What is high-impact tutoring?
High-impact tutoring is tutoring that has directly demonstrated significant gains in student learning through state-of-the-art research studies or tutoring that has characteristics proven to accelerate student learning. High-impact tutoring responds to students' individual needs and complements their classroom curriculum.
High-impact tutoring programs share certain key model elements:
- Tutors use high-quality instructional materials in high-frequency sessions (a minimum of 3 times per week, for a minimum of a semester and preferably a full school year), with three or fewer students in each session;
- Tutors are engaging and reliable, receive ongoing coaching, and are well-trained, including on issues of equity and safety;
- Tutoring is built into the school day and engages teachers and caregivers;
- The tutoring program uses data to individualize instruction and continuously improve program design.
More information about these key elements can be found here.
What do you mean by out-of-school time?
For the purposes of this toolkit, NSSA defines out-of-school time programs as those programs that occur either before school, after school, or during non-school days, such as summer programming. In the context of tutoring, this may include, but is not limited to, community-based programs that provide multipurpose, specialized, or academic instruction for students; district-run programs that rely on teachers and other caring adults to provide instruction; or provider-led programs that occur outside of the core instructional day.
How do High-Impact Tutoring programs during out-of-school time work?
Successful OST high-impact tutoring programs can take many forms as long as high-impact tutoring research-backed elements as outlined here are included. Different contexts across OST providers, states, and district affiliations lead to different optimal choices for each tutoring program. Our research identified three primary partnership models:
- High-impact tutoring as part of a multipurpose out-of-school time program – in this model, multipurpose OST providers (providers that offer multiple programs within a consistent after school program serving students) provide high-impact tutoring as a component of their existing programming. Multipurpose OST providers create a high-impact tutoring program by leveraging their existing infrastructure and systems (i.e., hiring, conducting background checks, dedicated space, etc.). Multipurpose providers frequently have a pre-existing relationship with their local school districts and national affiliates that can provide academic resources for high-impact tutoring.
- High-impact tutoring provided by a third-party tutoring provider – in this model, a third-party tutoring provider offers tutoring during the time outside of the traditional school day. In many cases, these third-party providers also offer tutoring during the school day in order to provide more consistent access to all students. In this model, the tutoring program may occur within an existing multipurpose out-of-school time program or as a stand-alone tutoring program. This model requires the provider to develop their own infrastructure to recruit students and to hire, train, and support tutors.
- High-impact tutoring provided by a district and/or school – in this model, the school district or individual school develops and operates their own high-impact tutoring program outside of school hours. Following a “Grow Your Own Program” model, the district and/or school pays tutoring program staff (who can be existing school or district staff or additional staff) to provide high-impact tutoring immediately before or after the regular school day, or during the summer. This district or school-led OST tutoring program is typically a smaller portion of their full high-impact tutoring model that also provides tutoring during the school day.
What’s the difference between homework help and high-impact tutoring?
Homework help typically requires students to work independently and request specific support and group size often depends on how many students opt-in on a given day. The homework help supervisor may be different each day as long as they can answer student questions. The goal is completion of homework assigned during school.
High-impact tutoring requires a group size of four students or less working with a consistent and trained tutor multiple times per week, using student data to inform content. The goal is to accelerate learning in a specific content area (usually math or literacy).
This Out-of-School Time Academic Program Continuum provides greater detail on different types of academic programming offered during out-of-school time.
Our program will have trouble offering students tutoring for the minimum dosage (3 times/week). Is some tutoring better than none?
High-impact tutoring is not the right fit for every OST program. This Out-of-School Time Academic Program Continuum identifies how various academic programming can support students academically. Communicating which type of academic support your program intends to offer is important to ensure student, family, and caregiver expectations for impact are clear. To determine whether your OST program should offer a high-impact tutoring program, use this resource in the program readiness section of the toolkit.
In several sections, you mention working with your local school and/or district(s). I don’t have a relationship with my local district(s). How do I make this connection?
While all districts have a unique organizational structure, there are some common terms and job functions to use when seeking opportunities to connect with your local school district personnel.
- Your local school board representative can serve as a helpful connector and advocate to connect with school district personnel. The contact information for your school board representative can be found on the district Board of Education homepage.
- If you do have a relationship with staff at the school your students attend, ask the school leadership team for help connecting with district personnel. While they may not know the exact point of contact you need, they may be able to connect you with a district staff member who can support you further.
- For support with finding and/or using instructional materials, search the district website for the appropriate content area personnel or academic staff.
- For supplementary mathematics materials, search for the math director or equivalent role.
- For supplementary literacy materials, search for the literacy director or equivalent role.
- For supplementary materials in multiple content areas, search for the academics or curriculum and instruction (also known as C&I) contact on the district website.
- For support with accessing information about available formative assessments connected to or embedded in the supplementary instructional materials, search for the assessment contact on the district website.
- For support with finding and accessing student data from available assessments, search for the data or evaluation team contact information.
- Review the resources under “OST-Specific Tools” in the Formative Assessment section of this toolkit for guidance on How To Leverage Community Relationships While Protecting Student Privacy (see pages 7-9 for the School Official Exception, including an example of when a school may use the School Official Exception for an after-school tutoring program)