Key Takeaways:

• AI Coaching Important Support for Tutors: Tutoring programs often have tutors who attended college but didn’t get teaching training. These tutors need someone to support them and help them improve their communication and teaching skills.
• Coaching for Tutors: Traditionally, coaches provide feedback to tutors through time-consuming in-person meetings. Research shows how an AI system (HTCT) can analyze tutoring sessions and provide coaches with data-driven feedback.
• Benefits of AI Coaching:  AI coaching can provide coaches with target feedback for tutors to improve tutoring and increase student achievement.
• AI-based coaching can help scale high-impact tutoring programs

Jump to section:

1. Helping Tutoring Shine: How Coaches Unlock Tutor Potential
2. AI Coaches Could Help Teachers Talk Better with Students
3. AI Coaches Can Help More Teachers, Early Results Promise

Many tutoring programs hire tutors who have gone to college but don’t have any teaching training. These tutors can be helpful, but they could still use feedback to improve their work. Normally, coaches watch teachers and give them feedback during meetings. But these meetings take up a lot of time and don’t always cover all the new things observed. With an automated approach, coaches and tutors can get feedback more often, based on data, all at a lower cost. A new research paper talks about a new technology called human-tutor coaching technology (HTCT). HTCT looks at recordings of tutoring sessions and shows the information in a way that helps coaches give detailed advice to tutors. The main goal is to improve tutoring and help students do even better in school.

Researchers worked with Saga Education to test HTCT with coaches tutoring high school math in low-income areas. They looked at how coaches used HTCT, what they felt about it, and if students’ communication got better when coaches used HTCT data for feedback.

High-impact tutoring is different from regular teaching. It is frequent and takes place during school hours with appropriate tutoring materials. Paraprofessional tutors can benefit from coaching to enhance their skills. Coaching also helps teachers get better at what they do. However, more research is needed to see how coaching can help tutors. This study wants to see how coaching can assist paraprofessional tutors.

Helping Tutoring Shine: How Coaches Unlock Tutor Potential

Teachers and tutors help students learn, but their jobs are different. Teachers have a whole class of students, while tutors work with only one or a few students at a time. Tutors can provide tutoring during school, in-person, or online. They can even tutor during regular school hours! According to the US Department of Education, the most effective tutoring occurs frequently, at least three times a week for 30-50 minutes, and uses appropriate learning materials.

Tutors don’t have formal teaching training, therefore coaches can assist them. Coaches are like specialists who give tutors advice on how to improve. Coaching helps teachers enhance their skills, and researchers are exploring how it can benefit tutors too!

AI Coaches Could Help Teachers Talk Better with Students

Picture having a coach who listens to your classroom lessons. They advise how to have more engaging discussions with your students. That’s exactly why artificial intelligence (AI) tools like HTCT can help teachers!

These AI coaches wouldn’t replace teachers. Instead, they can help teachers learn and identify new teaching strategies. Here’s how it might work:

1. Focus on Talk Moves: Talk Moves are specific ways teachers can talk to encourage students to participate in class discussions. For example, a teacher might ask a question that gets students thinking (“Why do you think that happened?”) or have students explain their ideas to each other (“Can someone share how they solved this problem?”).
2. AI Analyzes Classroom Talk: The AI coach will listen to the recordings of your lessons and look for these talk moves.
3. Feedback for Improvement: The AI coach would then give you feedback on how often you use these talk moves and suggest ways to improve.
4. This feedback could be helpful for teachers, especially those new to the job or interested in trying new teaching methods.

AI Coaches Can Help More Teachers, Early Results Promise

Some studies have already been done on these AI coaches, and the results are encouraging. Teachers like getting feedback from the AI, and some studies even showed that teachers used talk moves more often after using the AI coach. While research has been done on helping experienced teachers, AI coaches can be great for new teachers or those with little training. Teaching assistants and tutors who are new to teaching can also benefit from these coaches. AI can help teachers improve their classroom discussions and help more students learn. Future research will need to see if AI coaches can work well in different teaching situations and with different types of teachers.

