In this article:
- Many of the post secondary directors and managers of student success services we speak to say that hours of pre-purchased tutoring blocks go unused, leading to a concern about wasting funds and under-utilized services.
- Developing a peer tutoring program can address both of these issues, as research demonstrates that students prefer course-specific tutoring rather than subject-specific tutors. In that case, who better to teach from a student-centric perspective than a student who has already excelled at the course?
Often, we hear from post-secondary institutions that a considerable amount of the hours they pay for up-front with external tutoring companies go unused. These are funds that can be put towards valuable programming or to developing a tutoring program that directly caters to the needs of your campus.
With that, we thought we’d take a look at how bringing your tutoring program in-house can help improve student usage and reach more people.
Students want class-specific tutors
not general subject tutors
Tutoring Program Benchmarks, conducted by the Primary Research Group in 2020, found that students in 4-year research colleges want class-specific tutoring instead of walk-in programs. (Primary Research Group, 2020).
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: No one understands the trials and tribulations of a difficult course on your campus like a student who has just persevered through it.
Students who have excelled in the courses they are tutoring have unique insight into their own personal experiences with the homework/assignments/tests, knowledge gaps that exist between courses that need to be addressed, and may also know about other resources (for example, study guide on course homepages) that can support student success.
Develop an increased ability to cater to student needs
With the knowledge that students want course-specific tutors, the next step is to determine exactly what courses are in high demand. Meeting students where they are at is a key factor in increasing how programs are used.
With the need for analytics, it is then important to note that approximately half of the medium-sized schools surveyed by Primary Research Group (2020) (medium sized school = 3500-11,000 students) expressed they had less data than they needed to get a clear picture of their program.
Bringing a tutoring program in-house allows directors and managers of student success services to collect the necessary analytics and devise a strategy for the future. Program analytics, like those provided by the Nimbus Learning platform, allow administrators to see exactly what courses are in demand, and then recruit student tutors for those classes.
There is no replacement for a home-grown tutoring program that caters directly to the changing needs of the students body.
Taking a tutoring program in-house may seem like a massive undertaking, but with the right support can lead to a personalized program that doesn’t put excessive burden on the administration staff. Nimbus Learning provides flexible service packages, from simple platform access all the way to tutor recruitment, hiring and training, marketing support, and tech services.
Primary Research Groups (2020). The College Tutoring Program Benchmarks, 2020 Edition.
