High Expectations with Unlimited Opportunities for All
Offering targeted, additional academic support ensures expectations remain high for all learners and increases opportunities for learners to meet those expectations.
Overview
High-dosage tutoring is a pedagogical approach that provides students with individualized support to accelerate learning. Through this approach, students receive targeted tutoring in small group settings. In these groups, students practice and master content knowledge and skills, build academic confidence, work collaboratively with their peers, and develop lasting relationships with their tutors.
Tutoring delivered in high doses is one of the most effective evidence-based interventions for math and reading. There are many ways to implement a high-dosage tutoring model, and while aspects like group size, cadence, and duration are not the same across all models, many share the following best practices:
- Small groups – A 1:2 or 1:3 tutor-to-student ratio enhances student voice and further individualizes instruction and targeted interventions.
- High Dosage – The most effective programs implement sessions routinely for at least 90 minutes a week over the course of three sessions year-round.
- During school hours – Tutoring happens during the school day during a designated and protected time to increase attendance and levels of engagement.
- Rigorous curriculum – Models either provide their own rigorous tutoring curriculum or work collaboratively with classroom teachers to develop complementary materials that focus on skill-building.
Brown University’s Annenberg Institute leads the National Student Support Accelerator, which offers their high-dosage tutoring webinars for free. These webinars are intended to support practitioners to begin or improve on their program implementation.
Saga Education offers a free and open-to-all virtual training program. Educators—tutors and teachers alike—get to participate in self-paced professional development around research-backed tutoring practices.
The Transcend Community is a free, vibrant network of leaders, educators, and designers of innovative schools and learning environments, along with talented individuals and organizations who support them.
What Makes This Innovative?
Customization
Small group instruction and tailored tutoring materials that are closely aligned to a core curriculum ensure every student receives support that fits their needs.
Connection & Community
Small group instruction and frequency of sessions enable tutors and students to develop close, trusting relationships.
High-Dosage Tutoring Models on The Exchange
The high-dosage tutoring models on The Exchange all utilize tutoring best practices but also differ in key ways, like the content areas they focus on and how they develop curricula.
Grades 3-12
The GO Foundation
Great Oaks High-Dosage Tutoring
The GO Foundation’s high-dosage tutoring program places recent college graduates in historically under-resourced schools to implement innovative learning and mentoring strategies.
Grades 3-12
The GO Foundation
Great Oaks High-Dosage Tutoring
The GO Foundation has built a high-dosage tutoring program that can flexibly complement math and ELA instructional needs in grades 3-12 and across different learning environments. Trained AmeriCorps tutors — called Fellows — provide frequent, individualized tutoring instruction during the school day that advances the model’s three central aims: instruct for mastery and acceleration, mentor students to promote a learning mindset and positive self-identity, and contribute to the needs of the school community. The GO Foundation ensures its tutoring sessions deliver personalized, rigorous content and are offered to entire cohorts in a school, not to only a select few. This model supports a dual mission of equitable access and outcomes for all students and of inspiring a diverse pipeline of effective classroom teachers and lifelong advocates for educational justice.
In its twelve years in operation, the GO Foundation’s high-dosage tutoring model has reached over 10,000 students at schools in Hartford, CT; Bridgeport, CT; New York, NY; Newark, NJ; Wilmington, DE; and Baltimore, MD. The Foundation offers implementation and management services through a direct partnership and standalone advisory services for schools or districts seeking to launch a high-dosage tutoring program.
Grades 6-12
Saga Education
High-Dosage Tutoring
Saga’s high-dosage tutoring model strives for increased persistence and achievement in math by leveraging adult-learner relationships and in-a-school-day, personalized tutoring sessions.
Grades 6-12
Saga Education
High-Dosage Tutoring
Saga’s mission is to help states and districts to strengthen student confidence and achievement in math—a leading cause of high school dropout. Saga Direct’s model for high-dosage tutoring prioritizes the academic and socioemotional needs of students in under-resourced schools by ensuring all students feel a sense of belonging and achievement. This model personalizes math intervention or acceleration through rigorous tutoring sessions scheduled during the school day. Highly trained tutors, called Fellows, act as mentors and work closely with teachers and families to support student growth within and beyond the classroom.
Saga Direct’s high-dosage tutoring model is provided to 6,000+ students, built within the school day. Saga’s Widespread Impact division also provides comprehensive services to schools and districts: a standards-aligned math curriculum, a specialized platform for remote tutoring, as well as support for implementation, fidelity, training of supervisors and tutors, onsite inspections, and program management. With Saga, students can receive up to 150 hours of personalized instruction as part of their school day—and that tutoring time yields up to up to two-and-a-half years of academic gain in just one academic year.
Resources from Transcend and Beyond
The following resources can help deepen your understanding of high-dosage tutoring and support the design and implementation of a high-quality model, whether it’s one from The Exchange or one your community designs.
National Student Support Accelerator
The Annenberg Institute, Brown University
The Student Support Accelerator is a free, comprehensive online toolkit of resources designed for district leaders to research, learn about, and implement highly rigorous and scalable tutoring programs.
Reinventing School with High-Dosage Tutoring
Transcend
This primer provides a brief overview of relevant research and implementation suggestions. It also includes school examples to explore.
Targeted Intensive Tutoring
The Education Trust
This report synthesizes research into a few best practices and considerations, and offers starting questions and answers to kick-start a targeted, intensive tutoring program.