upload homework / exercises for students to complete
• create and publish PowerPoint presentations on specific topics for students to click through during class.

Examstutor is an approved content provider for Curriculum Online, and can provide you and your studnets with instant access to online learning resources, used by schools and college across the UK and overseas.

All content is written by senior examiners, experienced teachers and tutors, and is designed to support students studying for A Level and GCSE qualifications. Examstutor content can also be printed out and used in class.

Resources include

• StudyRoom an online reference resource, more concise than a text book, more comprehensive than a paperback revision guide.
• ExamHall an online database of past exam questions, mark-schemes and examiners reports
• PodTutor a unique audio mp3 revision resources that provides tutees with audio revision notes, that can be listened to online or downloaded onto a personal mp3 player.

Access to these resources in one of our main subjects is automatically provided, and a significant discount on examstutor individual subscription fees is offered, reducing the cost to as little as £10 in a subject for the entire year, if you wish to add access to further subjects. Your students can also subscribe at this discounted rate, by using your unique TutorGroups Reference, which will be issued to you.

Putting Student Safety First

TutorGroups primary function is to help teachers create their own private online learning environment for the students they work with at their school or college. In addition, we are aware that some subscribers may wish to use their TutorGroup to provide private online tuition support to students across the UK and overseas.

For reasons which we are confident you will appreciate, Examstutor wishes to ensure that if private tuition is provided through TutorGroups by subscribers, it is provided by individuals who have been adequately screened to ensure their suitablity to work with children and young adults either online or face-to-face.

The TutorGroups Directory

In order to ensure the safety of students working online, we therefore require inidividuals who wish to use TutorGroups for private tuition purposes to register with an approved tuition agency, experienced in screening tutor applicants. In return, the teacher / tutor will then be listed on our TutorGroups Directory as being permitted to tutor through TutorGroups. The TutorGroups Dircectory is a fully searchable online database of Teachers / Tutors who have completed a Tutor Screening process, and are therefore permitted to provide private tuition services using TutorGroups.

Examstutor has chosen to team up a leading provider of tuition in the UK, a National Tuition Company, with whom all potential tutors must register, in order to use TutorGroups as a Tutor. This helps us ensure the credentials and suitability of tutors, prior to listing them in the TutorGroups Directory, and presenting them to visitors to examstutor.com as being suitable to tutor using the service.

Examstutor receives no commission, or any other form of payment from the approved tuition provider, nor do we request any commission or payment from tutors who use TutorGroups to provide online or face-to-face tuition.

Applying for permission online

Subscribing Teachers / Tutors wishing to be permitted to use TutorGroups to provide private tuition, and therefore be listed on the TutorGroups Directory, are required to register for permission through TutorGroups, by completing an online tutor application form, which can be accessed from within your TutorGroup area.

Full details of the tuition provider and its application process are provided on completion of the application form. Applicants can withdraw for the application process at any stage, and the information you provide will be treated as confidential.

Whilst we understand that some tutors may prefer to work independently, we hope you will appreciate the responsible position we have taken regarding student safety, and that you will also accept that there are clear benifits to tutors in operating in this way, particularly in reference to providing online tuition services, which are detailed below.

By registering through TutorGroups with the approved tuition provider there are a number of important benefits for Tutors, particularly for tutors wishing to work with tutees online, and therefore facing the issue of ensuring they get paid for the tuition they provide, by a client they may never actually meet in person. By registering through TutorGroups with the approved tuition provider..

• You don't need to chase clients for payment. The Tuition Agency collects payment from the client on the tutors behalf, and pay tutors promptly by BACS each month, regardless of wether the client has yet paid the agency.
• You don't have to worry about scheduling & logistics, the agency do that for you.
• They provide you with monthly and annual statements of income in order to ease your tax calculations for the year.
• The Tuition Agency will support you. They employ a dedicated tutor manager to support you throughout your time with them. They also employ a team of consultants whose job it is to effectively match you with clients. In a recent tutor survey, 95% of tutors agreed that the agency effectively briefed them on the pupil's needs & requirements in advance of them speaking with the client, and 97% agreed that consultants where helpful & friendly.

Following submission of your application, all tutors are required to successfully complete the Tutor Screening process, which includes

• Tutor Manager interviews with all tutor applicants to understand their credentials, commitment, and motivation to develop a career or second career as a tutor
• Checking all new tutors with the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) to ensure their suitability. The CRB will tell us of any offence through the Enhanced Disclosure process that checks both local and national records. Enhanced Disclosure differs from a standard disclosure in that it seeks allegations and complaints, not just convictions. Any tutor with relevant allegations is rejected, and will not be provided with access to TutorGroups.
• Checking two references - one academic and one other, such as a former employer
• Examination of applicants passport, driving license, utility bills and birth certificate to confirm their identity and address, may also be required.

