Many educators work in the classroom from 8am to 3pm, teaching students in a specific age range or specializing in a particular subject. For those who want to contribute to their community outside of the classroom, by either helping fellow teachers come up with great ideas or by supporting students who need extra help and expertise, there are multiple opportunities available.
Serve as an Online Academic Tutor
Online tutoring is one of the most straightforward ways for educators to reach out to their local student population. Students may need help studying for entrance exams or they may be at risk of not fulfilling their educational goals. Teachers can offer generalized tutoring that includes study skills or core subjects or they may have a specific expertise in something like ESL, technology, engineering, or a foreign language. The best thing about one-on-one tutoring is that a teacher can mold the session to meet a student’s individual needs.
My experience has been helping students bridge the gap when it comes to preparing for standardized tests. As many teachers agree, a real-world language arts and literature curriculum, for instance, can be very different from the test-taking skills students must master before taking a standardized exam. Many high schoolers become frustrated with the excessive drills required to succeed on these tests. My goal is to help them study efficiently, with an individualized plan, so they can keep their main focus on classroom work.
If you’d like to offer online tutoring to help in your community, companies such as Tutor.com, Wyzant and Brainfuse serve as a marketplace for connecting educators and students.
Share and Sell Your Lesson Plans Online
A less obvious, but very important, way for educators to reach out to the student community is to help their fellow teachers with lesson plans. Our colleagues are always looking for the next greatest lesson plan or something creative to make the core subjects more interesting to a classroom of 30 youngsters with short attention spans. In the past, teachers were only able to create lesson plans for themselves or fellow teachers within their school, but now companies such as Teachers Pay Teachers offer a convenient online platform to share lesson plans and ideas with teachers nationwide.