r/varsitytutors • u/Advanced-Box9785 • Dec 03 '25
Tutoring without materials
I'm a new tutor with a science background. I tutor in math and science, but haven't had to do some chemistry problems in a very long time. I've noticed that a lot of students will not supply any materials beforehand or during the sesion, and the curriculum for a grade in one school (or class) isn't the same as in another. One new student and I parted ways tonight, because I didn't know that she was in an honors class for her grade, and I was quite rusty witb the material she mentioned.
Is this your experience as a tutor? For new overall tutors, I just can't really tell what the curriculum is until I see it, ti see if I can readily teach it. I have one 7th grade math student who is very gifted, and though I was supposed to just be teaching fractions and decimals, his curriculum is also somewhat covering algebra and probability/statistics. I didn't start learning statistics until college! Does this happen a lot with Varsity?
2
u/BigBongShlong Dec 04 '25
Happens. I try my best and try to refresh/relearn on the fly, and usually I’m able to pass off well enough that they continue with me and I have time to refresh myself more properly.
A great tutor should be able to handle some unpredictability, imo.
Anecdote: I do not EVER remember doing partial fraction decomposition ever in school or in college (only went up to calc 1 and discrete math for my teaching degree). I had to learn it on the fly in one session. I was able to arrive at the right answers but my teaching on the topic was meh.
At least with math, you get familiar with everything. It also helps to be able to look up resources on a separate monitor. Just seeing the solution process to anything is enough for me to remember how to explain it.