Teaching Online Opens a Whole New World of Potential Students and Possibilities
At the early age of 14 I taught my very first paid piano lesson. It was pretty rough and I was probably not really that great of a teacher, but suddenly a lightbulb switched on in my head. Teaching was awesome! Suddenly a whole new world of possibilities opened up to me as I realized that other people not only liked what I could teach them, but that they were also willing to pay me to teach them.
Throughout my high school years I gained amazing experience teaching as it became my main job. Although I was offering very low prices compared to every teacher in the area, I was still making more than I would have with any other job at that age. As I got older, teaching slowly continued to be more apart of my life, but it wasn’t until a few years ago though that I even considered teaching online. Once I started to consider teaching online, I also started to realize the endless potential for teaching online. Not only in the endless subjects that could be taught, but in the endless ways to teach online. Today, I now have several different ways that I make money online by teaching. I will list those ways here along with some other ways that I would like to explore in the future, but will expand on all of these in later blog posts. You can also teach several different subjects with each of these ways as well!
1. Teaching/Tutoring Privately
By privately, I mean that everything is handled between you and your student without any third party companies. You receive 100% of the profits but you also are 100% responsible for making sure you get paid, finding your own students and finding the platform to remotely teach through(eg. Skype, Google Hangouts, etc…).
Like any way of teaching there are both pros and cons to being 100% independent of any company. You have complete control over who you teach, how you teach, what methods and programs you use, how much you charge and how you get paid. You can set your own cancelation policies and it can be a lot easier to cancel or reschedule lessons when necessary. You also receive 100% of what the student pays you for the lesson.
On the down side you have to personally handle all of the issues with payments and you have to handle all of the paperwork and business side of your teaching. You have to find each and every student. You have to plan every lesson and nothing is given to you. Now a lot of these things could also be looked at as pluses so it really gets down to how driven you are and how much work you are willing to put in.
I teach several music lessons every week online. If you want to know what tools I use when I teach my private lessons online look here. If you’d like to see some of the ways that I find new students look here.
2. Teaching Through an Online Platform
Another way to teach private lessons online is through an online teaching platform. There are so many different educational companies out there that help connect teachers with students. They range anywhere from having a set curriculum with strict rules on how lessons should be taught to simply being a platform for teachers and students to connect and have lessons. Each company handles it slightly differently, but typically they take a small percentage of what you earn as a teacher or pay you per class you teach.
A huge benefit in using a teaching platform is that they handle all or most of the non-teaching side of the business allowing you more time to focus on what you like most, teaching. They make sure you get paid, have a working platform to work through and direct potential students your way.
The cons have a lot to do with not having as much control over your studio. You don’t have as much control in how much you are paid and with some companies only certain hours are available. They have stricter policies over cancelations which can lead to penalties or you loosing the ability to use their service. You might have less control in who you teach and you are loosing a percentage of what the student is actually paying.
Now again, a lot of the pros and cons are very dependent on your situation, how much extra time you have and what you value as a teacher. I have more information on some of the company’s that I’ve used and worked with here. If you would like suggestions on how to have an awesome profile read here.
3. Teaching Through an Online School, College or University
With an increasing number of online schooling and continued learning opportunities out there, there are also an ever increasing need for online teachers. Although it can be much harder to land a job with a school of university(they normally require a degree and extensive experience), it can provide a little more job security and often some benefits.
Teaching with a specific school often means that you need to commit to a specific semester and keep the same schedule as the school. These types of teaching opportunities vary from teaching actual classes online to your students in a live setting to only having communication through e-mail, class forums and grading assignments. Every school or university has a slightly different way of having their professors teach.
Pay is also different as normally teachers are paid per course that they teach or by student enrolled in their course per semester. Depending on how many courses you are teaching and the school you are teaching with sometimes benefits will also be offered to teachers.
4. Teaching Through Pre-Recorded Videos
Teaching through pre-recorded videos has a lot of pros and cons that are different from teaching live. Overall it is just a completely different approach to teaching. Probably the biggest plus is that you can make your lessons “perfect” because you are pre-recording everything ahead of time. You also have the advantage of that lesson being watched over and over again.
You have the freedom to “teach” whenever you want as you are not tied directly to a time slot. You can also spend as much time as needed. You also have the advantage of when you are done recording your video your are done teaching. You and your students are all teaching and learning on your own time. This means though that you also lack a lot of the personal aspects of teaching since you are recording the videos and liking never meeting the students who watch the videos.
Pay is generally less consistent and you are paid less per lesson viewed by a student normally. But if created and marketed well you could earn substantially more per lesson. For a list of some different platforms that you can use to post video lessons read this post.
5. Teaching Through an Educational Blog
This approach can take a lot longer to actually start earning you money but can be a fun way to attract new students. An educational blog is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge as a teacher and show what you can offer your students. You are able to teach by writing about what you know and establish an online presence. As a blogger you can demonstrate what you know and help show why you are an expert in your field. Blogs can act as a way to attract students to your courses, classes, lessons or products as well.
A huge benefit of blogging is the ability to write and post whenever you want. There is not a preset lesson plan or any time constraints what-so-ever. On downside, you have to do a lot more work to earn any money at all, you don’t get to meet your students and it can be hard to be consistent about posting when you don’t get a lot of feedback on your work.
Blogs are definitely best suited for those who want to establish an online presence and for those who want to teach to a larger audience.
In the list above I have barely scratched the surface of the many online teaching opportunities available. Some subjects are better suited for each method, but just about any subject could be taught through each of the above ways!
More Great Resources About Online Teaching Jobs!
A great list of places to find online teaching opportunities.
Some great hints on preparing yourself to teach online.
Tips and tricks for online tutors.
