Trying out an LSAT Livestream for tutoring Forum

[Reframe]

Hi everybody! I'm a former member here who's been tutoring the LSAT for around four and a half years now. I spoke to a couple TLS moderators and they said it would be okay to advertise this here while it's still in a free, experimental form. Hopefully that's still true...

In my time tutoring the LSAT I've developed some fairly novel ideas about how to approach it, as well as a fairly comprehensive understanding of the standard perspectives and a more or less encyclopedic knowledge of past tests. I've been trying to figure out how to get these bigger ideas out to a broader audience. My first instinct was to try writing a book, but I didn't really have the discipline for that, and things seemed to be getting lost in translation. Then I tried a couple partnerships with other tutors, but I felt my "creative" vision was being a bit compromised. For a minute or two I thought about starting my own prep company, but I really don't think we need another of those. In addition to all those concerns, I'm just used to having an audience giving me instant feedback; I need some confirmation that what I'm saying is being understood and that my students expect it to be helpful.

Now I'm trying to gauge interest in a series of free "classes" (or something?) on a streaming video site (looking like justin.tv at the moment, at least for now). These would be a bit like the internet classes run by the prep companies, although I'd probably skew them toward my experience in one-on-one tutoring. (Maybe I could draw a name from a hat to be my "tutee" for the day, or something.) I want to say at the outset that I doubt I will continue giving free classes like this indefinitely. My original hope was to ask for donations for doing them (donations to charity, not to me, but through me), but the moderators I spoke to felt that I shouldn't be able to advertise if any money was changing hands for any reason, which I understand. So I decided to do this for free and advertise here as a trial period to figure out (a) if the medium worked, (b) if my strategies are really practical for a substantial number of students, (c) what kind of audience I would have and how best to serve them, and (d) what kind of payment structure would be ideal.

I don't know much about other tutors, so I'm not sure if I'll be the first person to do this. A couple quick Google searches didn't indicate anybody else streaming LSAT lessons, but that doesn't tell me much. So how about it - would this interest you? Keep in mind that, for now, I'm just talking about a series of free, experimental, trial-period-type streams.

[Dr. Dre]

what did you get on the LSAT?

[Reframe]

A 178. As you can imagine, tutoring it for years has made me much better at it than I was when I was just preparing for it. I actually approach the test quite differently now than I did then. A lot of my strategies were developed out of sheer laziness in tutoring; I wanted to be able to go to lessons without doing any prep at all, so I needed ways to, for example, do a logic game in my head while a student shuffled through their notes looking for their answer sheet. So I learned to become very, very efficient.

[sublime]

..

[Reframe]

I would probably at least check it out.

Thanks! Any suggestions for when I should try to hold it or for what material I should try to cover? I have the most original insight with the new logic games, but LG's also the section that people on TLS seem to have the most mastery over, from what I remember and from a couple minutes of browsing I've done today.

I'm hoping that I can get ten or twelve people for the first session, but half a dozen would probably be enough to make it interesting and non-awkward, I think.

[laww]

Wow thanks!

I recently purchased bundles from you guys!

I'm planning on getting the LR bundle this weekend

[Reframe]

Wow thanks!

I recently purchased bundles from you guys!

I'm planning on getting the LR bundle this weekend

Wrong thread, I think!

[laww]

Woop! Yeah my bad LOL!

[laww]

hey i am interested in watching you take a full length LSAT.

[Reframe]

hey i am interested in watching you take a full length LSAT.

My sessions are normally more the other way around: I watch you do stuff and then, hopefully, have some advice about how to do it better.

[Trajectory]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

[Reframe]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

No, but that's a great idea. What kind of information are you interested in? (As you can see, I'm used to interacting one-on-one with people rather than writing up a lot of stuff about myself!)

[jk148706]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

No, but that's a great idea. What kind of information are you interested in? (As you can see, I'm used to interacting one-on-one with people rather than writing up a lot of stuff about myself!)

No website? I'm confused.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

I would probably at least check it out.

[bbkk]

I'm preparing for a retake in Oct as well. Love to give it try, since I am actually looking for private tutors now..

[Trajectory]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

No, but that's a great idea. What kind of information are you interested in? (As you can see, I'm used to interacting one-on-one with people rather than writing up a lot of stuff about myself!)

Well anything about this process....details. You said live-stream tutoring. Through what? When? Is it through a program of some sort? Is there a schedule, do you have guidelines for tutoring that you follow (somewhat at least, I know its different depending on the student)? What material should I have? Would you work with my stuff? Do you need a fresh PT from me, for starters, so you can see where I go wrong? How long are sessions? etc etc etc.

I guess since theres no website its hard to cover everything. But I am willing to give it a try. To me any help is valuable, it wont hurt me. I just need details. I'm guessing everyone else does too.

[Reframe]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

No, but that's a great idea. What kind of information are you interested in? (As you can see, I'm used to interacting one-on-one with people rather than writing up a lot of stuff about myself!)

Well anything about this process....details. You said live-stream tutoring. Through what? When? Is it through a program of some sort? Is there a schedule, do you have guidelines for tutoring that you follow (somewhat at least, I know its different depending on the student)? What material should I have? Would you work with my stuff? Do you need a fresh PT from me, for starters, so you can see where I go wrong? How long are sessions? etc etc etc.

I guess since theres no website its hard to cover everything. But I am willing to give it a try. To me any help is valuable, it wont hurt me. I just need details. I'm guessing everyone else does too.

Thanks so much! I'll answer briefly here and try and register a domain and go into more detail this weekend...

