In this series, we highlight four edtech solution providers who are building an evidence base for their solutions in alignment with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and in partnership with educators and students. In this edition, we talked with Varsity Tutors leaders Allison Maudlin, Director of Marketing, Education, and Rebecca Salem, Customer Marketing Manager about what drives Varsity Tutors’ evidence-building efforts.
Varsity Tutors, an online learning platform that connects students with qualified subject-matter experts for personalized instruction, is on a mission to transform education in a way that delivers equity and accelerates outcomes.
Founder and CEO Chuck Cohn started the company after reflecting on his own experiences, realizing the positive impact private tutoring had on his own learning in high school and college while also acknowledging the struggles he faced to find the right tutors and the time to meet with them. Cohn realized that effective tutoring was only possible with reliable access–and that’s where technology can help.
In the company’s 15+ year history, Varsity Tutors has connected over 1 million students with more than 40,000 tutors. But working directly with districts and schools to make those connections is an exciting new frontier the company has only explored since the Covid-19 pandemic led to widespread school disruptions. “When Varsity Tutors made the decision to start supporting schools and districts, we knew that it was going to be a cultural shift for these administrators to think of tutoring as an instructional support,” Allison Maudlin, Varsity Tutors’ Director of Marketing shared. “While there is a strong existing evidence base for tutoring, the majority of these studies are focused on the traditional private tutoring modality.”
Varsity Tutors’ offerings to districts go beyond that traditional model, and include live video-based tutors for targeted teacher-assigned classroom support via one-to-one and small-group sessions; high-dosage tutoring to close learning gaps and facilitate intensive intervention, and 24/7 chat-based tutoring for study help and enrichment. The team recognized that to broaden the impact of tutoring with these models–and enable classroom teachers to scale their own efforts through it–they would need to proactively partner with districts, be transparent with their data, and provide concrete evidence that it works.
The LearnPlatform by Instructure research team has proved to be the right partner to generate this critical evidence base because, as Maudlin states, their approach allows Varsity Tutors to “provide our district customers with research support that is built into our service agreements. When districts sign on with Varsity Tutors, we talk to them about their data needs and develop a data sharing plan with each of them.” Some district partners have engaged directly with Varsity Tutors and the LearnPlatform by Instructure research team on structured reviews of pre- and post-assessment data to evaluate the impact of tutoring.
The results of this work have produced detailed outcomes reports that facilitate up-front conversations about what went well, what didn’t, and how the program can be improved. Rebecca Salem, Customer Marketing Manager at Varsity Tutors, says she loves the productive interactions that result from engaging customers with the research, “it sparks transparent conversations about what worked, where the challenges were, and how to improve in the future.”
“We recognize that in the early stages of our work with schools, we need to understand what is and isn’t working about our current models of service to inform our product roadmap and ensure we are always growing in a way that aligns with the shifting needs of the communities we serve.”
The Varsity Tutors team understands the long-term value of these honest conversations, even if they are sometimes difficult, especially as district leaders face growing pressures around use of decreasing funding dollars, staff turnover, and widening student learning gaps.
Visit Varsity Tutors for Schools to learn more about its offerings for education organizations.
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