Them vs. Us: 4 Things That Sets Me Apart From My Competitors

What makes Nashville Learning Center different from the hundreds of other Tutoring and Test Prep Companies?

When asked this question I had to put myself in my clients shoes and think about all we have to offer. So what makes us different? Below you will find a few items that set us apart from our competitors.

1. You are more than just a number - At NLC we strive to give you our best so in an effort to do so we don't look at you as just another client (number) we think of you as family. So we give you everything we can to help you accomplish your goals:
• Sitting in the classroom to see if there's any issues in the classroom
• Communicating with teachers on a regular basis
• Staying in constant communication with parents
• Attending parent/teacher conferences and becoming a liaison between the family and the school.
• And whatever we can to help you achieve academic success
2. Honesty is the best policy - When I first started tutoring I had a parent tell me that she was disappointed because in an effort to be proactive she had been paying for her daughter to receive services from another tutoring company for about 6 month prior to the start of the school year. Her daughter was a preemie when she was born so she wanted to make sure that when she started kindergarten she would be ready to go and would not have any issues. After her daughter started school she was tested to see where she was and her mother knew that they would be shocked at how much her daughter knew because she had been paying what was equivalent to her mortgage to this company every month and they had given her a list of all of these skills her daughter had mastered. Well the mother was shocked when she received the report on her daughter was not even at a pre-k level and that everything she had been assured that her daughter had mastered her daughter did not know. After demanding that she be retested several times the mother felt awful and that is when she found us. At NLC we believe that there is no need to sugar coat anything when it comes to education honesty is our policy. We do not promise to make your child an "A" student in 2 weeks, we do not promise that they will become geniuses, what we do promise is that we will teach them any skills in which they are lacking, we will stay in constant communication with their teachers, we will keep you abreast of what is going on at all times, and we will make every effort to make sure they are the best student that THEY can be.
3. We are always learning -  Anthony J D'Angelo said "Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you'll never cease to grow" so at NLC we continue to feed our passion to learn more in return we are constantly growing and so are our students.  How can someone teach you when they themselves have stopped learning? They can't which is why we offer monthly professional development courses for our staff members, all of our staff members must be NLC certified and will soon be NTA (National Tutoring Association) certified, we even educate our parents through monthly seminars that they can attend free of charge.
4. Tutoring can start at any age - Contrary to what many believe tutoring is not just for students who are in elementary, middle, high school, or college. Tutoring is for ANYONE who wants to learn ANYTHING. At NLC our youngest client is actually 3 and she has been with us since she was about 10 months (she is my niece so that is why so young, here's a video check out Jaide Reading) and with our help and the support of her parents she is reading consistently between a first and second grade level. Our oldest thus far was 55 and she came to us because her position changed and she had to start using Excel more at work so we trained her on how to not only use Excel but helped to get all of the reports that she needed for work set-up. So you can receive tutoring at any age and we will work to make you feel comfortable and confident while learning.

To sum it all up at Nashville Learning Center you are treated like family and your child will be treated no differently than the way we treat our own children. We are devoted to providing the best services to all of our clients and will do everything in our power to make sure all of our clients are successful. As we stated above we are always learning so if there are any areas in which we can improve or if you have any suggestions, comments, or concerns please feel free to leave them below as we always love hearing from you.

 

The How To's of Selecting a Tutor

As a parent there may come a time in which you realize that your child needs academic support. This could be for remediation, enrichment, test prep, college prep, or just to make better grades. It is up to the parent to know what to do when this comes up so we will answer questions about how to select a tutor today to support you in finding the best fit for your child.

Step 1: Is There a Need?
The first step is to find out what your child actually needs in a tutor. Again a personal tutor can be hired for several different reasons and we will go through a few of those with you.

• Enrichment - This is for the student who is succeeding at grade level and wants to move forward focusing on increasing knowledge and preparation for the next level.
• Test Prep - This is for the student who has any type of standardized testing that they will have to take such as the state grade level standardized tests, SAT, ACT, Compass, etc.
• Maintenance - This is for the student who needs assistance in transitioning from one school to the next, one class to another, or one grade to another. Maintenance focuses on those skills that are not taught in school such as time management, note taking, organization, and study skills that they can apply to their current coursework.
• Remediation - This is for the student who has either forgotten a skill or just never really learned it. Usually parents get hit in the face with remediation, in other words the child comes home with an unexpected F. With remediation the child is tested on grade level and provided with a prescription of how to get caught up and catch what was missed in the past this in turns allow the student to succeed in the future.
• Remediation/Maintenance (a hybrid of sorts) -This usually works for older students and allows half of the tutoring time to be devoted to remediation while the other half is devoted to maintenance.

Step 2: How to Find a Tutor:

• First, check with other parents in your neighborhood. Chances are a good tutor is working right next door!
• Check with your child’s teacher or school principal, guidance counselor or learning specialist.
• Look in the yellow pages for learning centers.
• Check flyers in the local library, pediatrician’s offices, children’s consignment stores, coffee shops, parent teacher stores, and any other kid friendly business.
• On-line searches may result in locating tutors in your area as well but make sure you research the tutor  by simply doing a Google search and checking out social media sites as well as asking for references that you can contact.

