Stanford’s National Student Support Accelerator – A University-based Model for Advancing High Impact Tutoring Nationwide

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: How Can High Impact Tutoring Be Brought to Scale? Lessons From Major Programs (Table 12)

Abstract

The National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) is part of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning and Systems Change for Advancing Learning and Equity (SCALE) at Stanford University. NSSA is devoted to translating research on tutoring into action on the ground. NSSA’s vision is to ensure that every K-12 student has access to an effective tutor that supports their learning and success.
The Accelerator works to integrate research and practice by building a comprehensive set of resources for tutoring organizations, schools, and districts, making it possible for them to implement high-impact tutoring at scale. The research we contribute to the field has helped to construct the concept of high-impact tutoring (HIT) — tutoring delivered three or more times a week by consistent, trained tutors using quality materials and data to inform instruction — is one of the most effective academic interventions, providing an average of more than four months of additional learning in elementary literacy and almost 10 months in high school math. Our current research agenda includes descriptive work that assesses program implementation quality, causal work that measures the efficacy of delivery methods, and computational work that models student-tutor interactions and learning. We also produce qualitative and mixed methods studies that contribute to broader theory about policy scaling within the decentralized American education system and attend to more granular implementation issues.
We produce open-source materials for tutoring programs and school districts to aid implementation. Our tools include a district playbook for school districts seeking to implement HIT, a tutoring program selection toolkit, an educator advocacy guide, and a toolkit for tutoring providers. We also track tutoring providers and state-level tutoring programs to understand the broader tutoring field. Finally, NSSA acts as a convener of the tutoring field. We host an annual conference where we share research and hear from practitioners and policymakers about best practices, successes, and challenges. We also host advisory groups with providers, educators, and policymakers to work with different stakeholder groups to solicit input, share research findings, and better understand stakeholder viewpoints.
For the presentation, I will give concrete examples of how three recent research findings help to expand HIT programs across different contexts and needs. We will focus on work done by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in Washington DC on the impact of its funded HIT programs on student attendance; our work with On Your Mark’s virtual tutoring program’s impact on young readers; and our work with Grand Valley State University on tutor recruitment strategies among their undergraduates. Collectively, these three research projects show how we contribute knowledge to the field about HIT’s impact, delivery, and implementation.

Author

• Amanda Lu, Georgetown Public Policy Institute