Test Prep – Where do we stand?

As far as I see, the Test Prep forum is a reflection of the health of the forum and beyond. Let us face it. It is like the legendary Somalian malnourished child.

Test Prep has 1138 tutors on its board with some 20 and odd classes going on at the moment. Let us take the case of GMAT, which has one of the highest numbers of tutors i.e. 113 and the highest number of classes i.e. 10. Of the 10 classes conducted by four tutors, 7 classes are given out free by some 3 tutors. (Free because the tutors are doing more for the love of teaching, I suppose). Of the total 32 students, four are paying students while the rest 28 are having a free ride, thanks to the big hearts of the tutors. The other big group SAT with 268 tutors is going to have a class by the year end, which will be a one-hour question and answer session and not a regular class. The nearest cousin GRE is just about to have three classes, one free and the other two Superpasses. As far TOEFL, less said is better. TOEFL is yet to kick start its saga, though with 226 teachers. . I just have one question to ask of the teachers who depend upon teaching for our daily bread. Are we all calling our selves tutors without actually teaching?

Test Prep is a multi – billion dollar industry globally. Jon will vouch that Kaplan alone contributes to nearly $750 million a year, leave alone hundred others who must be contributing collectively as much more. Of this, let us ponder, how much is our scratch?

Am I right or just prattling?

You’re just prattling. :) No, I’m totally kidding. You’re actually right on. Test prep is one of the most under-utilized parts of the eduFire platform.

The biggest thing I’ve seen in test prep (going all the way back to my days teaching at Kaplan) is that when people make choices about test prep they are very concerned about quality. Parents especially as it can mean the fate of their children. Online test prep has yet to really take off and while there are a number of interesting approaches (e.g., PrepMe, Grockit, Knewton, etc.) there has yet to be a big winner in the online space.

I think the critical thing is that test prep teachers on eduFire do whatever they can to demonstrate their credibility upfront. Of course, at the same time we need to build tools to give them the chance to do this.

Would love to hear other ideas, suggestions, comments, etc. here. I think eduFire is a great platform for test prep. It just hasn’t hit its stride yet.

I love teaching ‘test prep’, but the ‘tests’ most familiar to me are the UK A / AS level and GCSE. I am not sure we have enough UK students for this to be popular – these exams don’t even feature in the Test Prep list – and I am torn between trying to learn the USA systems (which I have never sat myself) and trying to make a go of teaching for exams with a much narrower appeal …. I guess that a lot of non-USA tutors are in the same boat. What might help would be for someone to do overview courses in the USA exam system and other tutors could then possibly engage in more test prep activities …. or we could widen the test prep section to cater for other countries …. or both?

I agree with Narendran and Jon that the Edufire platform just hasn’t hit the stride with respect to test prep. Besides demonstrating and highlighting our credentials, I believe the lack of appropriate online tools for math in the current adobe platform are also a critical component.

I focus primarily on math for test prep and wondered why students were so hard to come by. We have some great faculty. Mair is wonderful. Narendran has decades of experience. I had perfect scores in my GRE quantitative and analytical sections- and may be one of the few paid math tutors.

The habit of looking for “free” classes on the web has been much discussed. The crowd of tutors offering math guidance for free is a factor- but those need 1:1 classes will opt for paid sessions. There are students who may my regular in-person rates for online classes.

For math, I feel students are generally more worried. It’s somewhat scarier than languages to most students and the adobe platform for math isn’t the best. Forget competing platforms like WizIQ – even Google docs is better.

I sometimes get students and after a few classes the students prefer if I can shift to offline from online as Edufire does not have sufficient tools in the whiteboard or otherwise to enable proper communication in math. Even when I have a prepared power point presentation with questions and hints; asking the students to use the whiteboard is a challenging task.

There is no easy way to write fractions or exponents or square roots!! I had a paid class for GMAT last weekend where the student was representing square root of 2 as “2r” when writing on the whiteboard! Fellow math teachers will appreciate the complications when one has to add 2 square roots of r (it is 2 sqrt®; rather than 4 r that he once typed it – before realizing that it should be 2 2r) I don’t blame him, even my methods – copying mathematical formulas from the picture set I have; using lines to draw the square root symbol etc are not perfect.