Step 3: Evaluate the Tutor (The Application) - The tutor should be evaluated in the following areas:

• Qualifications - When looking at qualifications there are a few things you should look for. Your tutor should have a college degree and some tutoring or teaching experience. Ideally you want someone who is a certified teacher or has a tutoring certification.
• Personality - Most students resist tutoring so you want someone who has a great personality and have the ability to put the student at ease. The tutor should be able to determine what will and will not work for your child and help determine their strengths and weaknesses.
• Communication - The tutor should provide consistent feedback on the goals for the student and how these goals will be achieved and measured.They should also communicate with the teacher to make sure that the student is getting everything that they need in and out of the classroom.
• Cost - This is probably the most important factor for parents and the one thing I remind parents of is you get what you pay for. Tutoring can be accomplished in a one-to-one or small group setting. I believe the method used depends on the student and whether or not they can concentrate with another student there.One-to-one tutoring will be more expensive than small group and in-home more than going to a center. It is up to the parent to determine what is best for the student and go from there.

Step 4: The Interview: 

Questions to ask your tutor:

• How many years have you been a tutor?
• Are you, or is your company, a member of the Education Industry Association?
• Can you provide references?
• What assessments do you use?
• What supplies and materials do you provide? What will my child need to provide?
• Will you provide private (one-to-one) tutoring?
• What are your qualifications?
• What is the cost?
• Are there additional fees?
• Will I have a contract?
• Can I get out of the contract?
• How will you know what my child’s needs are?
• Do you have a particular teaching philosophy?
• How will you communicate with me?
• Will you communicate with my child's teachers?

Step 5: The Interview Part II: 

What your tutor needs from you:

• What seems to motivate your child?
• Does your child like school? What are his/her favorite subjects? Least favorite?
• How does your child feel about being tutored?
• Do you have samples of the work that I can view?
• May I speak to the teacher regarding your child?
• Does the school agree with your assessment of your child?
• How does your child feel about standardized tests? Does s/he get anxious? What are his/her past standardized test scores like?
• Does your child have any specific organizational/study skill issues?
• Does your child have any  learning disabilities that you are aware of?

What questions do you have about selecting a tutor or tutoring in general? 

Leave your comments below and we will answer each of them.

Industry Myths

There are tons of myths in every field so I decided today that I would discuss a few in my industry.

• Myth 4: Tutors give you answers. 
• The refusal of tutors to respond to student demands for the “right answer” can lead to some learners disengaging with tutors and complaining that tutor support is poor. However, as a learner, it’s important to recognize that asking a tutor for the correct one, is an unrealistic expectation and, in some instances, could be considered cheating.
• Your tutor can act as an excellent sounding board when identifying key topics and developing arguments for your assignments, helping you as you work towards developing your own answer.
• Myth 3: Teachers are not working hard enough and if they did the students would not need tutors. This to is very far from the truth. Teachers teach from a curriculum and much of their time is spent dealing with behavioral issues. Imagine being in a classroom with 30 students and here is the demographics of your class: 
• 5 of your students are ESL students meaning English is their 2nd language and only 1 of the 5 speaks any English (yes this is what happens in the classroom).
• 3 of your students are responsible for not only getting themselves up and ready for school but also their siblings. They may or may not come to school in clean clothing, they may not have eaten, and you may be the only adult that they come in contact with all day.
• 6 of your students tested below basic the year prior and the expectation is for you to bring them along with the rest of your class up to proficient.
• 3 of your students have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD and are medication or other homeopathic treatment but there are 5 more who you know are ADHD or ADD yet you have to wait until a parent initiates a meeting and just deal with their inabilities to focus or sit still until that time.
• The remainder of your students are A/B students who strive for their best yet you as a teacher must deal with all of the other issues in the classroom before you can even get to teaching.
• So when someone says the teacher is not working hard enough I beg to differ teachers come to the classroom and give their all to their students and when is all said and done after all of the extra time and money spent they are probably making less than minimum wage with minimal resources.
• Myth 2: Tutoring is only for students who are failing. 
• Many parents seek private tutoring to ensure their child attains grade level competency.
• Increasingly, parents enroll their children in private tutoring to help them get ahead of their class and be better prepared for the next school year.
• Many college bound students enroll in private tutoring to help them attain higher ACT and SAT scores
• Myth 1: A good tutor is too expensive to afford. This is far from the truth and I typically explain it to parents in this manner. If you go to Starbucks daily or feed a family of four at McDonald's once or twice a week you can afford tutoring. All it takes is giving up something that you may not always want to give up but would not take anything away from your livelihood or well-being to do so. I mean think about it if you stopped drinking Starbucks coffee and made coffee at home you could save at least $120 a month (that's with buying 2 containers of coffee a month) and at Nashville Learning Center that gets you at least 4 tutoring sessions.