I'd probably be using either a group video service like Skype or Google Hangouts or a streaming service like Justin.tv - probably I'd start with streaming, at least, because it's easiest for a free broadcast (no need to get everyone's email addresses or Skype names or anything). As for "when", I'm still trying to figure that out. I've been considering doing a couple hours on maybe two weekday evenings, and then maybe three or four hours on Sundays. Trial sessions might be shorter, but I was thinking of trying a first pass this Sunday or Monday.

As for a few of the other questions: I'm accustomed to working with a wide range of students who have bought all sorts of different materials, taken prep courses with various companies (and even one who was teaching for a prep company while I was tutoring her), already taken the test, etc., so I don't have too much of a standard curriculum. I think it would be good to nail something down at least in order to develop a schedule for this, though.

It does seem like there's at least a little bit of interest here, so maybe I'll go ahead and try and nail down some of the specifics. Is there a study thread where some or most of you are posting? I could try and match up at least a little bit of at least the first couple sessions to it so that I could be certain that the material would be fairly relevant.

[Trajectory]

So how does this work then? Im taking it in October, I don't see why I shouldn't give this a go! Do you have a website with info?

No, but that's a great idea. What kind of information are you interested in? (As you can see, I'm used to interacting one-on-one with people rather than writing up a lot of stuff about myself!)

Well anything about this process....details. You said live-stream tutoring. Through what? When? Is it through a program of some sort? Is there a schedule, do you have guidelines for tutoring that you follow (somewhat at least, I know its different depending on the student)? What material should I have? Would you work with my stuff? Do you need a fresh PT from me, for starters, so you can see where I go wrong? How long are sessions? etc etc etc.

I guess since theres no website its hard to cover everything. But I am willing to give it a try. To me any help is valuable, it wont hurt me. I just need details. I'm guessing everyone else does too.

Thanks so much! I'll answer briefly here and try and register a domain and go into more detail this weekend...

I'd probably be using either a group video service like Skype or Google Hangouts or a streaming service like Justin.tv - probably I'd start with streaming, at least, because it's easiest for a free broadcast (no need to get everyone's email addresses or Skype names or anything). As for "when", I'm still trying to figure that out. I've been considering doing a couple hours on maybe two weekday evenings, and then maybe three or four hours on Sundays. Trial sessions might be shorter, but I was thinking of trying a first pass this Sunday or Monday.

As for a few of the other questions: I'm accustomed to working with a wide range of students who have bought all sorts of different materials, taken prep courses with various companies (and even one who was teaching for a prep company while I was tutoring her), already taken the test, etc., so I don't have too much of a standard curriculum. I think it would be good to nail something down at least in order to develop a schedule for this, though.

It does seem like there's at least a little bit of interest here, so maybe I'll go ahead and try and nail down some of the specifics. Is there a study thread where some or most of you are posting? I could try and match up at least a little bit of at least the first couple sessions to it so that I could be certain that the material would be fairly relevant.

No problem! Ok so that clears some things up, because I was under the impression you had already set up everything and we're ready to go whenever you got some willing people. I can pretty much do whatever program you want to use. I like the idea that you're good to go with most if not any type of material that students have. Since you want to make it so soon, do you need people to sign up somewhere? Or will this all be incorporated on the website which is being made? I personally will give this a go whenever so just let me know what I should do, or what info you want/need (in regards to the trail session coming up on Sunday or Monday). I guess as far a specific study thread..I guess it would be the one for the October test...I mean theres plenty that give a sense of what/how people are prepping. For me personally I'm focused on LR right now.

[Reframe]

I don't need people to sign up, but RSVPs could be good just to allay my insecurity, I guess! I've watched some videos of commonly-recommended materials and engaged in a bit of a discussion with a couple of the other "local" tutors in another thread and am feeling a bit more confident now that I'll have some helpful stuff to contribute.

I've gone ahead and registered a domain name. I'm not sure when the registration will go through, but once it has, I'll post up a few more details and a schedule, and start a new thread here. I'll probably try and do something either Sunday afternoon or Monday evening, or both.

Feel free to PM me with any more questions in the meantime! In particular, anybody should feel free to PM me with games you're interested in going over, especially recent ones, so that I plan at least a little bit for the first few sessions.

Thanks for all your feedback and interest so far!

[flash21]

so, you'll stream to an audience of us, or you are looking strictly for 1on1's? id probably be interested if you're streaming to a few of us, just let me know the time. (live in canada.)

[Reframe]

so, you'll stream to an audience of us, or you are looking strictly for 1on1's? id probably be interested if you're streaming to a few of us, just let me know the time. (live in canada.)

Yup - my goal is pretty much to see how well I do with a larger audience online.

[flash21]

so, you'll stream to an audience of us, or you are looking strictly for 1on1's? id probably be interested if you're streaming to a few of us, just let me know the time. (live in canada.)

Yup - my goal is pretty much to see how well I do with a larger audience online.

okay, let me know when i'll be glad to sit in!

[evolution]

so, you'll stream to an audience of us, or you are looking strictly for 1on1's? id probably be interested if you're streaming to a few of us, just let me know the time. (live in canada.)

Yup - my goal is pretty much to see how well I do with a larger audience online.

okay, let me know when i'll be glad to sit in!

[steel_shot]

I'd like to see how I did in June, but if I retake I'll check it out!

[Reframe]

Okay. I put a couple things up at http://www.reframeyourgames.com - the tl;dr text is just copied and pasted from an old draft of the introduction to a games-centric prep book (I never wrote anything except the introduction). It should tell you a little bit about what to expect. Hope to see you all tomorrow!