Peer Tutoring Gives a Helping Hand to math Department
Opening peer tutoring to FLEX has now brought more support to math students and teachers.
By Jisela Negrete
Opening peer tutoring to FLEX has now brought more support to math students and teachers.
By Jisela Negrete
Since the beginning of the semester, the FLEX peer tutor program has helped increase grades and provide individualized support for students.
Club leader Lauren Chiu, 12, has worked to improve and spread peer tutoring around the math department. The program has since expanded into higher math levels to assist more students and they hope to expand into other subjects in the near future.
Currently, the program has a total of 30 student tutors who are sent to math classrooms. Due to the high demand for student tutors, only one tutor is assigned per classroom.
“(The) math department strategically distributed tutors over the last month, prioritizing Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 in order. In the last few weeks, we populated tutors for other math classes too,” said math department co-chair Aruna Renduchintala.
Peer tutoring opens up a new opportunity for student to student communication. It is a chance for students struggling with a subject to get more support from a student tutor, regardless if their specific teacher is available or not.
“Tutoring help is reemphasizing the concepts they already learnt, so they have a better understanding of the material when they hear a few more times. It is helping students who are absent to catch up with material too,” said Renduchintala.
Student tutor Madison Fujii, 11, has begun tutoring students by explaining the subject with a different perspective. As a recently trained tutor, she has learned how to best support students and help with homework and quiz corrections.
“(My tutee will) be doing her own work independently, so I like to see that as a sign my help and assistance made her understand better so she can figure out her homework on her own,” said Fujii.
Rylee Ronchetti, 10, Fujii’s tutee, has felt that learning from different points of views has been helpful and has seen an increase in her grade since starting.
“I have different people explaining it to me instead of just my teacher, like different perspectives of how to do it,” said Ronchetti.
Many teachers have noticed this program has improved the FLEX environment and the ability to assist as many students as possible. FLEX tends to get overwhelming for teachers since they have to help students with quiz corrections, test make ups and absent students who need help, and with tutors in the room, teachers are able to accommodate their students’ needs.
“Having student tutors has helped my FLEX move smoothly so that more kids can get help at a time. I put my student tutor with a small group of kids working on the same corrections and they can work efficiently to get things done,” said math teacher Whitney Goodman.
Math teacher Cem Yesilyurt, who helped start the program and train tutors, has felt many students are hesitant to use the resources to provide them with help. It has brought some concerns that the club's abilities are being fully taken advantage of.
“Students are afraid of what others would say sometimes, so I understand why they are kind of worried. That’s the main issue right now that our tutors are not fully being utilized. There are some students using them but a lot of students that need them the most are not always using them,” said Yesilyurt
As the program continues, it aspires to increase the number of student tutors, adding two student tutors to a FLEX period instead of just one, as well as expanding student tutoring to other subjects beyond math.
“Our goals for next year are to really refine the program and streamline the process to become a tutor and request tutoring, along with increasing the number of tutors we have so that we can help more students,” said Chiu.
Students can fill out a form to request a peer tutor or staff and parents can offer recommendations for a student to be put in contact with a peer tutor. To become a peer tutor students can fill out a google form application and have a teacher in the subject fill out the teacher recommendation form. For anyone wanting to become a peer tutor visit Pioneer’s website.
Club leader Lauren Chiu, 12, has worked to improve and spread peer tutoring around the math department. The program has since expanded into higher math levels to assist more students and they hope to expand into other subjects in the near future.
Currently, the program has a total of 30 student tutors who are sent to math classrooms. Due to the high demand for student tutors, only one tutor is assigned per classroom.
“(The) math department strategically distributed tutors over the last month, prioritizing Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 in order. In the last few weeks, we populated tutors for other math classes too,” said math department co-chair Aruna Renduchintala.
Peer tutoring opens up a new opportunity for student to student communication. It is a chance for students struggling with a subject to get more support from a student tutor, regardless if their specific teacher is available or not.
“Tutoring help is reemphasizing the concepts they already learnt, so they have a better understanding of the material when they hear a few more times. It is helping students who are absent to catch up with material too,” said Renduchintala.
Student tutor Madison Fujii, 11, has begun tutoring students by explaining the subject with a different perspective. As a recently trained tutor, she has learned how to best support students and help with homework and quiz corrections.
“(My tutee will) be doing her own work independently, so I like to see that as a sign my help and assistance made her understand better so she can figure out her homework on her own,” said Fujii.
Rylee Ronchetti, 10, Fujii’s tutee, has felt that learning from different points of views has been helpful and has seen an increase in her grade since starting.
“I have different people explaining it to me instead of just my teacher, like different perspectives of how to do it,” said Ronchetti.
Many teachers have noticed this program has improved the FLEX environment and the ability to assist as many students as possible. FLEX tends to get overwhelming for teachers since they have to help students with quiz corrections, test make ups and absent students who need help, and with tutors in the room, teachers are able to accommodate their students’ needs.
“Having student tutors has helped my FLEX move smoothly so that more kids can get help at a time. I put my student tutor with a small group of kids working on the same corrections and they can work efficiently to get things done,” said math teacher Whitney Goodman.
Math teacher Cem Yesilyurt, who helped start the program and train tutors, has felt many students are hesitant to use the resources to provide them with help. It has brought some concerns that the club's abilities are being fully taken advantage of.
“Students are afraid of what others would say sometimes, so I understand why they are kind of worried. That’s the main issue right now that our tutors are not fully being utilized. There are some students using them but a lot of students that need them the most are not always using them,” said Yesilyurt
As the program continues, it aspires to increase the number of student tutors, adding two student tutors to a FLEX period instead of just one, as well as expanding student tutoring to other subjects beyond math.
“Our goals for next year are to really refine the program and streamline the process to become a tutor and request tutoring, along with increasing the number of tutors we have so that we can help more students,” said Chiu.
Students can fill out a form to request a peer tutor or staff and parents can offer recommendations for a student to be put in contact with a peer tutor. To become a peer tutor students can fill out a google form application and have a teacher in the subject fill out the teacher recommendation form. For anyone wanting to become a peer tutor visit Pioneer’s website.