The following interview is part of an interview series in which we feature education professionals from a variety of different fields in order to highlight individual efforts and creative solutions to education in the 21st century.
1. Who are you and what do you do in education?
I am the founder and creator of Cricket Tutor. Cricket Tutor is a tutoring service catering to the needs of teachers that have decided not to teach in a traditional classroom setting due to Covid-19.
The tutors help students navigate their virtual learning by accompanying them during their online sessions with their host schools. Once the virtual lesson is completed, the tutor reinforces the lessons presented by the host school with interactive activities that helps the student to fully understand the lesson.
2. Describe a typical work day in your life!
A typical work day starts with a wake up time of 6:30am with goals set to accomplish for each student scheduled for the day. I then travel to my first student and accompany her in her virtual class. After the class is over, I have activities planned for her to accomplish to help reinforce the lesson from her class teacher.
After our session, I either leave to my next student’s home for a tutoring session or I hop on a zoom call to tutor a student online. After a series of sessions like this in the day, I head home and start evaluating the sessions that were held during the day and begin lesson planning for the next day’s tutoring sessions. My day ends at 7 pm.
3. In what way has technology in general and the net in particular changed your work?
Technology has allowed me to be mobile and versatile in how I deliver my lessons. It has given me freedom to reach students in their weaknesses and provide resources that are not available from their host schools. Also, technology has shed light on how students are able to learn using tools that would not otherwise interest them.
Technology has allowed me to expand my tutoring services beyond the confines of my city and state. I can tutor anyone in the world at any time of the day. Technology has provided an opportunity of creative freedom to my students to learn as well as I to teach.
4. What challenges do you see for education in the future?
The challenges that I see in education in the future is first keeping pace with the ever evolving changes of the technologies developed. Teachers must stay abreast of technological advances and make bold moves in incorporating the technologies in their classrooms. If not, teachers will face the hard task of competing with teaching methods that exceed their capabilities to effectively adapt their lessons to the future mindsets of students. The second challenge is funding education with the growing needs of students.
Teachers are seeing more than ever that old classical ways of learning are not serving current students well. Schools must be held accountable in providing cutting edge methods of teaching that will meet the demands of how children are absorbing information and interacting with the world around them. This takes school districts investing in technologies that students are using at their leisure for entertainment and communication purposes. Teachers must more broadly use these technologies in their lessons and districts must ensure that ALL students have access to the software and equipment.
5. Where can we find you online?
You can find me at www.crickettutors.com or you can reach me through linkedin.
–