Once when the Adobe platform misbehaved, we shifted to google docs (shared a word document with him) and the student found it easier to use as they had the option on mathematical operations. He has been patient with me in spite of the non-math friendly environment in the Adobe platform.
Most leave after a couple of sessions- some offer to continue offline.

There is NO way I am hosting a calculus class on the adobe platform. One look at the Google doc “insert → equation” character/ symbol set will give you an impression of what is missing.

I use my touchscreen laptop sometimes but that’s not what all students or tutors may want to consider the investment. Even I don’t use it often as that touchscreen Vista laptop is more prone to hanging (i need to get a Win 7 upgrade ).

I had raised some of these inadequacies for math when i first started but then tried to make best of what’s available. Would love Mair’s inputs on what she does as well.

Its a great idea/platform- I love teaching students from Tokyo, Paris, UK, Brazil and Cambodia. But given my experience, it’s unlikely we’ll get critical mass of students for math for test prep or otherwise unless we upgrade the tool set.

@Mair-

I can help you with the GRE/GMAT/SAT/GED course overviews. Alan and I are trying to set something up for GED – which was delayed due to my relocation and ill-health. Alan is setting up a google docs which we will work on.

As I get “settled” I am sure we can find some mutually convenient time to discuss GRE/GMAT/SAT/GED. I am sure they will not be materially different from UK A / AS level and GCSE (though I have no clue about those :) ).

@Kamal, first it is great to see you here again and I do hope your health is much better. I will take you up on your offer of help with the USA exams and in return I could certainly explain the UK system very quickly……

I have never taught a Maths class here on eduFire. I prefer to specialise in 1:1 help as I think that is the best way to improve a student’s confidence and performance, particularly if they have been struggling in school, and I have not been asked to teach Maths here. In the ‘real world’, I am quite well know locally and have no shortage of ‘live’ Maths pupils so I am very up to speed with current GCSE and A/AS level requirements …..

I have often thought about doing a few Maths classes here to raise my Maths profile and to draw in students, and I had realised that I would have to have some way of writing by hand to make lessons possible as I love to solve problems ‘live’, thinking them through with the students …. I even got as far as getting a recommendation from Marco for a Wacom usb tablet to attach to my laptop so that I could write on the whiteboard ….. but …… oh my goodness Kamal …. it hadn’t occured to me that I would also want my pupils to write (which I definitely would!) and they wouldn’t be able to do so!!!! That is a severe limitation of this platform for Maths teaching …. I think I would have to insist my 1:1 students got a usb tablet too and that is a high additional expense ….. I would not even contemplate using an equation editor for live teaching …. everyone would have lost the will to live before the end of the first session!!!!

You have given me a lot to think about Kamal, so thank you for that. I will let you know if anything clever comes to mind! Also, let me know if I can help you and Alan in any way – I use google docs all the time for my Latin teaching …… all the best to you in your teaching :-)

Dear Kamal,

Thanks for your brilliant inputs. Your tussles with maths coaching do frighten me. Wish you well from those blues.

The problem here as I see is from a different angle. It is of our perceptions. This nonchalance in test prep is due purely to lack of willingness to play. The person who holds the ball will not kick it until the opponent comes unto him and the opponent will not stir out until the ball comes up to him. And where can be a play then? The faculties will wait until the students come up to them for a paid class and the students will wait until the faculties reach out to them with a free class. And it will be an eternal wait. I am surprised that somebody registers as a student but does not want to take a class. I wonder what he is looking for here.

To blow this myth of freebies away, I threw open a message in this same forum that I would like to give some free GMAT material to those who ask for it. Of the 170 registered students, some 24 have viewed the message in the past 6 days (some of them may well be the admin or the technical guys) and none of 24 even chose to post a line about it, leave alone ask for it. Perhaps our students want some doles as well for looking at the materials. The same message, in other forums attracts three to four digit requests.

To me, my classes are my cherished treasures and I will not even glance at somebody who doesn’t want to pay for them. As you have rightly made out, you are one among the very few paid faculties and you are respected for that, I can vouch.

My views may be sharp wailing, but let us do something to stem the ebb.

Regarding people not taking you up on your offer of free materials — I do get the sense that the forums are visited more often by tutors than they are by students. Reading through these threads, I see mainly the names and avatars of tutors. Some students do indeed participate, but there may not be enough. I think that marketing of test prep courses may have to take place off-site — i.e. drawing students in from elsewhere with credentials up front. Of course the platform itself may be an issue with mathematics courses.

