I come from a background in media, so the concept of “engagement”, is quite familiar to me, at least in regards to social media. However, after having a discussion with my professor last night, I realized that this important feature does not only need to be limited to my field of study.
When it comes to things like Facebook and Twitter, the idea is as follows: having a large number of people friend/follow you, is not enough. Those numbers mean nothing if there is no interaction between the company/organization/brand and it’s fans. In other words, what really matters is the number of likes and comments/retweets and replies.
So how can this translate over to our world of tutoring? Well…
How many times have you experienced a writer who is physically there, next to you, but mentally completely checked out? This happens to the best of us, but makes the session nearly impossible to get through. These types of writers usually offer no insight as to how to fix their problems, but rather only what the problem is, expecting you to take care of the rest.
To me, this is comparable to new media user engagement. Your schedule may be full of appointments, but if all of your writers are essentially void of any input, you may as well be free for the day.
Therefore I am suggesting that beyond getting writers into the UCWbL, we must make sure that when they show up, they are active; ready to contribute, and engage.