The Tutor.com Blog

The buzz in 1-to-1 right now is about BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – and it’s not a fad and it’s not going away. There’s a convergence of factors causing it including:

• Hardware is diverse and at price points that are more affordable
• Schools are hyper budget conscious
• The “cloud” (previously called The Internet, the Web and the Information Superhighway) is ideal for core apps which are free or inexpensive with such as Google (although be sure to use GAFE), and Zoho
• Parents are realizing that a digital device is necessary for learning
• Schools want to be sure students possess 21st Century skills

But BYOD upsets apple carts right and left. We’ve been building school infrastructures for a long time that have supported a data-centric model in that IT directors allow or disallow devices on the school network according to a set model which is partly about good design and support, partly about supporting what already exists and partly about not taking on new projects or approaches that require more work, resources, and skill sets. And I’ve been a tech director in schools so know firsthand that opening a can of worms when it impacts the network, the laptop/desktop standardization, and the hardware replacement plan is not something many people will relish.

But then there are the students. They grow and develop and move to the next grade level and out the door to college and to life. They need to be empowered and learn in an environment that encourages them to think and write and research and publish and present and analyze and create new ideas and solutions to problems. They also need to own and understand the vehicles used for learning. So this might mean BYOD.

In order for BYOD to work well there must be a strong partnership between administration, Board members, teachers, technology, students, and parents. Everyone is going to be impacted by 1-to-1 no matter how it is implemented, whether BYOD or a standard hardware platform either provided or specified by the school or district. But with BYOD it’s likely you are going to see some pushback from technology people because of the complexity, change, work, planning and resources required. So here are some questions to consider:

• Have you visited a BYOD school or district?
• If not a team with representative stakeholders should do so armed with lots of questions
• Are you already using Google or Zoho or some cloud solution?
• Without cloud apps BYOD is going to be nearly impossible to implement in a meaningful way
• You need the entire school/district community to be able to communicate, publish, present and share centrally
• How will you define BYOD?
• Will there be a minimum device or specification?
• Will smartphones be one of the devices?
• How’s your network – is it ready for
• Wifi everywhere with multiple roaming wireless devices
• Centralized data security (Barracuda, Lightspeed, etc.)
• How will you address logistics?
• Will students be charged with keeping their devices charged, ready and safe/secure?
• Will you have “loaner” devices?
• Will devices be locked up somewhere/somehow during lunch, tests, sports?
• How’s your curriculum?
• Are teachers already used to assignments in Google and in using online social media tools so that student work is already free of hardware requirements – and happening in “the cloud”?
• How’s your digital citizenship education?
• Do students already know how to keep a respectful appropriate digital footprint?
• In my book I talk about L.A.R.K. – technology use by students should be L – Legal, A – Appropriate, R – Responsible, K – Kind
• How’s your communication channel with parents, students?
• If the device is purchased, maintained, repaired and managed by parents and students, it’s going to be important to communicate often and well
• How’s your budget?
• Unless you have planned fully for the changes of BYOD you might be blindsided by some upgrades or unexpected costs so make sure to ask these questions when you are visiting BYOD schools

There are terrific schools that have been BYOD for years, The Harker School in San Jose comes to mind for instance. Many people I respect have been writing about BYOD including William Stites who posted this blog post for Educational Collaborators early this year, Lisa Nielsen who wrote about debunking BYOD for T.H.E. Journal and a recent article in District Administrator starts with a quote from Lucy Gray who I respect very much -this entire article by the way is an important read. The Laptop Institute which is highly recommended will have threads this summer in Memphis on BYOD.

BYOD can be a solution if you do your planning and homework and try to figure out up front exactly what you’re getting into and plan carefully. You’ll want to be ready to rethink your network as not being about enabling a few models of specific controllable devices but instead as a pathway to the cloud where your school/district-wide learning community resides.

Tutor.com is well-known in education circles for our on-demand, one-to-one, tutoring solutions for students. Not long ago, we started seeing an interesting trend with our student services— teachers were connecting with tutors and they loved the experience. Those early teacher comments helped us create a new type of professional development service, MyLivePD™ Online Coaching Service.

