When it comes to high-dosage tutoring programs, here are five things your district or school should be providing:

More Time – Make sure students spend a substantial time each week engaging in tutoring, with time allotted for before the tutoring session, during the session, and after the session. Don’t purchase or implement tutoring models where time is measured in seat hours focused solely on learning from someone with a significant amount of content knowledge or expertise.
Strong Relationships – Look for tutoring programs and models that prioritize sustained and strong relationships between students and tutors. Don’t settle for a tutoring model where these relationships develop by happenstance. Tutors need to be trained in the importance of building relational capacity and should be provided with strategies and resources to use for this purpose.
Progress Monitoring – Monitoring the development of student knowledge and skills is essential. Don’t adopt a tutoring program or model emphasizing test preparation and excessive repetition. Tutoring should provide students with the opportunity to develop critical thinking while they are learning content knowledge. This can happen at the same time.
Curriculum Alignment – Ensure the tutoring aligns with your school curriculum. Don’t let this be more time spent doing the same thing in the same way and expecting different results. Ask students to identify gaps in knowledge so that they come prepared for tutoring sessions and learn how to advocate for their learning needs.
Quality Engagement – Develop an oversight process that ensures students have quality interactions with tutors and are actively engaged throughout the process. Don’t waste resources on tutoring sessions where students aren’t actively engaged. Investing resources in training tutors to ask questions that encourage students to own the cognitive lift during the session increases student engagement and accelerates learning.

It’s clear we have our work cut out to accelerate learning and prepare students for whatever the future holds. Tutoring programs can be a solution. However, we must know how to implement and advocate for sustainable programs that deliver the best results for students and educators alike.

Instant Insights /

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