Undergraduate students used an intelligent collaborative learning system with the Jigsaw method of cooperative learning, and were monitored by the group leader as they developed algorithmic projects. The system components and operation are described. Students thought that the system, although slow, was easy to use and useful for collaborative…

Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) is a book and reading program for children in kindergarten through second grade in 13 Oregon counties. The program aims to create a relaxed and safe environment in which children can practice their skills, one-on-one, with caring adult volunteers. A volunteer tutor recounts her experiences with the program. (SAS)

Discusses the role of the arts in multicultural education, explaining how diverse students react to and need support in the arts in order to succeed. Focuses on the efforts of urban elementary and secondary schools in Madison, Wisconsin. Also examines the use of mentoring and tutoring to help raise the academic achievement of minority students who…

At one urban family service agency, staff members have drawn a vital connection between community and literacy. Explains how this literacy program evolved from a basic tutoring opportunity into a curriculum using themes and information gleaned from the young participants' immediate community surroundings. Describes the program's history,…

Finds that at-risk first and second graders made statistically significant gains in instructional reading level that was attributable to tutoring by minimally trained America Reads Challenge college students. Finds that the greatest impact was in affecting children's ability to read words, and that most of their growth occurred during the second…

Describes the experiences of four veteran teachers who came to teach in a residential high school for gifted adolescents and participated in peer coaching, study groups, and mentoring. This faculty development exposed them to advanced content and higher order thinking strategies, which were the very same skills they were encouraged to use to…

Evaluates adapted classroom arrangements, assesses the additional impact of a form of structured peer interaction between a subset of emergent writers and older children with writing delay, while controlling for time on task. Indicates significant improvement for all emergent writers and increased gains for those also experiencing the structured…

Examined the effect of communal learning, peer tutoring, and individual learning on the text recall of African American fifth graders. Students completed surveys assessing their preference for communal beliefs and behaviors, participated in groups, and recalled text. Communal learning group students recalled the most text. Communal beliefs…

Presents an educational case study in which an English-as-a-Second-Language student brings a draft of his argument essay for freshman composition to a tutor in a university writing center. Presents a response that examines several ways in which the study has challenged an educator to think more deeply about beliefs. (SG)

Many learning and instructional approaches that manipulate the environment in which learners work and cooperate with each other have illustrated growth in cognitive, intellectual, social, and affective areas. To date, however, uncertainty still exists as to the mechanism by which various types of peer tutoring facilitate learning. This study seeks…

Peer-mediated approaches have been used for years to improve the academic behaviors of students, especially those with disabilities. The most systematized and well researched of the peer-mediated approaches relates to peer tutoring systems, which include specific elements of training, implementation, and evaluation. The purpose of this article is…

MathsAid was established in 2001 as a university-wide resource for students enrolled on programmes at Kingston University that contain a mathematics or statistics component. Its broad aims are to provide a set of non-threatening remedial and motivational opportunities in maths and statistics through one-to-one tutorial support, peer-assisted…

Districts are paying scant attention to the provision of federal education law that allows students in low-performing schools to transfer elsewhere, though more are providing children with the supplemental services to which they are entitled. New data submitted to the federal government show that eligible students who transferred to a…

Concern is rising in some quarters that the No Child Left Behind Act permits foreign companies to provide federally financed online tutoring to students at underperforming schools. Such arrangements appear to constitute only a minute fraction of the tutoring business that is mushrooming under the federal law. Nine members of Congress asked the…

Tutoring services, known in the federal No Child Left Behind Act as "supplemental services," arguably represent the federal government's largest free-market experiment in education. In the rush to capture market share, more than 1,000 tutoring providers have signed up for the program. But market uncertainty, combined with differences in…