First launched as a pilot program in several districts with about 200 teachers as part of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MyLivePD is now available to Algebra and middle school math teachers everywhere. It’s online, on-demand and personalized to teachers’ specific planning and PD needs to make an immediate impact in the classroom.

Why It’s Different

We hear from teachers all the time that their current PD solutions just aren’t working for them. Yet, districts regularly spend thousands of dollars per teacher each year to deliver PD that isn’t helping teachers get the training they need and want. MyLivePD is different.

With MyLivePD teachers choose the topics they want to discuss with an experienced coach. All of our coaches have classroom teaching and coaching experience. Teachers simply login online and then connect to a coach for a session about the topic of their choice. Teachers work with coaches on:

• Differentiated learning
• Classroom management
• Student assessments
• Common Core
• Lesson planning

Teachers are enjoying professional support that is personalized to their needs and their schedules. 90% of teachers report that they are using ideas from their coaching sessions within a week in the classroom. The new generation of teachers are hungry for the same types of technology and blended solutions they use in the classroom with their students for their own PD.

If you and/or your district are interested in a new way to deliver PD, we invite you to learn more by reading “Personal, Private and On-Demand Teacher Support” in the March issue of School Administrator. You can also visit www.tutor.com/mylivePD.

We’d love to hear from you!  What PD programs are working in your district? Let us know in the comments.

If you teach or work in the K-12 environment, you are reading and hearing daily about personalized learning. In a recent T.H.E. Journal article Karen Cator, the United States Department of Education’s director of technology cited personalized learning as one of the five top ed tech trends for 2012. “I’m really excited about the opportunity to personalize learning environments–to make learning more efficient and effective because it’s more personal and it’s more closely related to who you are as a learner,” said Cator in the article.

Personalized learning is certainly not a new concept, but with the introduction of technology tools there’s new ways to implement this style of learning for students at every level of their education.

Tutor.com has been delivering personalized learning for the last decade. More than 7.5 million times a student has connected to a tutor for a one-to-one learning session. We take our cues directly from the students who come with a specific question or problem.

Learning with a Tutor; Not a Computer

While most personalized learning solutions focus on adaptive technologies, we rely on real, live human beings to give students something they rarely get in or out of school – individualized, personal attention focused on their specific question.

An experienced tutor works in real-time with a student in the online classroom to understand their problem, assess their knowledge and then provide a learning experience that helps them reach the “I get it” moment.   Our goal is to ensure that a student who has completed a Tutor.com 1:1:1 session has mastered the concept at hand and is ready to tackle a similar problem on their own.

Engaged, Confident Students

Students who get this personalized attention report that they are more confident in their academic abilities, better able to complete school assignments and see an improvement in their grades. Even better, students report a higher level of engagement in school. With engagement comes motivation and a propensity to stick out challenging courses such as algebra, chemistry, calculus and physics.

A survey we conducted with 1,000 students from across the country found that 86% were more likely to take an AP class if they knew an online tutor would be there to support them throughout the course.

Over the coming months, Tutor.com will be working with school districts to not only deliver personalized learning solutions to their students, but also provide analytics and insights that give teachers and instructors a better understanding of where students are falling behind and what additional support could best help these students stay on track.

As a fierce debate continues around the pros and cons of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), we’re also hearing more about supplemental educational services or SES. This is the tutoring component of NCLB. Tutor.com is often mistaken as an SES provider by K-12 administrators and teachers. Tutor.com is NOT an SES provider. Many years ago, the company took a hard look at SES and seeing a flawed approach to supporting student learning, we focused our efforts elsewhere. Instead we created customized online tutoring programs for libraries, communities, the U.S Military and K-12 schools. Along the way, our tutors delivered 7.5 million one-to-one, online tutoring sessions.

Here’s what Tutor.com provides K-12 students and how it’s different from SES.