Would you hire a tutor to help your child or if you needed one yourself? If the answer is No, why not? Post your questions or comments below.

2015 Education Industry Forecast

Today I was tasked with providing insight on my 2015 Education Industry Predictions. Like many industries the field of education is constantly evolving especially now due to the implementation of Common Core. So here are my predictions for 2015:

Tutoring and Child Education

• This would include private tutoring and private child care programs that have an educational component. 
• Expected to exceed $100 billion by 2017 
• Needed more today due to the implementation of Common Core which is a system that most parents do not understand so their ability to assist their children has almost diminished. 

Adult Educational Services

• Online education will accelerate 
• As factories and other businesses which did not require a degree start to close and/or move overseas we will see an increase in the adult learner population 
• Students will continue to become self-directed learners meaning they will focus on finding ways in which what they are learning relates to their everyday lives and the fields that they are preparing for. 
• Social media will increasingly become a part teaching and a learning tool. 

E-Learning

• Is the use of electronic educational technology in learning and teaching. 
• Includes online tutoring services, online degree programs, and online training courses. 
• Expected to exceed $107 billion in 2015 

Changes in the Way we Learn

• Flipped Classroom - The flipped classroom essentially allows the student to learn at home and do their homework in class. 
• Social Learning: This is based on the idea that students can benefit by studying together and sharing ideas. It encourages the use of social platforms to achieve a common goal. 
• Instead of having textbooks students are using tablets to download textbooks. 

What do you think about education and the direction that it is headed? Post your questions or comments below.

Meet the Director

Most of you have been reading my blog for some time now and some of you are new so I just want to give you a little insight on who I am. My name is LaTishia Jordan and I am the owner of Nashville Learning Center which is a Tutoring and Test Prep company providing both online and on-site services to students in Nashville and all over the world. Not only do we provide these services we also assist with college admission and scholarship essays, we host parent and student seminars in which we provide information on all things education, summer camps, after school programs, and a multitude of printed materials. 

I have been blogging for a while now but for those who are just joining us you will find a wealth of information all about education from tutoring and how to find a tutor for your child, ACT test tips, SAT test, Summer Learning Loss, and so much more. In other words we will talk about anything involving education. 

You can leave comments by scrolling to the end of the blog post and placing them in the comment section.

ACT Test Tip 8: English, Reading and Science Reasoning Tests

Below is a list of tips for the English, Reading, and Science Tests

1. Review English grammar and usage, as well as punctuation, parts of speech, sentence structure, and word parts.
2. Don't rush your selection. Consider all the answers to make the best choice.
3. Use the context of nearby words to figure out unknown words.
4. Pace yourself. You have roughly (actually slightly less than) 1/2 minute for each question.
5. Examine each underlined portion with care. 
6. It will suggest what is being sought from you by its context in the passage that the question refers to.
7. Choose the best answer possible, using the process of elimination to narrow your choices.
8. After you've made your choice, mentally substitute your answer into the underlined portion to see if it seems correct.
9. If you don't know the meaning a word, try to recall if you've ever heard it in an expression. 
10. The context of the expression may suggest the meaning of the word.
11. Beware of obvious answers! They may be there only to mislead you.
12. You should base your answers to the questions solely on what is stated or implied in the passages.
13. Carefully read any introductory text.
14. Skip questions you don't know. Return to them after answering other easier questions.
15. First and last sentences of each paragraph are critical.
16. Read the passages before reading the questions.
17. Don't waste time memorizing details.

Happy Testing

Nashville Learning Center

www.nashvillelearn.com

615-452-6NLC (6652)

#acttestprep

#reading

#english

#science

#nashvillelearn

#tutoring

#testprep

ACT Test Tip 7: Math Section Strategies

Below is a list of tips for the Math Section of the ACT Test:

1. Read the question well. Be sure to select the best answer for the variable, value, or expression that is requested! 
2. Learn in advance all of the critical definitions, formulas, and concepts that appear in common questions. 
3. Remember to use the test booklet for scratch work, as well as for marking up any diagrams/graphs. 
4. Early questions in this section are easier. Spend less time on them. 
5. Don't get carried away with detailed calculations. Look for a trick or a shortcut if the question seems time consuming. 
6. When a question contains a weird symbol, just substitute the accompanying definition when figuring out the best answer choice.
7. Don't ever guess at Choice E. There are only four choices!
8. Always consider values that are fractional (between 0 and 1), zero, negative, or non-integer.
9. Factor out, then cancel, any common expressions or quantities in both Columns A and B. Remember that you are just trying to make relative comparisons.
10. Questions are simpler and should take less time than the Standard Multiple Choice. Look closely. The answer is often apparent without any calculations.
11. Write on any diagrams to help clarify any values, angles, sides, etc.
12. Compare; don't solve!
13. Simplify one or both sides whenever possible before comparing.

Happy Testing!!!!!

Nashville Learning Center

www.nashvillelearn.com

615-450-6NLC (6652)

#acttestprep

#actmath

#math

#algebra

#geometry

#trigonometry

#nashvillelearn

#tutoring