Learning and the Brain Reflections - Tutoring

The theme of this year's Learning and the Brian was "Calming Anxious Brains."  Because there were a lot of speakers on that topic, it is going to take some time and mental effort to synthesize that into a good post.  With a yearbook deadline yesterday and exams coming up, I don't have that time and must reserve most of my brain's power, so I'll wait until Christmas break for those.  Among all the seminars about anxiety, however, there were a few simple and practical sessions (like this one on tutoring), so I'll begin with those.

This presentation was taught by John Almarode.  He is, hands down, my favorite session speaker at Learning and the Brain.  To say that he is engaging doesn't do justice to his energy.  He is an education professor at James Madison University, and I am always thrilled to know that he is out there training the next generation of teachers (BTW - something to consider if you are going to major in education).  If you have the chance to attend a John Almarode seminar, do yourself a favor.  You won't regret it.  He also does some webinars through Learning and the Brain.  I have not attended those, but I cannot imagine him trying to limit himself to the confines of a screen.  He must have to tie himself to the chair.

Okay, all that said, let's get on to what I learned from his session.

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There's been a lot of talk during the pandemic about "learning loss."  While students did not make the same gains they would have in a normal year, he felt it was important to point out that no learning was actually lost.  As he put it, "Eight times seven didn't just fall out of their shoe."  (You have to imagine this being said in a charming Virginia drawl.)  Tutoring isn't meant to be remedial.  According to some studies, in fact, it has a negative impact when viewed that way.  Rather, tutoring offers us the opportunity to extend learning and address unrealized potential in our students.  If we view it as a way of moving learning forward, regardless of their starting point, it has the potential to do students a lot of good.

If you are familiar with John Hattie's work on the "effect size" of various practices, you know that 0.4 is considered an effective skill ( because it represents making one year of gain in one year of time - For the statistics nerds, he may have said it was one standard deviation, but I don't actually remember).  Anyway, for everyone, any practice that ranks higher than a 0.4 is something to explore.  He was careful, however, to point out the effect sizes are about potential.  The technique itself has no power, so you still have to think about how to do it well.  

Some of the ideas for addressing "learning loss" have had little to no benefit because they assume that more time is better time.  Summer school has only a 0.19 effect size (because of working memory overload - something I'll address in a future post).  Extending the school year has been talked about in many district, in spite of the fact that is a 0.01 effect size.  Doing more of the same will not work.  A well-designed and effective tutoring program, however, has an effect size of 0.51 so it is worth talking about what it looks like to be well designed.

A good design for a tutoring session should involve the following:

1. Investment in relationship - A student learns better from someone with whom he has a relationship.  There is an opportunity to develop trust and a sense of safety, so the student is more engaged, less afraid to answer a question wrong, and more likely to take on the suggestions of the tutor.  If you have found a tutor your student likes (or there is an established relationship with a peer, neighbor, or family member), stick with them.  Credibility is built on trust and competence, so the relationship helps student develop intrinsic motivation.
2. Address confidence as well as learning challenges - Every teacher has sat in a tutoring session where the student has no confidence.  He came there because he was having trouble understanding the material, so he's afraid to be wrong when you ask a question.  A students' self efficacy (the believe that he can learn with effort) has a 0.71 effect size, which is second only to the teacher's belief that they can help the student learn.  That means we need to get them a "win" early in the session.  After that, you can move them forward much more quickly.
3. Goal setting - If you don't know where you are going, it can be hard to get there.  How you do this may depend on the nature of your session.  If you are meeting with a student weekly, you may be there to clarify whatever they have learned that week.  You may have a goal for the session, or the student may have a goal.  Regardless, it is important to establish the goal at the front of the session.  The goal should be immediate (something we can finish during this hour) and concrete (something we can know if we have achieved).   Saying something like, "We're going to go over some chemistry" doesn't really feel concrete.  On the other hand, if you say, "Today, we are going to balance chemical equations," it establishes an attainable goal and allows them to know when they have reached the goal.  After they have confidently balanced a few equations in a row, they know they have succeeded.  It is also a good idea to have the student state the goal in their own words.
4. Teaching them how to learn - The best tutors will eventually become unneccessary to the student they are tutoring.  That's because the goal isn't just to learn this week's math skill.  It to learn how to tackle any math skill.  It isn't to analyze the novel they are reading for their English class; it is to teach them the strategies needed to analyze any novel.  Tell them how helpful it would be to summarize their learning from memory.  Teach them how to use a graphic organizer, not just for today's content, but for any content.  You aren't teaching the content as much as you are teaching study skills using the context of the content.
5. Teach success criteria - I was honestly stunned at the effect size of this.  Simply establishing for a student how they will know when success has been achieved has an effects size of 0.88!  If tutoring is compared to a hiking path through the woods, success criteria is a bit like knowing the path ends at a waterfall.  I've been on these hikes in national parks.  When your legs are tired, and you are breathing so hard you want to quit, it is helpful to remember that the end goal is a waterfall.  When you start feeling the air get cooler, you know you are close.  When you hear the sound of rushing water, you start walking a little faster in spite of the pain in your calves.  Evidence that you are near your goal is motivating, so give your students that simple power.  "Hey, the goal is to identify the subject and verb of the sentence.  I got the subject of that one, so I'm half-way there," will keep a student going when a teacher's prodding might not.
6. Deliberate practice - Practice matters.  We all know that when it comes to music.  We all know it when it comes to basketball.  We seem to have forgotten it when it comes to education.  We've downplayed it by giving it names like "drill and kill," but intentionally practicing that which is difficult to do has an effect size of 0.79.  To be deliberate has to be challenging, but not impossible, a concept known as desirable difficulty.  ("To retain your brain has to strain.")  Desirable difficulty causes myelination of neurons and promoted dendrite growth in your brain cells.  Repeating something easy over and over does not; in the same way lifting a one pound weight over and over would do little to nothing for my biceps.  Doing something far too difficult can been damaging to learning in the same way attemtping to lift a weight to heavy for me would be damaging for my muscles.  Choose problems carefully that fit into the Goldilocks zone, and you can give your student the tools they need to learn anything.