Does Online Calculus Tutoring Actually Work? Here's What 10 Years Taught Me

"Does online tutoring actually work for math?"

I get this from parents constantly. And I completely understand the skepticism — especially if your child has had a bad experience with virtual learning before. Pandemic Zoom school left a lot of families with a sour taste for anything online.

So let me give you the honest answer after 10+ years of teaching calculus online: yes, it works. Really well. But only if the sessions are structured the right way.

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Why the Skepticism Is Fair

Most people's experience with "online learning" falls into two categories:

1. Recorded videos. YouTube, Khan Academy, course recordings. These are useful references but they're passive — the video can't tell when you're confused, can't adjust the explanation, and can't ask you questions.

2. Pandemic remote learning. A teacher trying to teach 30 kids over Zoom while half of them had their cameras off and were on their phones. That was a survival situation, not effective instruction.

If that's your frame of reference, I get why you'd be skeptical about online tutoring. Both of those are bad models for learning calculus.

What I do is neither of those things.

What My Sessions Actually Look Like

Every one-on-one session I run follows the same structure:

Camera on, notebook out. Both of us. I need to see the student, and they need to be in an active learning posture — pencil in hand, paper ready. If they're lying in bed scrolling their phone, we're not going to have a productive session.

Shared screen, active problem-solving. I use a digital whiteboard where we work through problems together in real time. The student sees exactly what I'm writing. I see exactly what they're writing. When they make a mistake, I catch it immediately — often faster than I would sitting across a table, because the shared screen puts everything right in front of both of us.

The student does the work. This is critical. My sessions are not lectures. I explain a concept, then the student works a problem while I watch and coach. If they get stuck, I don't just give the answer — I ask questions that guide them to figure it out. The student is actively thinking and solving the entire time.

Tailored to their class. Before every session, I ask what the student is working on — upcoming exams, problem sets, topics that are confusing them. That way, when we sit down, every minute is targeted. No wasted time figuring out where to start.

Why Online Is Actually Better for Some Things

I know this sounds counterintuitive, but there are genuine advantages to online tutoring over in-person:

Scheduling flexibility. A student can meet with me from their dorm room, during a free period at school, or while their family is traveling. No commute, no driving across town, no scheduling around traffic or weather.

Geographic reach. I work with students at UF, at large state schools, at private universities, at high schools across the country. If we were limited to in-person, I could only help students in my immediate area.

Better shared workspace. The digital whiteboard is actually more visible and organized than a physical whiteboard or notebook. Both of us can write, annotate, and reference previous work easily. Sessions can be recorded if the student wants to review later.

No home distractions. When a tutor comes to your house, there's the dog, the siblings, the TV in the next room. An online session creates a focused, bounded space — it's just the student and me for that hour.

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When Online Doesn't Work

I'll be honest about this too. Online tutoring doesn't work well if:

• The student refuses to engage (camera off, won't participate, won't write anything)
• The internet connection is unreliable
• The student doesn't have a quiet space to work

These are solvable problems, but they need to be solved. I set expectations clearly at the start: camera on, notebook out, quiet space. When those conditions are met, online sessions are just as effective as in-person ones. In many cases more effective, because of the scheduling and workspace advantages.

The Results Speak

I've been doing this for over a decade, and I've never had a parent or student try a session and not want to continue. Not once.

Students who came to me failing have finished with A's. AP students I've prepped online have earned 4s and 5s. UF students in MAC 2311 and MAC 2312 have turned around their entire semester without ever meeting me in person.

The medium — online vs. in-person — matters far less than the quality of the instruction. A great tutor online beats a mediocre tutor in person every single time.

If You've Been on the Fence

Try one session. That's all I'd ask. If you or your child has been hesitant about online tutoring, one session will show you how it actually works — not the pandemic version, not the YouTube version, but the real thing.

You can book a session here, or if your student is at UF, the UF tutoring page has specifics on the courses I cover. And if your child is preparing for the AP Calculus exam, the Final Stretch program runs entirely online with live sessions, practice exams, and a private support community.

The flexibility of online means there's no logistical reason not to try it. The only question is whether it works — and after hundreds of students, I can tell you it does.

<!-- IMAGE: A collage of positive outcomes — good grades, a student celebrating, a parent looking relieved — representing the results of effective online tutoring -->