Remote tutoring that teaches at the right level. First results in El Salvador

• In Event: Learning Acceleration in Latin America. Do mobile tutoring sessions work?

Proposal

The learning losses resulting from school closures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic represent one of the most significant education crises in a century. Two strategies that have proven most effective in recovering and accelerating learning are 1) remote tutoring and 2) the Teaching at the Right Level (Tarl) approach. The objective is to present the first results of remote tutoring applying the TaRL principle to teaching fundamental mathematics in various contexts in Mexico and Central America, which were carried out in a partnership between the IDB, the ministries of education of the region, and the MIA program in Mexico. In particular, we wanted to know the effects of applying 1:1 tutoring by telephone in contexts with high learning poverty. Method: first, it was decided to work with fundamental arithmetic operations: place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Then, 56 tutors, including teachers and university students, were recruited and trained for 10 hours. Second, a baseline was collected in person from nearly 1,700 students between 9 and 14 years of age in three regions of El Salvador. To measure the levels, two instruments were used and validated. Then, sensitization and confirmation calls were made to this sample, of which 831 students wanted to participate. Each of them received an average of 7 telephone tutorials of 20 minutes duration, focused on the level they showed in the diagnostic evaluation, regardless of their age or school grade. Results: students improved in the resolution of all mathematical operations, with significant increases in place value (80%) and multiplication (87%) concerning how they started the tutorials. The participants (children, tutors, and caregivers) were delighted with the tutorials and requested to continue this program. Discussion: the results suggest that combining these two strategies, tutoring and TaRL, enhances the recovery of fundamental mathematics learning. Implementing tutoring remotely facilitates its rapid adaptation in diverse contexts and promotes educational equity since the technology required is access to the vast majority of the population living in poverty. These results also coincide with considerable evidence generated in diverse contexts that make remote tutoring using TarL an effective method to recover and accelerate learning.

Author

• Felipe Hevia, CIESAS