Certain classes can require a little bit more instruction than what just one teacher can give in a fifty minute period. Luckily, there are more than a few ways to circumvent this sticky situation. The major one being tutoring. Getting outside help for classes can be a great way to make sure you stay on top of your work and to make sure that failing isn’t even a close possibility. There are, however, many kinds of tutoring with each one having its own highs and lows and catering to different people with different needs. Outside of the commonly known one on one style of tutoring there are some others that haven’t reached the same level of popularity. Here are a few:

1.) Organizational

Certain school organizations may have peer tutoring systems set in place to help kids maintain academic eligibility and to simply help them with their classes. The way these are set up is as a tradeoff between students. The tutor gets service hours to go towards graduation while the tutored gets extra help on their work. Also, this one is more financially available to most students since there is no charge due to the fact that the tutor is a student rather than an educational professional or professional at all. One such program at the school can be found within the Highlander Band.

“Its being tutored by your peers- people you know, people you’re comfortable with- so I definitely think peer tutoring programs like this are, honestly, just great,” senior Ben Olness said.

The band tutoring program was created in years past but is currently kept alive by Olness who is in charge of recruiting and organizing tutors to help band members in need. However, many other programs that suffer the ills of members being unable to participate due to academic ineligibility don’t have programs like this in place. Another downside to peer tutoring is the fact that students aren’t getting help from professionals. So while there are great advantages to peer tutoring systems, they still have some downfalls.

2.) Online

In the last few years a lot of online educational resources have become available to students. A lot of these are very helpful, but some of them are better than others and some of them have different focuses and prices. One of the biggest ones out there at the moment is Khan Academy. The site offers a variety of of different subjects from physics and calculus to government and grammar. And, the thing that makes it more accessible than most everything else is that all of it is free. They also offer test prep help for the SAT and all sorts of graduate school tests. However, while Khan Academy excels in the realm of STEM, it falls short in some of its liberal arts classes like English and History.

On the other hand there are tutoring websites like Chegg that offers tutoring for all sorts of classes through high School and college. However, there’s a catch. Unlike Khan Academy, Chegg requires payment for the use of its services. While it’s not unusual for tutors to require payments, it’s not the most financially possible for students to pay for tutoring if they require it for multiple subject. In the case of online tutoring it is very possible to be trading money for quality.

3.) Teacher

Early in the mornings or late in the afternoons many classroom doors are open while teachers give some students help on material they haven’t mastered. These teacher tutorial times are often forgotten or deemed unimportant by students, yet they are a great, and somewhat untapped, resource. Teachers know what students need to know for test and quizzes as well as what they need to know for the course. Who better to help out than the person plans the class? But, just like with everything else tutorials have the downfalls. Students with busy extracurricular schedules may have a hard time making it to tutorials and thus can’t reap their benefits. Also, in hard classes where many students come in for tutorials, individual students may not be able to get the personalized help they need.

“Two days before a major test I will come in from seven p.m. to nine p.m. because I recognize that at Highland Park a lot of students like Belles can never come to tutoring in the morning,” physics teacher Euan Blackman said.

However, some teachers are willing to put in the work to help their students achieve greatness and academic success. When both the students and teachers are willing to work in order to make sure the students are able to succeed in class a lot of good can be done. Also, in this case students are receiving free help from educational professionals that are specialists in the subject they need help on. In a lot of ways teacher tutorials are the best option for students.