Wyzant Insights - Term 1, 2020
It’s the start of a new year, and we’re back with a new edition of Wyzant Insights for Term 1, 2020! Here’s your chance to get to know more about what’s happening here at Wyzant. We’ve got some exciting product news and developments, as well as improvements we’ve made to the platform based on your feedback.
First: feedback
Scheduling improvements
In response to multiple requests and reports, we made a significant change to how tutors can schedule and submit lessons through Wyzant. We’re happy to announce that now, tutors are able to submit lessons that span two days. This means that lessons that go past midnight can now be submitted without contacting Customer Support for additional help.
Online learning tool updates
Thanks to your feedback, our engineering team was able to isolate and fix two issues with the equation editor in the Online Learning Tool:
- A bug that caused Latex code to be misinterpreted
- A UI issue that required an extra click to see equation code
We hope these changes mean you’ll have an easier, more reliable experience on Wyzant.
2019 Top 10 Subjects
It was a productive and challenging year, and success is happening on the platform every single day. We love looking at numbers at Wyzant (we’re a tech company, give us a break!) and in 2019, they astounded us.
Everyone here at our Chicago office is grateful to be a part of a better kind of learning for so many, and we hope you’ll join us in celebrating a fantastic year! Share your 2019 tutoring stories with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and be sure to follow us for some exciting news coming in the next few weeks.
We saw our most popular subjects trend toward math and science, with calculus and chemistry at the top of the list. Here’s how the top 10 subjects shook out over 2019:
- Calculus
- Chemistry
- Algebra 1
- Algebra 2
- Writing
- Physics
- English
- Spanish
- Precalculus
- Statistics
Ask An Expert
Since we launched Ask An Expert on March 14, 2019, 55,830 questions have been posted.
Tutors helped students by answering a total of 60,193 times!
7,508 tutors on Wyzant took part in helping students on AAE, an activity that can help expand their reach to new students. Thank you for such engaging support of students in need.
For all the support, dedication, and sheer challenging work: thank you. We’re so excited to get started on all the incredible innovations and improvements to the Wyzant platform in the next term. Here’s to a strong 2019 and an even more successful 2020.
What’s Coming up Next
Here are a few projects in the works at Wyzant. We hope to share more details about each soon!
Mobile Tutor Search Improvements
We’re going to test adding more relevant content and qualification information in search for students who visit our mobile site. This means, with the subject qualifications you add, you look better to students from the platform they are searching from most often: their mobile devices.
Messaging and Jobs
Expect to see updates in 2020 to jobs and messaging in order to address long-standing bugs and improve the overall user experience.
AppleID Single Sign-On
Soon users will be able to use their AppleID to securely sign in to their Wyzant account from the app or the website.
Tutor Spotlight
I am so grateful to have Dr. P as my own personal professor and mentor. I contacted him for help in my Columbia Univ. intermediate micro and macro economics courses. He has an impressive knowledge of economics, finance, and mathematics. More importantly, he is a great teacher. He doesn’t just lecture but engages me in a clear logical explanation of the material. No memorizing, just in-depth understanding. His Wall Street experience makes him a great career mentor as well. I look forward to working with him next semester in Finance and Econometrics. I feel so lucky to have contacted him!
JD has helped hundreds of students conquer their SHSAT, PSAT, SAT, ACT, GMAT and GRE goals and secure their places at schools like Stuyvesant, Groton, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and Columbia. Holding a PhD in Finance from Columbia Business School, he’s a retired finance professor and a 20-year Wall Street hedge fund manager who has spent countless hours teaching and tutoring finance, economics, investments and business to students at the collegiate and graduate level. In 2019, JD spent much of his time tutoring for the GMAT - over 260 times - and enjoys a 5-star rating on Wyzant.
Deanne is absolutely phenomenal! The first time I took Organic Chemistry I received a C-, this summer I retook the class and received an A! The average grade in this class was a B-. Without her help I know for sure that I would not have been able to do as well as I did in the class. If you’re looking for a tutor, DO NOT look any further, she will bring the success you need. Thank you, Deanne!
Deanne is a PhD organic chemist who has spent 25 years mastering the art of teaching complex material to students from high school all the way to pharmacy school. She’s licensed in Ohio to teach biology and chemistry for grades 7-12. Deanne has an impressive academic pedigree: a PhD in Organic Chemistry from University at Buffalo, and MEd from Cleveland State University in Curriculum and Instruction. She’s a 5-star tutor who’s helped students achieve their organic chemistry goals for more than 3,000 hours on Wyzant alone, and ranks high among the top-performing tutors of 2019.
Meet the Wyzant Team
Kelly Nixon, Customer Support
“My mission as a Customer Support representative is always to maintain a positive attitude while providing students and tutors with the best assistance possible. I have dedicated most of my professional life to working in the customer service industry, 16 years to be exact. In my opinion, there isn’t a better feeling than being able to help people. It’s been an incredible opportunity becoming part of a company that’s purpose is to help students/individuals connect to some of the most gifted tutors. And being a Wyzant Customer Support representative means I genuinely care about why you’re calling.
I love interacting with students and tutors, hearing your stories, accomplishments, and answering your questions of course! My main goal is to end my calls with the other person having such a good experience that they’ll no longer dread contacting a Customer Support department. When I’m not taking calls, emails or chat requests, I’m usually exploring the beautiful city of Chicago. A little over a year ago I fell madly in love with film photography and it’s essentially become my main passion in life.”
As a special addition to this term’s Insights, here are some of Kelly’s favorite photos:
