The Tutor.com Blog

Last Sunday kicked off the Month of the Military Child. Honoring and celebrating the youngest members of military families, this month allows us to bring special attention to their sacrifices and bravery.

Tutor.com for U.S. Military Families was recently featured on CNN Headline News. We were so excited for this segment to air in order to alert U.S. National Guard and Military Reserve members that their children could receive 24/7, free, on-demand access to our online tutoring and homework help services. Check out the segment below!

National Guard and Reserve families don’t live on military bases, they live in local communities. If you know of a National Guard or Reserve family in your neighborhood, feel free to share this video and the news that their children can get free tutoring and homework help.

For additional information on how to recognize your military child for the Month of the Military Child, head to Blue Star Families. For more information and eligibility for Tutor.com for U.S. Military Families, click here.

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.

College and university students are taking courses, chatting with professors and perusing their notes all online and increasingly from their mobile phones and tablets. Increased use of mobile devices was cited as one of the top five tech trends for 2012 by Karen Cator, the United States Department of Education’s director of technology in a recent T.H.E. Journal Article.

Student support centers are following suit offering students more access to the help they need to succeed in school.  Expanded support options are becoming increasingly important as the student population changes.  A higher number of students are commuting or taking online courses rather than going to campus.  They are looking for help that is convenient for their busy schedules and not site specific.

When academic centers add Tutor.com Online Tutoring to their support mix, students no longer have to find their way to a campus location; they can connect to an experienced tutor online from any internet-enabled computer or mobile device 24/7.

Increased access to high quality support can be a valuable game changer helping colleges and universities with one of the most pressing problems they face— retaining students. At Tutor.com we use the term access broadly.  It’s not just about where and when students connect to a tutor.  It’s also about engaging traditional, non-traditional and minority populations. It is about integration into learning management systems. It is about offering equal services to on campus and distance education students. This idea of access creates a comprehensive online tutoring solution for ALL students.

Mobile tutoring also encourages students to participate in a more collaborative approach to learning.  Students may incorporate notes or pictures from their class into the session and share their session with professors or with peers in a study group or via social media networks like Facebook.

What is your support center doing to go mobile?   Learn more about mobile tutoring solutions by visiting www.tutor.com/higher-education.

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.

Over the past year, we have profiled many of our tutors, featured amazing success stories from students around the country and shared exciting new products and updates with you from the Tutor.com blog. Before we officially move into 2012, we took a look back to see which posts you read the most. So here they are, the Best of 2011 posts from student success stories to staff bios. We look forward to sharing more great stories in 2012!

1. Meet Our Calculus and Statistics “Tutor of the Month” February 15, 2011 – Meet a Tutor.com tutor! Regan has been nominated for Tutor of the Month. She tutors statistics and calculus. Regan has been with Tutor.com since 2005.
2. Tutor of the Month – Meet Matt! January 13, 2011 – Tutor.com has a great team of physics tutors. Meet Matt, a physics tutor since 2009 and find out why he loves working with Tutor.com.
3. Success Story: Chris L. Masters Movie-Making and Pre-Calculus November 30, 2011 – Chris L. a senior from Fort Sam Houston made not one, not two, but five different videos to let his peers know about Tutor.com for U.S. Military Families.
4. New Faces at Tutor.com June 8, 2011 – Tutor.com is growing again! With new clients and more students to help, we’re continuing to hire in just about every part of our business.
5. Biology and Chemistry Tutor of the Month: Stein E March 14, 2011 – Meet Stein! Stein is an online tutor. He helps students with Chemistry and Bio. Learn more about Stein and his experiences with Tutor.com.
6. Tutor.com Online Classroom Updates September 1, 2011 – Just in time for the 2011 back to school season the Tutor.com Online Classroom has been redesigned to deliver the best online learning experience available.

Did we miss your favorite? Let us know in the comments section below!

Mendenhall Glacier captured by Susan Del Rosario while attending the Alaska Library Conference. Our favorite trip of 2011.

