Education Week - March 15, 2023 - 8

Why Connecting Tutoring to Curriculum
Could Make It More Effective
Tutoring is most effective when it's
designed to help students understand
new concepts in districts' scope and
sequence for teaching content
By Sarah Schwartz
This fall, as Kristin Farley's preservice
teachers started tutoring at a local
school district, the first few weeks
were consumed by logistics, especially
scheduling: which tutors would
be showing up to which classrooms to
take which students when.
" It was a lot of putting out those
small fires, " said Farley, an assistant
professor of early childhood education
at Wittenberg University in
Springfield, Ohio.
Soon, the district and the university
settled into a schedule that worked.
But it wasn't until this semester that
they implemented the change that
made the biggest difference.
Tutors started creating plans for the
week ahead: an outline of what they
would cover with students, targeted
to each child's specific needs and
shared in advance with their classroom
teacher. " It's already so much
smoother, " Farley said.
It's also best practice. Experts say
that purposefully aligning tutoring to
curriculum content-like Wittenberg
professors are now trying to do-helps
kids get the support they need to be
successful in class.
The goal is to give kids another " at
bat " with the content they didn't understand,
said Shalinee Sharma, the
CEO and co-founder of Zearn, a nonprofit
math learning platform that has
contracted with Tennessee to support
that state's tutoring program.
The approach is a key component
of programs that studies have found
move the needle on student progress.
Even so, accomplishing this kind of
alignment is complex and time consuming.
And it can fall low on the
priority list for districts that are struggling
with more basic challenges, like
hiring staff or retooling the master
schedule to support tutoring.
Not all tutoring is alike
Tutoring has become one of the
most common strategies schools are
using to support students' academic
recovery from pandemic-related disruptions.
States have invested more
than $700 million of state ESSER
funds to expand programming, according
to an analysis by the Council
of Chief State School Officers. Districts
are investing many of their own
ESSER funds into the practice as well.
But not all tutoring programs are
alike. The high-impact variety-in
which students see a tutor one on one
or in small groups at least three times
a week-generally have some mechanism
to match up tutoring to classroom
instruction, said Susanna Loeb,
a professor of education at Stanford
University and the founder and executive
director of the National Student
Support Accelerator.
Only 1 in 10 students actually gets
this kind of tutoring, though, according
to recent federal data.
And much of schools' energy right
now is focused on program logistics-even
though most district leaders
understand that aligning tutoring
to classroom instruction should be
their ultimate goal, Loeb said. In fact,
one study looking at a dozen districts
found that those districts aimed to
provide up to 60 hours of tutoring per
year, but only supplied 12 to 14.
" Just getting the programs started
takes a lot of effort, " she added.
'Front-loading' concepts
through tutoring
Still, some districts have made instructional
coherence a priority from
the start.
In Lenoir City Schools in Tennessee,
tutors follow a content schedule
that dovetails with the curriculum in
English/language arts and math.
Instructional coaches, one in math
and one in reading, coordinate with
teachers and tutors throughout the semester.
" Since we are a small district,
we know the scope and sequence of
what's happening in the classroom, "
said Cherie Long, the K-12 math and
science instructional coach. Lenoir
only has three campuses-an elementary,
middle, and high school.
The district is one of 87 in TN All
Corps, a state tutoring model and
funding program that offers school
systems matching grants of up to $700
per seat offered for tutoring. Part of the
Tennessee approach is a method that's
come to be known as acceleration.
The goal is for all students to be
learning grade-level content. If children
have gaps in their knowledge
from previous grades, those are addressed
in the context of grade-level
work-rather than going back to reteach
entire past units. It's an alternative
to remedial classes, which can
trap students who are already behind
on a lower track, while their peers
continue to move forward to higher
level material.
In Lenoir, this means " front-loading, "
Long said. For example, 3rd
graders are about to start a geometry
unit. That means that tutors will soon
begin reviewing with students what
they have already learned about twodimensional
shapes, and previewing
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | March 15, 2023 | www.edweek.org
new concepts. That will ideally set
kids up for success in the whole-class
geometry lessons, Long said.
Long walks tutors through new content
and helps them plan. " Because
we're included in those decisions
and included in those data meetings,
we're able to see what the kids
still need, " said Stacey Cantu, a math
tutor in the district.
Long doesn't have to develop the
tutoring materials herself-those
come through Zearn, the math
platform with which the state has
contracted.
The district doesn't use an outside
provider for reading, though, so the
instructional coach in that subject
has created resources herself- " a really
large lift, " said Shawn Walker, the
district's student success coordinator.
Still, he's hopeful that this work put in
on the front end will yield dividends in
the long run, when future years' tutors
can use the plans the reading coach
has created.
Building communication
and support for tutors
In Lenoir, tutoring content is coordinated
at the district level. Tutors use
common resources and have similar
goals with their lessons-e.g., prepare
students for the 3rd grade geometry
unit-even as they tailor specific support
to individual student needs. Not
all districts have been able to create
these common supports.
But there are other methods programs
use to align tutoring to instruction.
The preservice students at Wittenberg,
in Ohio, use their college
instructors as a resource, said Farley.
The college students have some
background from their coursework in
how to teach concepts that their tutees
are struggling with. But often, Farley
said, " for better or worse, our tutors
are learning this content as they go. "
The tutors get information about
student needs from the kids' classroom
teachers, and then design activities
with help from their instructors.
Creating a support system like this
can be trickier in programs where
tutors don't have an education background.
Benjamin
Morris, a cybersecurity
consultant in California, is a math
tutor at a charter school in the Los
Angeles Unified School District.
The organization he volunteers for,
EnCorps, recruits STEM professionals
as volunteers.
Morris has information about what
their tutee is learning in math class,
and the district provides them with
materials to use. But Morris says he
still wants more guidance on how to
put those resources into practice.
Sometimes the student he's working
with is struggling to grasp an idea,
and he's not exactly sure how to break
it down step by step. The biggest challenge,
they said, is " needing to simplify
constantly and make sure that
it's at a level that's accessible for the
students. "
The platform that houses tutoring
materials for this Los Angeles school,
a nonprofit called ASSISTments, has
heard this kind of feedback from tutors.
In response, the platform is planning
on adding a new feature next year,
said Britt Neuhaus, the group's vice
president of program and partnerships.
The addition will be able to recommend
specific practice problems
based on students' abilities and areas
of need, she said.
Such refinement is likely to continue
in districts across the country as
school systems move past the initial
growing pains of launching tutoring
programs, said Loeb.
" I do think that as districts have
success in tutoring, and see student
learning-and I do believe that's
starting to happen-then they'll start
to think more about how they embed
it, and link it more deeply to the rest
of the work they're doing in schools, "
she said.
"
I do think that
as districts have
success in tutoring,
and see student
learning ... then
they'll start to think
more about how
they embed it, and
link it more deeply
to the rest of the
work they're doing
in schools.
SUSANNA LOEB
Founder/executive director,
National Student Support Accelerator
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Education Week - March 15, 2023

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