Just wondering what the rest of you use to track lessons given and fees paid.
Presently I use spreadsheet... horizontal is students' name and vertical is week of the year.
Whenever there is a lesson, an entry is added with date and running record of unpaid lessons. When payment is made, the entry space's background colour is changed to red.
But very messy as my screen not wide enough to display all the horizontal entries aka students names. Any of you using more effective time tracking softwares? recommend pls.
When I was learning VB few years ago, I find it a very powerful tool. I created one using VB, but deleted that script because it's just a rough idea.
You can try VB or other software?
I designed my own pen-and-paper records system (which in my opinion is more reliable than software), because students need to sign on paper their attendance (with date) on every session.
IMHO, software records systems have limitations, such as having to manually update (additional work), glitches/bugs/crashes/viruses/files deleted/hacking/espionage/sabotage, etc. But mostly, unnecessary additional double work since the students have to sign on their attendance sheet anyway (why both having two attendance sheets, one hardcopy and one softcopy?).
About my records system I designed : every individual student has his/her own attendance-and-fees record sheet (printed from a blank template). All students' records are kept in a single attendance-and-fees records file.
In the attendance-and-fees sheet; at the beginning of every 4 or 8 sessions (depending on the payment scheme opted for by the student; one session per week versus two sessions per week), students pay up.
Studens sign in red ink for the session they're scheduled to pay up, and if they remember to bring their fees. If they fail to bring the fees on that session and thus owe the fees, they sign in pencil (to be signed over in red when they bring their fees).
All other normal sessions (ie. 2nd to 4th, or 2nd to 8th), students sign in blue ink.
Scheduled sessions missed and required to be made up are recorded in violet ink (payment must be made on schedule regardless of when the make up sessions are held).
My signature must be present in the column next to the student's signature to certify validity, for all sessions. All dates are indicated together with signatures.
Me not so experienced yet, so my system is very simple....
some students pay by lesson, so easy
some pay 4 lessons in advance, then need to count...
tuition centre one no need to count; they count for me
will be forming my own JC grp soon... that one need to see how
I'm different from ultimaonline. Payment is made for lessons attended only.
Spreadsheets are only used actively so far in 2009 for
1) tracking total income over the whole year, since tuition is only my sideline
2) tracking stock portfolio
how about one-to-one tuition at the student's home?
do you still have attendance sheets?? or just... a mutual understanding that it's time to pay up & the parents pay..?
Originally posted by sinicker:how about one-to-one tuition at the student's home?
do you still have attendance sheets?? or just... a mutual understanding that it's time to pay up & the parents pay..?
for me, it's mutual understanding
At most, if parents are errant (means they know but purposely dun pay), then I go off lor.
Fortunately, I have not met such parents so far.
Anyway, I already considered as undercharging; quite a number of frens tell me I charge a bit too low last time. But then, I give tuition because I liked to. I just like the feeling of seeing people do well because of me. But not as MOE teacher... For me, tuition is both a sideline and a hobby.
Originally posted by eagle:for me, it's mutual understanding
At most, if parents are errant (means they know but purposely dun pay), then I go off lor.
Fortunately, I have not met such parents so far.
Anyway, I already considered as undercharging; quite a number of frens tell me I charge a bit too low last time. But then, I give tuition because I liked to. I just like the feeling of seeing people do well because of me. But not as MOE teacher... For me, tuition is both a sideline and a hobby.
i'm on $280/8 sessions/1.5hrs.
that's $23.3/hr. which is $1.7/hr lower than std rate for upper sec studies. but i'm not complaining! it's been fun. good supplementary income for an undergrad at least. :)
but yeah. no official letters whatsoever. mutual understanding only.
Originally posted by sinicker:i'm on $280/8 sessions/1.5hrs.
that's $23.3/hr. which is $1.7/hr lower than std rate for upper sec studies. but i'm not complaining! it's been fun. good supplementary income for an undergrad at least. :)
but yeah. no official letters whatsoever. mutual understanding only.
you could go more, but well, if you find it fun like me, it doesn't matter :D
Just hope no bad tutees ruin both yours and my impression on the fun of tuition :D
some of the student i passed this small book i sign and the student sign
i put in piece of paper and i file up
Hi,
I record in writing on my organiser :)
Cheers,
Wen Shih
Hi,
I record in writing on my handphone :)
Cheers,
Skythewood
Hmmm... thanks guys I think I will revert to good old paper like Ultima since my macbook broke down 2 months ago... my acer aspire one broke down today... not forgetting my server broke down last week... omfg technology disaster... I'm down to my bare minimum... my desktop, my backup server and my backup laptop.
Organiser and handphone are clumsy ( in entry and navigating) for me.
And especially since I am about to enter the topical revision phase of my lessons since some students are about to complete their syllabus this month... paper and pen seem the way to go as a mean of tracking revision progress... the columns should be...
(Date/Time) (Lesson No) (Topic) (Performance) (Comment)
Any more columns I should add in?
The top of each attendance-and-fees sheet has student's name, and fees payable (my schemes have 4 possible monthly payments - $200 for group once a week, $300 for group twice a week, $400 for individual once a week, $600 for individual twice a week).
My columns are
1) Session# (1 to 8, for students coming twice a week)
2) Signature of student (in red ink for fees payment session, pencil if forget to bring, blue ink for normal sessions)
3) My (Teacher's) signature
My rows are (1*,2,3,4,5,6,7,8), where *indicates fees payment.
Originally posted by eagle:you could go more, but well, if you find it fun like me, it doesn't matter :D
Just hope no bad tutees ruin both yours and my impression on the fun of tuition :D
btw, after A levels work as relief teacher or tuition teacher got more advantage?
coz i think relief teacher req lower and seems more stable but pay about same.
Originally posted by HollowGrowl:
btw, after A levels work as relief teacher or tuition teacher got more advantage?
coz i think relief teacher req lower and seems more stable but pay about same.
Relief
Don't work as tuition teacher if u cannot take the responsibility to take the student to the end of the year