We love all the “best of” lists that are so popular this time of year. It reminds us to take a break and reflect on all that we’ve accomplished. 2011 in a word was awesome. We are lucky to work with a great group of dedicated librarians, teachers, administrators, military members, families, students, tutors and teacher coaches. Here’s a few of the 2011 milestones and fun events that we’ll want to remember well into 2012.

• Our tutors completed 7 million one-to-one tutoring and career sessions (7,442,889 at publication)!
• We launched Tutor.com To Go™ Mobile App for iOS devices and followed up with an Android compatible online classroom. Students are regularly connecting to a tutor from their mobile device and loving getting help on the go.
• We LOVED these certified awesome videos about Tutor.com from horror to romantic comedy courtesy of military student, Chris L.
• Melissa S.’s amazing math journey made possible by Clinton Macomb Public Library and Tutor.com made us proud and reminds everyone that you can do math.
• We launched MyLivePD, the very first personalized, live coaching service for teachers, thanks to a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Our favorite 2011 Tweet:  “@tutordotcom is my favorite thing of the day. Just used it for first time (via iPad app) & it turned homework headache into a grin. Yay!”
• Our favorite 2011 Facebook post:  “is it nerdy for me to like be in love with tutor.com? oh. well ANIOKEA. I know where I’m coming for help nowww!” (ANIOKEA is slang for ‘I don’t care’ in Hawaii).
• Our client care and sales teams travel thousands of miles a year.  The favorite trip from 2011 comes from Susan Del Rosario.  She attended the Alaska Library Association Conference in Juneau.  In February.  Average temperature is below freezing.  Average number of daylight hours is 10.  The trip was awesome.  The scenery stole the show including a trip to Mendenhall Glacier that left Susan “speechless”.
• We like to eat.  And our office mom, Mrs. Musguire (marketing director Jill Musguire’s real mom) keeps us well fed.  Our favorite treats this year were clothespin cookies, sugar cookies, Halloween cookies, walnut kolachi and snicker doodles.  Yum.  The pancakes topped with our CEO’s maple syrup fresh from his very own maple trees weren’t half bad either.

We hope you had a memorable 2011. We look forward to working with all of our clients and students in 2012!

This season we asked students for help so that we could help others. For our Annual Holiday Giving Program, we ask students to vote for one of three worthy charities that help students or are run by students. This year more than 650 students participated and voted for their favorite organization. They also shared why they were choosing the specific not-for-profit.  We loved reading their comments and hope you will too!

We are glad to be celebrating the holidays by donating to all three organizations– My Stuff Bags, Communities in Schools and Net Literacy.

Happy holidays from the  Tutor.com team!

My Stuff Bags – When children are rescued from abuse and neglect or if they need to flee with a parent to a shelter, they often leave with little more than the clothes on their backs. My Stuff Bags Foundation provides these children individual duffels filled with toys, books, clothes and other personal items for them to do and hold close during a difficult time.

“When peole like that leave they think about how they can feed themselves or their children and with this charity they can help encourage more people to leave that situation knowing they will be helped out.”

“I choose this charity because it’s sad to think many children don’t have enough to wear or take to school to complete their classes with success. This charity is wonderful and it makes me realize how fortunate I am. I hope these kids will live a better life due to this phenomnal charity.”

“Ive never heard of them b4 put they sound like a good foundation. When I grow up I will donate to this foundation(: thanks for introducing this amazing foundation to me(:”

“I think that if people are given something to hold onto in a harsh time of need such as that their whole life will be impacted positively because they will have more hope and compassion for the world instead of a cynical view.”

“I know these children go through difficult, life changing experiences. Putting a smile on a child’s face this holiday season is beyond amazing.”

Communities in Schools – Currently working with more than 1 million young people in the US, Communities In Schools provides students with a network of support in order to empower them to stay in school, to graduate and to go on to bright futures.

“I chose this because we need kids to stay in school and graduate so they will have a good career when they get older.  we should anything and everything possible to keep kids in school”

“I feel like this organization has a wider purpose. It will help these kids for their entire life and will set them up for success in the future as well as helping them now.”

