Dive Brief:
- Tutoring providers serving mostly students of color and low-income students said effective high-dosage tutoring programs need the space, technology and staffing to support the supplemental instruction, according to a report released Monday by Accelerate, a nonprofit that aims to add and sustain high-impact tutoring in public schools, and Mathematica, a market research service.
- These anecdotal "lessons learned" come from eight of Accelerate's first cohort of 31 tutoring grantees. They touch on practical advice, such as scheduling, hiring and monitoring for effective tutoring programs.
- As states and school districts look for ways to scale-up and sustain high-impact tutoring programs to help students close pandemic-induced learning gaps, insights from tutoring providers can bring awareness to implementation hurdles and strategies for overcoming challenges, the report said.
Dive Insight:
The eight tutoring providers sharing feedback include those offering in-person and virtual math and reading instructional supports. Accelerate said that by sharing what the providers have learned from the 2022-23 school year, it hopes schools will be able to more easily identify models that would work for their communities.
Accelerate's 31 grantees expected students to receive an average of 3.4 sessions of tutoring per week for 43 minutes per session — or about 73 hours of tutoring over a 30-week period.
What matters most is high-dose tutoring leads to improved student outcomes, said Kevin Huffman, CEO of Accelerate, in a statement.
“But there’s an order of operations that has to happen before we can achieve results for kids, and step one is removing barriers to implementation," Huffman said.
Here are some of the lessons the tutoring providers said they've learned:
- Partner with principals. A school leader's support for tutoring also helps teachers and other school staff prioritize tutoring. Initial meetings between a school's principal and tutoring provider can cover expectations, logistics and how the activity fits into the school's goals.
- Identify a tutoring point person. Each school should designate a point person who manages tutoring logistics, such as scheduling, and serves as a liaison between the school and tutoring provider. This person can work with tutoring providers to train tutors and oversee their work.
- Communicate with teachers. Prior to working with students, the tutoring provider should meet with teachers to explain the purpose of the program and stress that they are working in partnership with the educators for the benefit of students.
- Aim for supportive conditions. Tutoring sessions often need dedicated space with minimal background noise. For virtual tutoring sessions, a school-based staff person is needed to help students transition and log into the online lessons, as well as troubleshoot any technology challenges.
- Ensure tutoring complements classroom instruction. Tutors and teachers need to understand how the tutoring lessons align with the school's curricula. Often tutoring providers aligned their lessons with the critical skills students need. If there is less alignment, providers should explain to educators their research base, methodology and describe the types of academic skills it is working to strengthen.
- Avoid early and late school day tutoring sessions. Providers noted that students were more likely to miss tutoring sessions if they were scheduled at the beginning or end of the school day. To best fit the tutoring sessions into the school day and ensure student participation, several providers first looked at the school's most convenient times and worked their schedules around the school's availability.
- Plan ahead for school activities and interruptions. Field trips, assemblies, state testing, weather closures and other activities can interrupt the flow of tutoring, and tutoring providers should anticipate planned activities that may limit student participation. They can also request school leadership to schedule planned activities around tutoring sessions.
- Leverage community-based organizations to recruit tutors. Turn to local organizations to build interest among the community to serve as tutors. Churches, housing authorities, libraries and other community groups may have members eager to support students.
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