Empower Your Tutors and Boost Student Achievement with Saga Coach.

The post New Research Shows How AI Can Improve Tutor Communications appeared first on Saga Education.

After a three-year journey with us, during which she spearheaded some of the most significant technological advancements in education, Krista Marks is entering semi-retirement and stepping down from her full-time role as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Tom Fischaber, who has collaborated closely with Krista for many years, will serve as our Interim CTO.

We’re delighted to share that she will transition into the part-time role of strategic advisor to Saga, continuing to guide us and advocate for our mission in education technology. Krista’s talent for communicating the significance of cutting-edge technologies, such as AI, and its impact on students and tutors is unparalleled, and we look forward to her continued insights.

Krista Marks and Tom Fischaber

For 25 years, Tom has steered technology teams and projects to deliver award-winning products and services. “I am honored to take on this role at such a pivotal moment in Saga’s journey. As we gear up to empower districts to run their high-impact tutoring programs at scale, I’m excited about the transformative potential that technology and AI holds to further our reach and impact, and I am excited and fully committed to driving its success,” says Tom.

Before taking his current role as VP of Technical Operations at Saga in 2020, Tom was VP of Operations and Co-Founder of Woot Math, where he managed a suite of award-winning, research-backed software solutions. Tom also co-led sales, marketing, and district implementations for Woot Math, reaching over 100,000 students nationwide.

Tom was an Executive Producer at the Walt Disney Company after Disney acquired Kerpoof, a company he co-founded and was COO. At Disney, Tom led internet-scale product management, content management, and UGC moderation teams for Disney Online. Tom worked closely with other Disney business units (including Pixar, Disney Parks and Resorts, and Disney Cruise Line) to scale and port Kerpoof’s innovative software to Disney.com, which resulted in the award-winning Create portal. Under Tom’s leadership, Disney developed software that transformed how they monitored online experiences for kids.

Tom earned his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

We are grateful to Krista for establishing a strong foundation and vision for us to build upon and look forward to new heights with Tom.

The post Celebrating Krista Marks and Welcoming Tom Fischaber as our new Interim CTO appeared first on Saga Education.

Seeking to mitigate the effects of learning loss and socioeconomic disparities, Saga prioritizes populations of primarily Black, Latinx, and low-income students through consistent, in-school-day Algebra I tutorials that unify small-group tutoring, personalized instruction, mentorship, relationship-building, and feedback, which results in closing the opportunity gap.

David Fanning, Principal of A. Philip Randolph High School in Harlem, recently spoke with Saga Education about the impact he has seen through implementing Saga’s high-impact tutoring program. Saga has served over 500 students at A. Philip Randolph since 2020. Randolph utilizes Saga’s Live-Online/Blended model, which features Live-Online Fellows (tutors) and students alternating between working with the Fellows and on an adaptive learning platform, offering individualized instruction tailored to each student’s needs.

“Over fifty percent of the students who come into Randolph are not where they are supposed to be with math,” Principal Fanning shared. “That gives us a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time. And that’s difficult when you’ve got to cover the regular curriculum. When you walk into the Saga Math Lab, we’re not teaching to the core; we’re teaching to you.”

Principal Fanning credits Saga Education’s intervention for an increase in Regents Exam scores across the student body. According to Regents Exam score data, for the 2022-2023  school year, A. Philip Randolph High School’s student population saw a pass rate of 62% on the Algebra Regents, while the citywide average was 50%. David Fanning cites Saga Education’s high-impact tutoring intervention as key to his students’ success.

The Regents Exam is a New York statewide standardized test that examines a student’s competency in core high school subjects. Students need a passing score of 65 or higher on the Algebra I, Algebra II, or Geometry exam to graduate from high school. Mathematics often proves a stumbling block for high school students, particularly students who are considered at risk due to socioeconomic factors.

“These are kids who had profound learning loss. You can’t take COVID out of the question. These are kids that for two years were not getting the math support they should have had,” Principal Fanning said. “Some of the kids who were behind catch up, which tells me that this isn’t about aptitude. It’s about exposure.”

