Teacher

As a first time tutor, how does one measure success? When a student truly learns what he has not previously understand. After 7 or 8 sessions, at one point, I felt that I wasn't connecting with my student. She didn't understand how to do Outlining. I learned how to do it, but I felt that I couldn't explain the process to her.
I thought, she's supposed to know this by now, she'll be in 2nd year college by September.


I decided to ask my friend, who has been teaching for 15 years. She said, for you to become an effective teacher, you have to ensure she truly learns by doing what you have explained to her. I said, but I've already explained, gave her handouts, and still she could only understand partially, but not the whole of it.
Then she told me to explain it in my own way without relying on handouts.


For 2 nights, I wasn't able to sleep, because I felt that this was a big challenge for me if I were to proceed with the teaching profession. I searched online for ideas and the simplest explanation on how to do outlines.
I was insistent on spending the whole Friday session for this.


Finally, the day came and we discussed the novel in-depth. She didn't say a lot, and I kept explaining to her, gave her ideas on what her outline should look like. Pretty much, we took 2 hours for the whole thing, but I was delighted and felt a sigh of relief when I checked her work-- she did exactly what I imagined how her outline looks like.


Tomorrow is another big test for me, we will be having our MLA and APA discussion and exercise.
I'm hoping it will turn out well too.