In this article:
- One of the best ways to ensure your peer tutors are providing consistent, quality sessions is to offer training sessions.
- Training sessions can be as involved as you like & should be recorded so tutors can refer back to it whenever they need a refresher
- Training sessions offer valuable, transferable skills to peer tutors
- Collecting feedback throughout the semester is an important way to ensure the quality of the tutoring sessions. Periodic surveys or automatic feedback prompts are a great way to gather this information without intensive effort
To ensure the success of your peer-tutoring program, ensuring that all sessions are reliable and offer quality support is essential. Offering training sessions is a great way to give peer tutors the skills they need to succeed, and also have the added benefit of being an opportunity to develop communication logistical skills.
Once the sessions begin, keeping tabs on the program is key to identifying what is working and what needs improvement. Collecting feedback throughout the semester is an important way to ensure the quality of the tutoring sessions. Periodic surveys or automatic feedback prompts are a great way to gather this information without intensive effort
Training sessions provide valuable, transferable skills to students
One of the best ways to set student tutors up for success is to devise a training program, giving peer tutors the opportunity to develop logistical and communication skills that will benefit them in more than just the tutoring program.
There are many different ways to develop tutor training. Program managers may choose to conduct in-person sessions, devise a series of handouts or put together training videos that students can watch on their own time. The training video method has the benefit of being available to students whenever they need a refresher, and can be viewed on their own time.
The Nimbus Partnership success team also provides proven tutor training programs that can help set student tutors up for success.
Staying ahead of the feedback curve
One of the keys to quality control is identifying potential concerns before they become a problem. This can be a tall order for student service managers who have more than one program to keep tabs on. Creating automated processes to collect reviews, feedback and session success can make this process quick and painless, easily keeping you on top of everything you need to know at the click of a button.
Information for the programs can be as detailed as you need, and can largely depend on the tools you have opted to use. On the Nimbus tutoring platform, for example, students are automatically prompted to review their session the next time they open up the app, giving both tutors and administrators up-to-date feedback. A star system provides the at-a-glance data, while written comments (which can be moderated if desired) provide detailed explanations.
If something so detailed isn’t necessary, a simple survey sent out to the list of students using the tutoring service — like Google forms or Survey Monkey — sent out periodically can give insight into what is going well and what needs to be addressed. These surveys, while they can give general feedback on the overall program or student experience, may not be as great for granular per-session information.
Conclusion
With a little support, peer tutors have been proven to be able to offer quality, high-impact support to other students. A solid tutoring partnership can help tutors, and the entire tutoring program, succeed with minimal effort on behalf of the program managers.
Get in touch with Nimbus learning today to see how we can help.