How COVID and Remote School Made Math Tutoring More Necessary

By Chloe, Instructor

We’ve been living in this pandemic nightmare for over 7 months now, and there are still no definite plans (at least in Los Angeles) to return to in-person schooling. From a health perspective, this is good news, as we wouldn’t want to endanger our children by potentially exposing them to a life-threatening virus. From a learning and life perspective, things are much more challenging.

Teachers and schools are doing the absolute best that they can, but there are other factors at play that make learning much more difficult in a remote-school setting. Sitting alone in front of a computer screen can feel incredibly isolating, even if your classmates are on the screen in front of you. Access to spotty wi-fi can make you miss moments or minutes of the lessons. Even if you have an incredible teacher, it’s much more difficult to keep an eye on whether students are paying attention when they are in tiny boxes on a computer screen.

Because of these factors, some subjects that can’t be intuitively understood by reading the chapter—like math—are slipping through the cracks. That’s why it’s important to bring in outside help, like a math tutor or learning center like Mathnasium, if there are any signs that the material isn’t quite sticking as well as it would during a normal school year. Below are a few reasons why.

1. Psychological Factors

   Beyond the fact that it’s harder to pay attention in remote schooling, rates of depression and loneliness have skyrocketed during the pandemic. Children are just as susceptible to these forces as any of us, and that makes learning a lot trickier—especially if the subject is already challenging, like math is for so many of us. Learning gaps (tiny pieces of missing information that make future math learning more difficult) are much more likely to occur in this situation, as feeling sad or scared makes information harder to process. It may also be harder to tell if the information is really being understood, instead of just memorized, because levels of enthusiasm may be lower than usual across the board. If you aren’t sure whether your child’s math knowledge is being fully processed, Mathnasium offers free assessments that will let you know their skill level in all areas of math.

2. Decreased Attentiveness

   Even if teachers are teaching the material as well as they can, remote schooling makes paying attention that much harder. We’ve all been in those Zoom meetings where you just can’t seem to pay attention to what’s being said, hoping that the email that’s sent out afterward will fill in all the gaps regarding the information you missed. When you’re a child being forced to sit in a Zoom meeting for 7 hours a day, constantly processing new information, it can begin to feel like your brain is being fried. Learning is especially challenging when you aren’t engaged with the material, and it’s so much harder to remain engaged when you’re staring at a screen for hours on end.

3. Less Access to Outside Help

   In a normal school year, there are workarounds when you miss some of the material. Office hours, lunch meetings, after-school catch-up sessions… and the pandemic has taken most of those away. Sure, some teachers are still offering Zoom office hours for extra help, and some schools allow kids to actually come in during the off hours to catch up on material that isn’t being fully processed, but even with these “fixes,” it’s harder than it normally is to get the extra help you may desperately need. When getting access to outside help becomes more challenging, sometimes it becomes necessary to find your own solution—like a math tutor or learning center.

This year has been difficult for us all. Because these factors that affect learning aren’t mutually exclusive, all of them mix together in a stew that, over time, weighs down on children and slows information retention. It’s so important not to shame children for any difficulties they are having during this incredibly stressful time, and instead offer them the help they need to truly understand what is being taught to them. Math tutors and learning centers have made accommodations for the pandemic and are available to ensure that any information that is missed in the online classroom can still be attained through other means.

If you think your child may need outside help, don’t wait! You can see other posts on this website about why it’s important to get help as soon as possible so that learning gaps don’t compound and grow worse over time.