It is completely free to register with the approved tuition provider through TutorGroups, if you are already in possession of an Enhanced Disclosure Certificate issued by the CRB in the last 12 months. If you have not yet completed the Enhanced Disclosure Checks, you will be required to pay £55 for these checks to be completed, this fee includes the payment required by the CRB to run Enhanced Disclosure Checks currently set at £34, plus a fee of £21 charged by the agency to process your Enhanced Disclosure Check. All tutors receive their own copy of their Enhanced Disclosure Certificate on successful completion of said checks.

Once you have successfully registered through TutorGroups with the agency, your Tutor Profile will automatically be presented in the TutorGroups Directory, when visitors search for face-to-face tuition support in your local area. You can view and edit this standard profile to provide a more personalised description of the tuition service you offer, by logging into your own private TutorGroup area. You can also then offer online tuition through the TutorGroups Directory.

    Do you want to Tutor Online

Examstutor is one of the most comprehensive online learning resources in the UK, and is used by thousands of students preparing for exams throughout the year. At the height of revision examstutor received 1,400,000 hits in a single month.

A Tutor Profile of every screened tutor, who uses TutorGroups to provide online and face-to-face tuition, will be listed on examstutor in the TutorGroups Directory. All visitors to examstutor are able to search through this online directory, for tutors who can provide either face-to-face or online tuition support, using TutorGroups.

Within TutorGroups tutors can create and edit their Tutor Profile, including information about

• their experience;
• a description of tuition support they offer;
• the distance a tutor is willing to travel to provide face-to-face tuition, and
• whether they wish to provide online tuition as well as face-to-face tuition

In addition our approved tuition provider will confirm..

• your qualifications, and
• the subjects and academic levels the tutor can provide tuition in;
• whether you have completed a CRB Enhanced Disclosure.

    taking bookings online

Visitors to examstutor, can search through each tutor profile, for a suitable tutor, and then submit a booking request for either online or face-to-face tuition support with a tutor directly through TutorGroups.

Tutors will be immediately informed of any booking requests by email, included in the email will be the information you need to decide if you wish to provide the tuition requested, however the full contact details of the client will not be provided at this stage. You are then required to inform our approved tuition provider by reply email or telephone, within 24 hours, if you wish to provide the tuition support requested or not.

Our approved tuition provider will telephone the potential client within two working days of the initial booking request, and if appropriate secure the tuition booking on your behalf.

You will be informed immediately by email when a tuition booking has been secured on your behalf, providing you with the relevant contact details to commence tuition, either face-to-face or online through TutorGroups.

Only tutors who have completed an Enhanced Disclosure Check issued by the Criminal Records Bureau will be listed in the directory.

All communication between tutor and tutee/parent is completed through TutorGroups, and all personal contact details are held by TutorGroups, at the initial enquiry stage, no personal contact details for either the tutor or tutee/parent are exchanged, only names are provided to enable communication to be personalised.

Only when tutees join a TutorGroup, by confirming their booking for an initial tuition session with the tutor, will the tutor and tutee be able to communicate with each other directly using their @examstutor.co.uk email, the tutors private TutorGroup forum, and our online TutorGroup Seminar Rooms.

As well as your Username and Password, you will be provided with a unique TutorGroups Reference. Your existing students can sign-up to your TutorGroup by completing an online individual subscription on www.examstutor.com. By providing your TutorGroups Reference when they complete the subscription, they will get 12 months access to your TutorGroup, including their own secure @examstutor.co.uk email account, and 12 months individual student access to a subject area of their choosing, all for a discounted subscription fee of just £9.99 for the year, compared to our standard £19.99 individual student subscription fee.

No problem, there is no requirement for Teachers to register as Tutors. TutorGroups is primarily intended to be used by teachers with the students they teach in schools and colleges, without any requirement to register for the checks reffered to above. The option to use TutorGroups for tuition purposes - is just that an option.

Initially, all tutors are listed as offering face-to-face tuition only in the TutorGroups Directory. Tutors wishing to be listed as Online Tutors must first edit their Tutor Profile accordingly. As well as editing your profile, you can extend or reduce the distance you are willing to travel to provide face-to-face tuition, currently this is set at 10 Km (just under 6.5 miles). This will have a direct effect on the number of times your Tutor Profile is presented in searches for face-to-face tuition in your subjects.

If online tuition is completely new to you, but you'd like to explore the possibilities of working with TutorGroups, we recommend that you begin by using TutorGroups with your existing face-to-face tutees. By offering your existing tutees a supplementary level of online support outside of regular tuition sessions, you will not only differentiate your tuition service from other local tutors, you will also be able to offer your individual tutees a group / seminar element to tuition - as they will be able to communicate safely online with each other, and you in your TutorGroup forum. The level of online support you offer, could be limited to giving them access to a small number of online tests that you create, and making your handouts available to download.

Working with existing tutees provides you with the advantages of knowing the tutees prior to any online communication, and allowing you to get direct feedback from them in person, on the success of the online support you have provided. This approach will enable you to develop an online tuition style, which suits you, your tutees and the subjects you tutor in. Having built your confidence working online with face-to-face tutees, you will then be better placed to provide pure online tuition to students across the UK and Overseas, who can be welcomed into a TutorGroup which is already up and running with existing tutees.