What have you ever wanted to teach?

This past summer, Tutorpedia piloted an exciting new program: project-based workshops. This is a significant step up for us; in addition to being the Bay Area’s premier provider of 1-on-1 tutoring, we are currently expanding our repertoire of “products” to include small group project-based workshops. Following the success of our guitar workshop, essay writing workshop, and Spanish workshop this summer, we are hoping to enlist as many intelligent, experienced educators as we can to contribute to our library of available workshops.

Are you interested in writing a workshop? If so, we'd love to hear from you. We are hoping that you would be open to inventing, documenting, and teaching a workshop with Tutorpedia.

Here is what the process entails:

• Think up and invent a workshop that you would like to teach! Workshops typically involve 6-10 students and last 12-20 hours (6-10 two hour sessions), but they can be as long or as short as you want. When you imagine a workshop, think of something that you have a passion or interest for, and something that you think students would want to sit through after school, during the summer, or on the weekend. Try to make your workshop completely irresistible to students! Workshops will typically fall into one of two categories:
  • Enrichment Workshops: These are workshops that are fun, engaging, and based on a topic that you (and the students) are passionate about. Think of your favorite hobbies, interests, or pastimes. Think of something you’ve always wanted to teach. Then, think about actually doing it! There is no limit or restriction on what your workshop can be about, so dream big.
  • Skills Workshops: These are more traditional workshops focused on giving students some of the basic skills that they need to be successful in school. Examples of topics include test preparation workshops, college application workshops, or content-based workshops.
• Write up your workshop, using the templates we’ve provided. We have developed a template that will help you map out your workshop, as well as templates for daily lesson plans. The templates will ensure that your workshop is project-based, that is, its final “assessment” is an authentic product, performance, or presentation. We also have examples of workshops for you to review. Tutorpedia will pay you $50 for every workshop you write and document for us. The content is something that you will own (i.e. you will receive credit for it), but that we can post for free download on our website.
• Teach your workshop! Once your documented workshop is posted on our website, Tutorpedia will advertise it, and pitch it to our list of students and families. When enough students express interest in your workshop, we will find a time and place for it to actually be taught! There are two options here:
  • You can teach your own workshop (and we hope you do!). Tutorpedia will pay you somewhere around $40/hour to teach your workshop. OR
  • We will find one of our tutors to teach your workshop. will find one of our tutors to teach your workshop. You can either keep this money for yourself, or specify a charitable organization that we will donate the money to. Tutorpedia has incorporated a 501(c)3 nonprofit in order to more easily raise money to fund tutoring for low-income students who need it most, and we would welcome any donations.

Tutorpedia Workshops, as envisioned, give enterprising educators the opportunity to publish their work on a reputable and recognized public forum, utilize innovative models of curriculum design and pedagogy, connect with students, and actually teach what they’ve always dreamt of teaching. These workshops really are win-win-win: Students have a positive educational experience, teachers have a forum within which they can experiment with curriculum and hone their practice (and earn some money), and Tutorpedia’s reputation as an innovative education company grows significantly.

If you are interested in writing a workshop, the first step is to contact David Taus, Tutorpedia's Director of Operations and Education. Below, you'll find several resources that will be integral to the workshop writing process: our Workshop Proposal Form, Workshop Lesson Plan Template, and a handbook that will help you through the workshop writing process. We also encourage you to review the workshops already posted on our website. Hope to hear from you soon.

We’re really looking forward to working with you on this new initiative! Tutorpedia’s Directors are available if you have any questions or want to talk about this further. We have several very useful resources that can help you plan your workshop, making sure that it is authentic, engaging, and project-based. If you are interested, or have further questions, please get in touch with David at davidtaus@tutorpedia.com or (617) 218-7292.

All the best,

Seth and David