I agree with Narendran and Karen that the student mix for test prep has more dormant than active members.

I guess branding/ awareness was and to some extent still is a factor. And lack of proper tools don’t help create a positive word of mouth.

Many students who join are attracted by the $29/ month take as many classes as you want. You finally get tutors like me asking more than that for a single class. There will be brand dissonance. That’s not what many guys signed up for. Some branding confusion?

Then some do shell out the cash and attend the class and (for math) find that the tool set is not up to scratch. If I were a student and even had a wonderful tutor, I’d try to find one locally with whom I could interact better with in a less cumbersome manner (offline).

It would need a really great faculty at edufire, lack of proper faculty in student’s locality and immense patience from the student to keep him here (as a math student). Or maybe timing- I teach students at 9pm Europe time – not when regular local tutors would show up.

I think the mix is very difficult to get. That I have been able to retain some students is an aberration.

I have started teaching English and its easier and better to teach. I have great credentials in English as well, but can’t claim being an expert like in Math. I can solve (almost) any test prep math question on the fly. But i can not properly explain even half the stuff I know in the current platform.

I agree with Narendran on the need to get more involved students. But getting interested students and have them spread negative word-of-mouth due to a platform that’s just NOT ready may not be helpful. I doubt any of my students would recommend edufire for math- even I would not. Where do we get the critical mass of interested students if no serious student recommends it???

@ Mair, I’ll email you and we can set up some time to share information on the tests.

This is an interesting thread and one I was thinking of just the other day…. I’m a language teacher new to edufire and am still getting used to the platform. However, I was sure there would be a huge demand for students taking the IELTS exam or TOEFL…. especially one-to-one tuition. Although I have yet to design a test prep class, I am somewhat surprised that students are not exploiting edufire to prepare for exams (i.e. discussions in the forums, seeking out tutors)…. then again, perhaps the majority of students already receive help for these exams offline….

I just want to chime in that test prep can also be for the certificates in an industry. What are the new exhaust requirements in California? What about computer networking and security? Please note that I’m pimping my own classes.

@Mark I think you are right – there should be huge demand for IELTS and TOEFL …. even when students recieve ‘official’ tuition offline, I would expect many to supplement this with extra help and there must be places where that isn’t easy to find locally. Even where it is, online tuition can be much more convenient and cut down on travel time/costs. For the subjects where eduFire is an appropriate platform, I think we need to make sure the students who could use our help know we are here …. I also think students are much more likely to expect to pay for tuition which helps them get better results, so it should be an important sector to target.

Added later:
@Dave – yes there should be demand for all that professional certification too. Do you advertise classes which specifically target particular qualifications? Sorry if I have overlooked you doing so …

I think Karen pointed out something important. I, too, do not see many students in the forum. Tutors who also take classes for personal enrichment excluded as those are not your TOEFL/GMAT/standardized tests market. Marketing to the right segment of the population needs to be a joint effort. Who best than the tutors know the benefits of their class offerings? If each of the 1138 tutors bring in just 10 students, you’ll need to teach 24/7.

Kaplan has been around for a long time. They have had plenty of time to make a name for themselves. Comparatively, eduFire is a baby, growing fast but still very young. If you search online, eduFire is portrayed as a start-up in many links. If you Google “online test prep”, Kaplan is right up there (#3). If you search for “GMAT online test prep courses”, Kaplan is #1. Maybe a little more SEO work on the part of eduFire, along with tutors’ promotions, would bring a pool of potential students.

Has anyone actually contacted Adobe in regard to typing math (and others that could be used in technical classes) symbols? Computers are able to display them, users can type them I believe the symbols are in the ASCII Extended Character Set. I may be wrong, not a math person :).

So far, only one class and only one bite. What I planned was just a concept that people need to understand in most certificates in computer-land today (the OSI networking model). I don’t see a lot of people pushing those certs, but I assume it would be a lucrative market.

Maybe my marketing was too obscure. I was testing ways to bring super-technical topics down to earth. The title was “OS- I spy, the thrilling tale of the OSI model”. Primarily marketed for Network+, but it also pertains to A+, MCSE, CCNA.

I was thinking of also doing one a similar one on security models, and the TCP handshake.