• High Quality Online Tutoring –  While SES actually bans states from requiring tutors to be highly qualified, Tutor.com has spent the last decade creating the highest quality tutoring experience for students. All of our tutors pass subject-specific exams, writing exams, mock sessions and a third-party security check. Tutors are assigned a mentor who regularly reviews their teaching. The results? More than 90% of students report they complete more homework assignments, have more confidence in school and improve their grades thanks to Tutor.com.
• Driven by the School’s Curriculum – While it is hard for districts to know what curriculum is being followed in SES programs, Tutor.com Online Tutoring is driven by students’ homework questions. Students bring their assignments and questions from the classroom to the tutoring session–tightly aligning tutoring with the classroom curriculum.
• Easy Implementations – We’ve read the horror stories too. Tutoring programs that “launch” in September, yet students don’t see a tutor until December. Tutor.com’s implementation team can get an after-school online tutoring program up in running in seven business days. Students get online from school or home and get help when they need it, on their own schedule.
• Robust Monthly Reporting – Teachers and school administrators get an in-depth look of the online tutoring program every month. Tutor.com tracks student usage patterns and the subjects they’re struggling with each month. We also provide student feedback about their experience including detailed student comments. Ever need to review a tutoring session? No problem, we can share that too since every interaction is saved and available for review.

We agree. You probably don’t want an SES provider. Try Tutor.com Online Tutoring instead. Thousands of schools, libraries and the U.S. Military are successfully increasing student achievement with this personalized, one-to-one help. Learn more by emailing educate@tutor.com.

The majority of the million online tutoring sessions Tutor.com provides each year are in math and more specifically in algebra. Over the last decade, students take algebra earlier and earlier. Today, we find most middle school students are enrolled in pre-algebra or algebra classes. So we were interested in reviewing a new study from Harvard University that found students moving from grade 5 into middle school show a “sharp drop” in math and language arts achievement. This persists through 10^th grade and may even hurt their ability to graduate high school and attend college.

While the study focuses on grade configuration and school transition, we see trends too with middle school students. For the first time in their academic lives, students hit the wall – the pre-algebra and algebra wall. That wall is hard and it leaves marks on the best of students.

Research shows that while approximately 16 percent of all U.S. 13-year-olds (the age at which many students are in eighth grade) were enrolled in algebra in 1986, this figure rose to 22 percent in 1999 and to 29 percent in 2004 (Perie, Moran, and Lutkus 2005). Over the past decade, we find more students are taking algebra even earlier, some beginning in sixth grade.

When kids hit that wall, many come to us and here’s what they say:

“No one can help me”: Many good students have informal academic support systems consisting of parents, older siblings or cousins and sometimes friends. That support system tends to fall apart with algebra. Parents don’t remember it and many say they were never that good at math to begin with. Students have less people to turn to and they start to see their grades drop.

“I don’t even know where to start”: We talk to students and read comments all the time that say they sit at home staring at the algebra homework and truly have no idea what they are doing or if they are headed in the right or wrong direction. They get frustrated and some simply give up.

“The teacher moves too fast”: As teachers tackle the problem of completing many concepts with a room of diverse learners, some students can’t keep up. Some students say they don’t understand the examples and techniques used in class. If they miss mastering a few concepts, soon they fall further and further behind.

“I don’t want to look dumb”: While third graders may bolster their raised hands and beg to be called upon, 7th graders tend to sit in the back and hope to go unnoticed. No one wants to ask a dumb or embarrassing question in front of their peers and friends.

What helps students get over these challenges? Immediate, differentiated and private support. When students use online tutoring for help they can tackle one question and one concept at a time and never feel embarrassed. By nature of the one-to-one relationship with a tutor, they can try different explanations and techniques until the content clicks for the student. And that’s all many students really need—the opportunity to have an “I get it” moment. And suddenly a door opens in the wall and they walk through.

“At first I had no idea where to start, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just confused with my algebra, but after I had help from Tutor.com, I knew exactly what I was doing. Thanks tutor.com, you saved my life.” – 8th Grade Algebra student

Want to learn more about how Tutor.com helps students struggling with algebra?  Read Melissa and Kennedy’s math stories.

Kelly Adam Joins the Tutor.com Team

We’re excited to introduce you to Kelly Adam, the newest member of our Instructional Team. Kelly is a veteran high school math teacher with more than 20 years of teaching experience. She has also coached teachers, taught online and created standards of excellence for online teaching.

Kelly joins us after spending over three years working on k-12 online educational services and curriculum. Before that, Kelly spent more than 20 years teaching high school and college math courses in both traditional public schools as well as online or virtual schools.

