A typical tutoring session lasts for 60 minutes. But more or less time might be better depending on factors such as:
- The age of the student,
- The focus / goals of tutoring,
- The location: online or in-person,
- And, the meeting frequency.
Session duration and meeting frequency are especially intertwined. A change in one may necessitate a change in the other. But more importantly, session duration and meeting frequency are the two aspects of tutoring you can most easily change.
If you’re new to tutoring or still trying to refine your tutoring plan, this post will help you dial in the ideal session duration.
For the full picture, be sure to check out our other post on how often you should tutor each week.
How Student Age Affects Optimal Session Duration
A 60 minute tutoring session is not ideal for every student. In many cases, it is just a reasonable compromise between student attention, tutoring cost and tutor convenience.
Student attention is the real limiting factor, but as students get older, they tend to develop longer attention spans. Older students are also learning more challenging concepts that take longer to meaningfully explore. Taken together, a high school student in a challenging class may benefit from a longer tutoring session: 90 – 120 minutes.
The inverse is true as well. If you’re considering tutoring for an elementary school student, a 60 minute session may be too long for them to sit still and focus. For elementary students, 45 minute tutoring sessions are more common. Even 30 minute sessions can work well as long as there is an efficient routine.
But be careful about making the session too short, especially if you’re only tutoring once a week. Students need time to internalize and retain new information. If attention is an issue, you can try taking brain breaks throughout the tutoring session. Or you can split a weekly 60 minute session into twice weekly 30-45 minute sessions.
More Tutoring Goals = More Tutoring Time
Tutoring is often focused on a single subject. But students don’t succeed or fail in a vacuum. Struggles in one subject are often related to struggles in another. And underneath individual class performance sit the same set of foundational academic skills. Skills which may need strengthening before anything else can be accomplished.
If you’re looking for multi-subject tutoring, you may need to dedicate a weekly tutoring session to each subject. But assuming you have one tutor who can cover all your tutoring needs, another option is to simply increase the session duration.
Let’s say you need math and physics tutoring. Doing one long combined session instead of two shorter separate ones definitely won’t work for everyone, but it has its advantages.
Primarily, a longer combined session gives you more flexibility to modulate the time spent on each subject, adapting to the changing needs week-to-week. In a 90 minute tutoring session, you could spend 60 minutes on physics and 30 minutes on math, or vice versa. You can also just play it by ear, working through your list of priorities across both subjects with the tutoring time available.
In this example, Physics and Math are also closely related. Doing both in one tutoring session offers more opportunities for synthesis.
In-Person VS Online Tutoring
As mentioned above, the 60 minute tutoring session is a default compromise between student attention, tutoring cost, and tutor convenience.
Students generally prefer shorter tutoring sessions because it’s easier to maintain focus. But Portland tutors generally prefer longer sessions simply for the schedule convenience.
This is especially true for in-person tutoring where the tutor travels to the students home. When you factor in travel time to and from tutoring sessions, shorter sessions are simply less efficient and more costly.
But with online tutoring, travel time considerations are irrelevant and shorter sessions are much easier to schedule. At Emergent Education we have a 60 minute minimum for in-person tutoring, but only a 30 minute minimum for online tutoring.
Beyond the flexibility to schedule shorter sessions, online tutoring can be scheduled even when the student or tutor is out of town (allowing for greater consistency), and it is easier to schedule as needed (allowing for greater adaptability).
Session Length VS Tutoring Frequency
Session length and tutoring frequency combine to give us our total weekly tutor time.
Depending on the student and their goals, we’re typically shooting for 60 – 180 minutes of weekly tutor time. Less time is generally not enough for internalizing and retaining new information. But more time can be counterproductive to our goals, either by overwhelming the student or by becoming too much of a crutch.
If 120 minutes a week feels right, the question becomes how do we break up and schedule that time?
A single 120 minute session is likely too long. Two 60 minute sessions is probably ideal. But you could also consider three 45 minute sessions, or even four 30 minute sessions.
If a student has the attention span for it, longer tutoring sessions tend to be more efficient. But there are a lot of advantages to increasing the tutoring frequency instead.
How to Refine Your Tutoring Plan with Emergent Education
At Emergent Education, we offer no-contract, no-commitment tutoring. We value consistency, but we also understand the importance of refining the tutoring plan and adapting to changes in student need.
If you’re not sure how much tutoring time you need, we recommend starting with a 60 minute tutoring session once a week. After a few weeks, your tutor may recommend making some adjustments, either to the session length or meeting frequency, or both.
If you want more specific guidance on how much tutor time your student will need to achieve their goals, schedule a free consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!