When considering Saga’s methodology, Principal Fanning cites Saga Education’s flexibility with a blended learning model that allows students to be present in the classroom with multiple instructors guiding their tutoring.

“The idea that there is a physical place in my building called the Saga Math Lab that also has people online supporting it. There are people inside the building every day, adults in the math lab, but they’re also supported by the tutors who come in as force multipliers that give the kids the level of differentiation they need. You’d never be able to pull that off completely in-person. It’s not a replacement for in-person; it’s a supplement that allows us to meet the needs of people who need a lot of one-on-one attention.”

During the 2023-2024 school year, A. Philip Randolph High School’s high-impact tutoring program will expand to include both ninth and tenth grades, allowing students to continue receiving the intervention they deserve for a longer period of time. As Principal Fanning says, “Serving ninth and tenth graders will allow us to double-down on helping the kids who need it most.”

David Fanning sees Saga’s intervention as an approach worth the value. “If we’re committed to repairing the damage of COVID and also repairing the damage of inequities in our society, our students will do well. I’m proud to have partners like Saga that allows us to address symptoms of a problem and fix it for them so students do well.”

The post Empowering Success in Harlem: High-impact Tutoring Elevates Students Above the Citywide Average on Regents Exams appeared first on Saga Education.

When 9th grader Valentino Santana talks about Saga Math Lab, the first word he uses is “comfortable.” Why comfortable?” “Miss Weiss greets me in the morning, she asks me how I’m doing, I trust her,” he said.

Santana said that working with his tutor is a different experience than being in a classroom. As teachers become more and more overextended, it becomes more difficult for them to provide customized support for each student. That’s where the AmeriCorps members serving with Saga come in. “My old teachers would sometimes scold me if I got something wrong but Miss Weiss helps me,” he said.

Anthony Onica, Site Director at Roberto Clemente Academy in Chicago, IL, noticed something special about the relationship between Santana and Weiss. “Ms. Weiss saw a kindred spirit in Valentino, and her patience has coaxed a lot of academic and emotional growth out of him. He’s a remarkable young man, and his relationship with his tutor has only accentuated that quality,” said Onica,

Their relationship began with …pastries?

“I remember on one of the first days we worked with him, he bonded with Ms. Weiss over their shared love of The Great British Bake-off. He did an impersonation of one of the people on the show, and the rest, as they say, was history,” said Onica.

Weiss said that she “loves math,” but she remembered when she didn’t like it as much in high school. “I try to express that to my students, and make it less intimidating,” she said.

A Math Mind
But as Santana improved in his understanding of the subject, the math became more challenging. At that point, Weiss said that she treated it as a partnership. “Let’s take this more seriously,” she told him. As time went on, Santana was able to work more independently. “Santana has a math mind,” said Weiss.

How to Study for Algebra
Of course, Weiss tutors her students on the foundational skills of Algebra 1, but she also focuses on the grade-level content that teachers are covering and shows them how to study. It turned out to pay off for Santana, because he ended up raising his grade from a D to an A. “He takes beautiful notes, he’s shown that he can do it. He’s challenging his fear of math,” she said.

In fact, Santana has come so far that now he helps other students in his class, and he even catches Weiss when she makes a mistake. “I gave him an example that had a mistake, and he found the mistake right away,” she said.

Onica said he’s also seen Santana make strides in his grades, confidence and overall maturity. “We’ve seen growth in Valentino’s math grades, and he’s been a lot more consistent with holding a strong score. Even so, I think the most impressive growth we’ve seen from Valentino is emotional. He’s more willing to engage in conversations when he’s struggling with content or personal challenges. He’s a student that I feel like I can always talk things through with, which is an impressive sign of maturity, in my opinion,” said Onica.

Although high school graduation is a few years away, Santana knows what he wants to do next. “I want to go to college. I want to become an engineer,” he said.

This goal comes as no surprise to Weiss. “I have so much faith that he can do math at such a high level,” she said.

“We’re very proud of him for being chosen for college preparation/planning programs here at Clemente,” said Onica.

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