Can tutoring enhance instruction in elementary school?
The Need
With 30 days of yearly professional development, a personalized learning approach and constant academic data deep dives, NCCS educators are among the most data-driven (and busy) teams in the country. This leaves few precious moments in the day, however, to serve all their students at their unique levels with their unique learning approaches. Zeal posed an opportunity to have additional live instruction from math coaches.
“Zeal gives my students what they need but what I cannot always give them: differentiated, one-on-one instruction. They are obsessed with the program and, as a result, obsessed with math and challenges!”
— Ms. Colonna, 2nd Gr Teacher, NCCS
Implementation
NCCS introduced Zeal to all 2nd and 3rd grade students in November 2016
with the goal of students spending an hour per week on the program. NCCS teachers implemented Zeal in the full-class model, with various students being assessed, receiving coaching, and adapting throughout the course of dedicated daily Zeal periods. Teachers supported students further during the sessions using small group, teacher-led RTI groups.
Throughout the week, teachers would share students’ progress with their classes so students could engage with their learning, celebrate success and stay focused on their paths to grade level proficiency and beyond. Zeal data reports allowed teachers to keep an eye on where students’ misunderstandings were on both grade level content and prerequisite skills. With the added ability to watch recorded coaching sessions, teachers were also able to keep track of what the Zeal coaches were working on, making sure misunderstandings were being addressed appropriately.
After being assessed on grade level standards and their aligned pre-skills, many students began to venture into above-grade-level content.
Impact
Over the course of Nashville Classical’s first several months of Zeal implementation, NCCS teachers quickly got their students to a learning trend of 1.5 new skills mastered per hour. By mid-April ’17, 3rd graders had averaged 27 new learned skills in Zeal while 2nd graders had averaged 17 new skills.
By augmenting teacher capacity with a strong tool for filling gaps in students’ knowledge, Zeal allows NCCS teachers to spend more time focused on grade-level standards and less time differentiating and providing tutoring themselves. Not only do students need more caring adults in their lives to help them when they struggle, but now NCCS teachers have Zeal assistants who are looking out for their students and reducing the overwhelming amount of differentiated instruction required.