“I chose this charity, Communities in School, because I am in college and it’s a struggle and having help from a service such as tutor.com has helped me complete homework and understand how to do problems. CIS helping others that are struggling just like me is great because not knowing at all is really discouraging.”

“A good education is the best thing a person can have in their life, my dad always says. From there, they can go anywhere.”

Net Literacy – Founded by middle school students in 2003, Net Literacy’s board is still made up of 50% students, who have contributed to the organization’s development of a series of digital literacy programs. Over the past years, 20,000 computers have been donated to community centers, public libraries, schools as well as various other organizations.

“I think learning about the world around us will every child to prepare for their future in their life. It is important for every child to know their education that will help get them ahead.”

“The other ones were great as well! I thought this was one of the good causes because it’s made up of 50% of students? Wow! This is a good example of students caring about their community and making a difference! Also, 11,000 resources given are amazing! Thanks tutor.com for caring about the community! ”

“Education of of computers and the internet is essential in our society today. Everything, even books are going electronic. A general knowledge of the internet is important with the increasing technology today.”

“I feel that it’s very important for places such as schools and public libraries to have computers. Students that don’t own computers can use it to research information for school which is very important for their education and grades.”

This post has been updated to reflect that Net Literacy has reached the 20,000 computers donated target.

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.

We caught up with the Tutor.com team to find out what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday. Check out their responses below and share what you are thankful for in the comments section. On behalf of the whole team, we wish you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!

A big thanks to Evelyn Sullivan, our Onboarding Manager, for putting together this fantastic collage!

Since we launched Tutor.com To Go™, our mobile app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users, students have been telling us   “I need this for my Android device.”  We listened and today we launched our HTML5 classroom to give students web access from any device they own.  That’s right.  Now students can connect to a tutor from any mobile phone or tablet. 

 How it Works in 3 Easy Steps

1. Sign in the same way you do at your computer.
2. Choose your subject.
3. Work with a tutor in our HTML5 classroom.

Students with Tutor.com accounts have completed nearly 10,000 one-to-one tutoring and career sessions using their iOS mobile device since Tutor.com To Go launched in April 2011. Students give the mobile experience high praise and 93% of students completing post-session surveys say they would recommend it to a friend.  “I love this! I can be in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and connected to a chemistry tutor!! ” reported a tenth grade student who connected for a chemistry session from her iPhone. 

 However you use Tutor.com, through your library, school, college, company or the U.S. Military, you can start using the HTML5 Classroom today.  To learn more go to www.tutor.com/mobile.  Let us know how it works for you!

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!

Yesterday (9/15)  around 3:30 p.m. everyone in our NYC offices and some of our remote staff (thanks to Skype!)  gathered around a large monitor to watch as the number 7,000,000 rolled onto the www.tutor.com homepage.   There were doughnuts.  There were cheers.  And then some of the more competitive folks in the office started offering up their best guess for the 8,000,000 session which should be less than a year away.

Today we found out that the student who rolled in at 7 million used Tutor.com To Go™, our mobile app to connect to a tutor.  It was a fantastic session.   The student wanted help on Algebra II homework.  Using her iPhone she snapped a picture of the assignment and sent it to the tutor.  They successfully worked on that question and then the student snapped a picture from the textbook to share another problem.  Once again she and the tutor were able to address her issue while she was on her phone.

Blended learning and BYOT is a hot topic in K-12 education.  These trends focus on using a mix of traditional classroom instruction mixed with technology tools including software and mobile devices.  We love how students do this so seamlessly.  The student received classroom instruction, went home and did homework with a paper and pencil using a problem from a textbook. Then she used mobile technology to connect to a tutor for an online learning session that combined all of these elements to deliver exceptional results.

Welcome to 21^st century learning.   We’re glad to be part of it. And we’re glad to have amazing partners  — public libraries, schools, colleges, the U.S. Military and of course our tutors.  We hope you are enjoying the journey as much as we do.

We’re excited to see how session 8 million will be delivered.   Phone? Tablet? Hologram?  What’s your best guess?