Researcher

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm, high-dose tutoring is the most effective—though often the most expensive.
The National Student Support Accelerator, a Stanford University center that studies effective tutoring, finds that effective high-dose tutoring programs require:

• Tutoring integrated into the school day to increase tutor-teacher coordination and avoid transportation or time problems for students.
• Targeting students based on academic need rather than requiring parents to opt into services.
• Budgeting services for at least three to five days a week for extended periods of time.
• Differentiated tutoring based on particular student needs and skills.
• Data-gathering and progress-monitoring, particularly when schools work with outside tutoring providers.

With research showing that far fewer students took advantage of online tutoring than districts expected, the outcomes-based model is one way to ensure districts use public funds wisely. “In education, we can pay for things a long time before we realize no children are participating in it,” Miller said.

As dean of Bowling Green State University’s College of Education in Ohio, Dawn Shinew has watched aspiring teachers struggle to make ends meet.

Often, they can’t afford to work as unpaid student-teachers in schools while paying tuition and the usual costs of living. It’s doubly discouraging, Shinew said, because few will earn a high salary after they graduate and enter the teaching profession.

“We do have students, who, I think, would be interested, really talented, the kinds of people we want to be in classrooms, [for whom] it isn’t a matter of commitment, it’s a practical reality,” Shinew said.

To assist schools in delivering a multi-tiered system of support for all students, Tutor.com and its affiliate company, education services giant The Princeton Review^®, are launching High-Dosage Tutoring, which will provide small group tutoring in algebra to accelerate student learning. Developed by education experts and based on the Brown University Annenberg Institute's research-based design principles, High-Dosage Tutoring provides a way for students to make rapid, significant learning gains in algebra, and for teachers to track their progress through Tutor.com's award-winning LEO™ platform. "Every student deserves the opportunity to succeed," said White. "With the relational, frequent, curriculum-based High-Dosage Tutoring model, algebra students who had previously struggled will gain the support they need to overcome interrupted learning and pursue ambitious academic and postsecondary goals."

We need your help to provide an open-access Tutor Training Resource Library and develop new tutor training materials!

Would you be interested in making your tutor training publicly accessible through NSSA’s website?
If so, please complete this Tutor Training Resource Library Interest Form. Sharing your training materials is a great way to build awareness of your tutoring program and contribute to the field. You can also indicate interest in setting up a call to discuss this project further through this form.

First, learning gaps compound when they go unaddressed. That means there is limited time to help students not only catch up to grade level, but accelerate beyond. For example, 1 in 6 children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers. With limited in-classroom time available to help students catch up, evidence of impact should play a key role when districts decide what programs, models and interventions to buy. Many evidence-focused resources can help them guide decision-making, including EdResearch for Recovery and the National Student Support Accelerator.