Tutor.com has made a commitment to finding the best tutors and coaches to offer the highest quality learning experience. As a Mentor Manager, Kelly’s coaching and teaching expertise will help Tutor.com continue to provide the highest quality tutoring for students and coaching for teachers. Kelly will be very involved in the services we provide for the School of One. And, she’ll work closely with our MyLivePD team as we expand our personal, private professional development service.

“I am excited to be a part of a new and evolving way to engage students and help them learn better,” said Adam. “I am honored to be a part of a team that is concerned about quality support for both students and teachers.”

Please help us welcome Kelly!

If you’d like to learn more about the amazing tutors that help thousands of students each night, check out our latest tutor of the month Daniel B.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute grabbed headlines a few weeks back when the organization released a new study that showed that the highest-achieving  or “high flyer” middle school students lose ground in high school.

About 30 percent of students who scored in the 90th percentile or higher on a math exam in sixth grade fell below that threshold by 10th grade.   Almost half of the high flyers in middle school reading fell below the 90th percentile by 10th grade.

While many factors may contribute to the descent of high flyers, the study’s authors cite NCLB and its focus on the poorest performing students as one potential problem.   Yet, there was also some good news. There were 4.3 percent more students who were high-achievers in high school math compared to the number who reached that mark in middle school.

The question for school administrators and teachers is how to bring up the poorest performing students while nurturing and challenging the high flyers.  To date, the answer has been to spend a majority of time and resources focused on the low achievers and hope the high flyers maintain their altitude.   Teachers may find themselves spending proportionately more time working with the struggling students, leaving little time to challenge the best students.

But, what if teachers could add one-to-one teaching and learning opportunities for every student, every day?

This is one of the services Tutor.com offers teachers and students to make classrooms better.  Adding a network of 2,500 professional online tutors into the school day allows teachers to create flexible, dynamic classrooms that serve all students’ needs.  Low performers may work one-to-one with a tutor until they master basic skills.  High achievers can work on more challenging concepts that push them to deeper subject mastery.  Every student gets individualized attention and there is a record of their questions and progress because each session is saved.

Even more telling is that the introduction of ongoing support from an expert tutor online in middle school may help create additional high flyers by high school.

Take a look at Melissa S.  who failed a math class only to re-take it with help from Tutor.com and receive the highest grade in the class.  Melissa is now in college and has completed college-level calculus, thanks to having ongoing support from professional tutors, ready to help with any challenge.  And Melissa’s grade in that college level calculus class?  A solid B-.   We’d put her in the high flyer category.

Each month our team of mentors nominates a “Tutor.com Tutor of the Month”. We are pleased to introduce the August Tutor of the Month, Daniel B!

From interests in physics and earth science to astronomy and astrophotography, Daniel is a science buff. And after joining the Tutor.com team in March of last year he has been able to share his knowledge with students logging on needing help in the sciences. With many education discussions focusing on the importance of STEM in today’s schools, we are proud to be working with Daniel who not only understands the importance of those fields, but excels at them on his own.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a full time physics student. I began to tutor in March of this year, after one of my friends who studies with me told me about Tutor.com. My subjects are physics and earth science.

What is your favorite part of tutoring?

When I realize that the student just understood the problem and knows how to get the answer.

Do you think a 1-to-1 connection is important to learning?

Yes, it is very important because it allows the tutor to take the pulse of learning and gives the student the confidence to ask and solve his concerns.

Why do you tutor with Tutor.com? What makes you stay?

The freedom. I love knowing that I can choose the time that I can dedicate to tutoring. It adapts to my activities and lets me relax when I work and enjoy the sessions I give.

What’s one thing you think every student should do in order to become a better student?

As for the Physics problems two things are important: physics and mathematics, as you have to deal with both. Physics is solved by writing the equations in the right way according to the problem; for this subject it is always useful to draw the problem. Then the math part comes in to solve equations and find the answers. To write the equations adequately requires a strong comprehension of the physics concepts implied; one acquires this comprehension by studying. To solve equations to find the answer requires experience with math, and one can only gain experience by practicing. So study and practice.

What’s your best homework or study tip?

To understand a concept an example is always useful. I read all of the examples that I can and sometimes I look for more than the ones in the text book.

What’s your favorite book? Movie?

I have many favorite movies but my favorite book will always be “The Little Prince”.

What do you like to do for fun?

