How voice and whiteboard tutoring works

Why talking and drawing go together

Think about how a good teacher explains a new idea. They do not hand out a paragraph.

They talk while they write, point at the part they mean, circle it, and pause to ask a question. The words tell you where to look, and the board shows you what the words mean.

Voice and whiteboard tutoring tries to keep that pairing. When the explanation is spoken, the student's eyes are free for the board.

When each step appears as it is described, the student sees how one line turns into the next, instead of a finished solution with the reasoning hidden. Highlighting the exact term being discussed helps the student follow along without hunting.

What a session looks like

• The student says what they are working on, or picks a topic.
• The tutor asks a quick question to see where to start.
• The tutor explains one step, writing it on the board while it talks and highlighting the part it is talking about.
• The tutor hands over the turn: the student says the next step out loud or writes it on the board.
• The tutor checks the step. If it is right, the lesson moves on. If not, the tutor points to the spot that went wrong and asks a smaller question.
• At any point the student can interrupt, ask why, or say they are lost, and the tutor stops and responds.

Example: what you would see for one equation

Here is the kind of board a student might end up with while solving a two-step equation. The tutor writes the problem, then asks what to undo first. If the student wants to add 3 to both sides right away, the tutor might circle the parentheses and ask what the 2 is doing to everything inside them.

A common slip is to multiply only the x and write 2x minus 3 equals 10, which leads to x equals six and a half. The tutor highlights the 3 inside the parentheses and asks what 2 times 3 is, so the student finds the mistake themselves.

Interrupting and writing on the board

Two things separate live tutoring from a video. The first is interruption.

In a video, a confused student has to rewind and hope the second pass makes more sense. In a live session, the student can say wait, why did you divide by 2, and the tutor stops mid-sentence and answers that question.

The second is the student's own writing. When a student writes a step on the board, the tutor can look at that exact line, not a description of it. That makes it possible to spot where in the work the error happened, for example a sign that flipped between two lines, and to respond to that line rather than to the problem in general.

When talking out loud is not an option

Some students are in a shared room, are shy about speaking, or simply think better in writing. A good voice tutor should still work for them. Look for captions, so every spoken word also appears as text, and a way to type or write answers instead of saying them.

Some students like to listen and write; others like to talk and watch. Both should be possible.

Setting it up at home

• Use a laptop or tablet with a screen big enough to see the board clearly. A phone works for short sessions but the board gets small.
• Headphones with a microphone help the tutor hear the student and keep it from hearing itself.
• A quiet corner matters more than a fast connection.
• A stylus or mouse makes writing on the board easier, though typing works too.
• Short sessions, around 20 to 30 minutes, usually work better than long ones for younger students.