homework help tutors

homework help tutors

The Impact of Homework Help Tutors on Student Learning Outcomes

1. Introduction to Homework Help Tutors

Overall, the utilization of homework help tutors makes a substantial statement about the growing preponderance and reported need for after-school academic support. For some students, the personalized learning is vital. Synthesizing the literature, although the data and evidence is surface and additional research is needed, preliminary findings showcase that a homework help tutoring experience is a pathway to advancing student academic performance. An intimate knowledge of students is built in such an environment making tutors and staff members aware of how individual students learn, in addition to the topics on which students need clarification. All areas of student need eventually assist in forming learning communities that rely on trust and connection.

In 2020, National Louis University opened Homework Help Tutors, an after-school program designed to assist students as well as provide National Louis graduate students an authentic clinical experience. One of the most popular applications of tutoring in education is through the facilitation of positive learning outcomes by tutoring students in homework help programs. Homework help support has evolved through various models – including community-driven programs, volunteer programs, or school-funded programs – to address the needs of children for academic assistance, enrichment, and social connections. The following presents numerous reasons why homework help tutors hold a unique space within a continuum of structured homework supports that exist throughout the United States.

2. Benefits of Homework Help Tutors

Hence, the availability of homework help tutors can foster these academic behaviors and, in turn, help raise student performance. Additionally, homework help tutors may also help improve students’ self-efficacy (i.e. increasing the belief in students’ own capabilities) and motivation in learning. By receiving timely help and clarifications from tutors as part of their homework, such students may acquire a deeper conceptual understanding of what they are learning, which is likely also to be more beneficial for students’ long-run comprehension and skill-building in these subjects. In a recent presidential address, Professor Heath saw particular potential in using peer and near-peer tutors to assist young low-achievers with their homework, both in raising their academic performance and also in fostering their interest in learning. In addition to homework, in-school academic support programs may have a greater potential for positive effects on a student’s motivation and academic attitudes.

Homework help tutors bring a number of benefits to student learning outcomes. The first and most prominent of these is that tutors can respond to students’ questions and, in doing so, tailor their assistance according to the individual student’s requirements or difficulties. As a result, tutors can better clarify concepts and provide students with timely explanations and guidance. Tutors can also help students learn using different pedagogical methods complementary to classroom instruction. Moreover, assistance from homework help tutors will enable students to increase their academic effort and provide them with advice.

3. Challenges and Solutions in Implementing Homework Help Tutors

In order to remain flexible in the allocation of limited resources, the HCPSS SAT and CHA conducted the implementation as a pilot. The educational needs of the students were also given high priority. Another challenge is the ongoing coordination and communication that both support and tutor staff and the participating households will need in order to ensure the effectiveness of the program. Incorporating the use of an online tutoring system will lessen the need for tutors and staff to stay after hours in the school to coordinate schedules. This system will also allow participating households to “meet” the tutors who will work with their children and to communicate with them about any issues that may come up in these online meetings. In addition, the InCharge system will provide a means of evaluating the effectiveness of the tutors. Evaluation of the use of electronic means of tutor training and technical assistance is also part of the pilot. Results from this pilot will inform our future efforts where we plan to increase our volunteer tutor pool, schools, residential programs, and after-school staff.

The Homework Help Tutors pilot implementation also faced numerous challenges in creating a system that could link students with tutors. Many of these barriers are common to the set-up of any homework help program or tutoring model within school age programming. A major challenge in the initial implementation of the program was ensuring that adequate resources (time, funding, and human resources) were available to properly set up the homework help system. Another challenge common to the implementation of any school-based tutoring model is the need to nurture strong bonds between the school and the tutors that are helping the students. School personnel must believe that the tutoring program is an asset to the students’ education in order to help secure the buy-in of students and their families. One of the most significant challenges to implementing a successful tutoring program is ensuring that only quality tutors are hired to work with the students.

4. Best Practices for Effective Homework Help Tutoring Programs

Programs should have a method of monitoring the number of students and tutors participating, and children’s attendance, to realistically evaluate whether the program is truly meeting kids’ needs. Similarly, programs should find ways of assessing student/tutor interaction, and the general effectiveness of the tutoring sessions, so that they can see patterns and adjust to meet student needs. Programs should consider whether tutors should ask for feedback from their students (on how helpful the tutoring was) and ways of giving tutors feedback on what they can do to make the sessions more effective. After designing a top-level list of questions that a crowd would have about homework help tutoring, and shared the big picture of how you were informed about such tutoring, the site also linked out to partnerships, which may give additional advice about best practices. At the same time, many of the sites listed, in turn, worked with many other partners, as would be expected in an effective and informative homework collaborative community. Such longer lists and informal matchmaking processes might not be expected to resonate as much with potential future partners, but would illustrate deeper community support and layers of partner experience with the many patterns and challenges of homework help tutoring, homework help generally, and managing volunteer programs in general. Such additional background information about the many tutoring partnerships would also need to be treated confidentially. Finally, all of these partners tend to give extra recruitment preference to candidates for jobs who themselves have had the positive experience of homework help from an older sibling, relative, or friend.

Here are several best practices that can increase the likelihood of a successful homework help tutoring program. First, because some organized programs will have many tutors and many students, it is frequently helpful to think of the program in smaller sections. In such a tutoring program, it may be useful to organize materials relative to the kinds of questions the tutors are expected to see. The program should also consider how to get the best match between the students who need assistance and the tutors who come in to help. This might be done via a phone call ahead of time, or otherwise finding ways to help tutors quickly find students who need their assistance.