I enjoy astronomy a lot! I enjoy observing through the telescope. I’m really a beginner but I am planning to venture into astrophotography soon.

At around 3:30pm ET September 15th, we reached our 7 millionth session mark! While we recapped the mobile session in an earlier post, we also wanted to catch up with Karen D., the tutor who holds the honor of having conducted that mammoth milestone session.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Karen D. and I live in College Station, TX. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Mathematics Education from Brigham Young University. I currently home school my kids and tutor with Tutor.com.

How did you find out about Tutor.com?

I found out about Tutor.com from a friend who told me she had been tutoring for a few months. I started in October 2008, so I have been tutoring now for almost 3 years. I tutor Algebra, Algebra II, Geometry and Calculus.

What is your favorite part of tutoring?

My favorite part of tutoring is when a student is really struggling and I manage to show them something that makes it all click into place and they get super excited. One of the more fun things that has happened from my tutoring with Tutor.com is that my kids have asked me to teach them some of the things I teach people on the computer. I love that they are learning an enthusiasm for math from my work!

Do you think a 1-to-1 connection is important to learning?

I think a 1-to-1 connection in learning makes a big difference in helping students. The ability to provide individualized assessment of strengths and weaknesses and tailor the learning approach accordingly is what makes tutoring so successful.

Why do you tutor with Tutor.com? What makes you stay?

I am a Tutor.com tutor because it is so flexible! I also love that I can do it at odd hours, like late at night or for a few minutes at lunch. I appreciate that it pays pretty well when you factor in lack of other expenses as well.

What’s one thing you think every student should do in order to become a better student?

If every student learned how to work neatly through longer math problems, they’d make fewer mistakes.

What’s your best homework or study tip?

My best homework/study tip is to draw a picture! If you can draw a picture of what is going on, you can often figure out how to answer the problem!

Melissa S. (right)

Every day, thousands of students connect to one of our tutors to overcome a challenge. It may be that night’s homework, ongoing math struggles or simply to review completed work. We’ve been hearing from the students through their post-session comments for years. “Your tutors rock!” “Awesome help!!!!” “Thank you for saving my life, again” are the types of comments that put a smile on our face and make us want to work even harder to deliver high quality online tutoring and homework help.

This school year, we’ll be featuring and celebrating a few Tutor.com Success Stories each month right here on our blog. Our first story comes from Melissa S., a junior at Oakland University in MI and regular Tutor.com user since 2003 who dropped us a note this summer to tell us how instrumental  Tutor.com has been for her studies. Melissa has used Tutor.com since sixth grade through her local library, Clinton Macomb Public Library.

We’d love to hear your Tutor.com success story! Email jkohn@tutor.com and tell us how Tutor.com is making a difference for you. Please include your contact information.

Tutor.com:  How did you first find out about Tutor.com?

Melissa:   I saw a flyer in the Clinton Macomb Public Library when I was in sixth grade.  I was really struggling with math and had no one to help me.  I tried out the program and soon was using it just about every day to help me with homework and to improve my skills.

Tutor.com:  Why did you start using Tutor.com?

Melissa:  I never had a tutor before. Sometimes my Aunt would help me, but math was really a struggle for me. I had failed a math class before I knew about Tutor.com. I took the class again and with help from Tutor.com I received the highest grade that year.

Tutor.com:  Why do you think the program helped you so much?

Melissa:  Since math was so difficult for me, I never knew if I was on the right track. I’d sit down to do homework and be completely confused. I’d have no idea if I was even headed in the right direction. I’d give up on myself and feel really discouraged. Tutors were expensive. Knowing I could connect to a tutor using Tutor.com for free (Note: Clinton Macomb Public Library funded the program) whenever I needed to gave me the motivation to keep going and get the work done. The tutors always gave me encouragement and they gave me motivation to stick it out. It really helped my confidence.

Tutor.com:  What did you like about the experience with the tutors?

Melissa:  I liked that they didn’t just give the answers. I used to want the answers, but I appreciate now that they worked with me to figure out how to do the problem. Honestly, I still hate math, but I can tolerate it with Tutor.com.

Tutor.com:  Can you tell us some of the results you experienced from using the program?

