Teachers, Tutors, and Technology: A New Recipe for Facilitating Personalized Learning

Tutoring is one of the most effective policies for improving education but is often impractical because of scalability and cost constraints. One solution is to teach teachers to use more effectively Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) for simulating the tutoring experience at low cost. A recent evaluation of this approach (called Khoaching with Khan Academy) showed that elementary students with teachers randomly selected to receive this assistance did significantly better on standardized math test scores compared to students with teachers who did not receive the help. While successful in raising average performance, the study also revealed wide variance in CAL practice time within and across treated classrooms. A free after-school virtual tutoring program is proposed to further help this smaller subset of low-practicing students. Teachers will randomly invite parents of these children to receive weekly supervised CAL practice at home (through Khan Academy's sister organization, Schoolhouse.World). It is expected that integrating CAL time during school, supervised by teachers, with CAL time after school, supervised by tutors, will substantially increase personalized learning and performance among students most in need of individualized help.