Melissa: I’m certain I would have failed some of my math classes without Tutor.com. Using Tutor.com helped me get through middle school and high school math.  I dramatically improved my grades. I can’t picture my academic career without it. I was always put in lower level math classes but in college I took calculus and earned a B-. I don’t think I would have even tried to take college level calculus without Tutor.com.

Tutor.com:  Are you still using Tutor.com in college?

Melissa:  I was using it for my math and science classes. Now I’m done with those requirements, but I still use it to have papers proofed.

Tutor.com:  What advice do you have for other students who are struggling with math?

Melissa:  I’d tell them that you need to take the time to do the problems. And use Tutor.com. Just bring  all your questions to the tutor!

Thanks to Melissa for sharing her story with us. Want to share your story?  Email Jennifer Kohn at jkohn@tutor.com !

Not too long ago, the full extent of back to school must-haves were all available at your local office supplies shop. You could head to the store and pick up a bundle of pens or pencils and a few stacks of loose leaf paper and your student was good to go for the year.  However, as schools begin to utilize technology in the classroom and create blended and online learning programs, school shopping lists are beginning to change.

Below, we took a quick look at some items that may be new to your back-to-school shopping list this year and how they can help contribute to your child’s school day.

•  USB drives (aka flash drives, junk drives, jump drives, thumb drives…) Computers are becoming a classroom staple. Whether they are for individual use or shared between students, the amount of work done on the computer is quickly growing. This shift has students moving away from saving work on loose leaf and towards saving work on hard drives, which is why USB drives are key. Quite affordable and offered in a variety of storage sizes, USB drives allow students to easily transport a document from one computer to another.
• Earphones Remember a few lines above when we said how computers are becoming a classroom staple? Well, that same reasoning belongs in this section as well. Computer programs that aid in blended/digital/online learning approaches are often interactive and require sound. These programs allow students to move at their own pace and earphones help to keep lessons engaging and keep kids focused on their work as opposed to their neighbors.
• Printer paper & ink cartridges Long gone are the days of handing in hand-written cursive essays – most schools now require papers to be typed up in a specific font and size. In order to keep up with essay assignments, some schools recommend families stock up on printer paper and ink at home for students to utilize throughout the school year. 

What new items are showing up on your BTS shopping list this year?

And for some exciting and innovative back to school items, check out Mario Armstrong on the Today Show here! They have great tips for your tech-savvy kid!

Our RSS feeds are chock-full of articles about how to change the public education system. It’s a vigorous and often passionate debate. Yet students, the people who are most affected by these discussions, are not part of the conversation. That’s why “Five things students say they want from education,” published by eSchool News last week caught our attention. Here’s the five points educators shared that they hear from students: 

• Interactive Technology
• Teacher Mentors
• Innovation
• Choice
• Real-world application and relevancy

In our world, which includes an interactive and innovative online classroom technology, we hear from thousands of students daily. Every time a student connects to a tutor in our online classroom, they have the opportunity to rate their session and leave a comment. Thousands do just that. We hear what they liked about the tutor and the technology. This feedback helps set the direction for product innovation. Over the past year we’ve developed several new features specifically because students tell us what they want; we listen and then deliver it. Here’s a few of those recent features and the student feedback that drove it. 

• Tutor.com To Go™:  Everything is getting smaller. Students want to take their education on the go on their favorite devices, and more schools are embracing the BYOT model. Our mobile app lets them connect to a tutor from an iPod Touch (the device almost every teen owns),  iPhone or iPad and soon on Android devices too. One student even told us they were working with a tutor from the dentist office waiting room–now that’s a committed student. 
• Favorite Tutors: We have about 2,500 tutors now and while they are all “awesome” ( most-used adjective by students in their comments),  students have their favorites and want to connect to them as much as possible. Favorite tutors keep the sessions private and anonymous, but empowers a student to select and save a list of their favorites and even seen when they’ll be online next. 
• Personal Accounts:  Around the clock access to resources and past sessions is important to students who may be studying late into the evening. Students who have a personal account can easily access their past sessions for review, and our system automatically suggests specific resources based on the types of questions students have asked. Now when a student logs in, they’ll see our top rated resources on quadratic equations if that’s what they’ve been working on.

Asking students what they want from their own education makes a lot of sense. Let’s do more of it.