In Public School 1 in New York City's Chinatown, more than 500 students are involved in a new peer tutoring venture. Whole classes work with other classes—6th graders tutor 3rd graders, 2nd graders tutor kindergartners. Bilingual students tutor monolingual students, and special education youngsters tutor regular classroom students. Tutoring is infused into every subject, from reading, science, and math to music, drama, and art.
What do the young tutors think about their jobs? A 2nd grader who tutors a kindergartner confides, “I can teach him because it's fun. My tutee makes me happy.” A 5th grade special education student has gained confidence: “Whenever my tutee needs help, she comes to me and I feel great, like a teacher.” And, explains a 6th grade bilingual student, “It's not only that Benny is learning from me, but that I'm also learning from him.”
An increasing number of teachers and researchers are equally enthusiastic. They have found that tutoring itself is a critical strategy that promotes active learning. Tutors need to rework the material and present it in a way that someone else can understand; they learn how to learn.
Down through the ages it has been observed that tutors benefit in a special way. In the 17th century, John Comenius, a Moravian theologian and educational reformer, noted, The saying “he who teaches others, teaches himself” is very true, not only because constant repetition impresses a fact indelibly on the mind, but because the process of teaching in itself gives a deeper insight into the subject taught. Nearly two centuries later, English educator Andrew Bell said: that the teacher profits far more by teaching than the scholar does by learning is a maxim of antiquity which all experience confirms—Docemur docendo—He who teaches learns. In The Process of Education, Jerome Bruner, recalling his early teaching at MIT, put it this way: I went through [quantum theory] once and looked up only to find the class full of blank faces—they had obviously not understood. I went through it a second time, and they still did not understand it. And so I went through it a third time, and that time I understood it (1963).
Consider the effect of being tutors on a group of New York City high school students who took part in an anti-poverty program in the 1960s. Robert Cloward, who undertook this Mobilization for Youth study, hired the underachieving adolescents to tutor elementary students in remedial reading. The surprising result: In just six months, the reading scores of the tutors jumped by an equivalent of two years—far more than did the scores of those they tutored (Cloward 1976).
Everyone Gains
Results were equally dramatic in an experiment we conducted in six New York City high schools with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Under the auspices of ConCurrent Options, a dropout prevention program, we set out to test a model called reciprocal tutoring. This strategy, developed by the Research Laboratory of the City University of New York Graduate School, is designed to (1) give all students the opportunity to be tutors and thereby learn through teaching, and (2) have all tutors experience the tutee role as part of a tutoring apprenticeship.
In three of these schools we had students meet in groups to discuss the tutoring and to have the tutees think about their possible future roles as tutors. In the other three schools, we conducted a more traditional tutoring program, where proficient students helped their less advanced peers. In the end, the tutees in the experimental program earned significantly higher grades in the subjects in which they were tutored, passed more courses, and had better attendance records. They also demonstrated a better understanding of the course material. One tutor shed light on the results: I thought I was going to teach by telling, but my tutee actually showed an interest in learning by asking questions rather than trying to just get by.
Reciprocal tutoring can be conducted among different grades or within one grade. One elementary school practicing cross-age tutoring, for example, has 6th graders tutor 4th graders who, in turn, tutor 2nd graders. In intra-class tutoring, the roles of tutor and tutee may be regularly alternated to ensure that all students experience both giving and receiving. Teachers may train half of the students to tutor the rest of the class in a particular subject, then reverse the roles, teaching the former tutees how to review a different skill.
In a current project, we are using reciprocal tutoring to assist new immigrant students entering high school. The tutoring is designed to ease the estrangement they typically feel, being unfamiliar with the norms and implicit rules of both their new school and their new culture. Each new student is paired with another student who is trained as a tutor/mentor. In their mentor role, students serve as personal guides and interpreters of the system, explaining what teachers and other staff expect of students. As tutors, they help the new students with their course work and help them study for exams. The following semester, the tutees may be asked to reciprocate by becoming tutor/mentors for a new group of immigrant students.
- As students are tutored in preparation for becoming tutors, their ambivalence about receiving help decreases and their motivation to learn increases.
- All students have the chance to participate and the opportunity to help, which makes them feel valuable and worthwhile.
- The asymmetry is reduced, and the stigma often associated with receiving help disappears.
- An ethos of cooperation is built.
In working with tutors, we help them reflect upon their experience. They share their thoughts about tutoring in discussions and journals, and thereby gain an awareness of learning processes and strategies. The students begin to appreciate the significance of indirect and informal learning, the importance of individualizing instruction so it is attuned to the learner's interests and learning styles, and even the relationship between cognitive and social development.
Teacher Support Groups
Reciprocal cross-age tutoring cannot be successful without the full support of the teachers. This support is particularly essential because the teacher's role shifts to that of a facilitator of learning for the tutor-students—the person who manages the process, trains the students, and develops working relationships and logistical arrangements with their teaching counterparts in other classrooms.
We have found that teachers fare best in this role when mutual support groups are established. Such groups not only help break down teacher isolation, but also promote the development of innovative partnerships and the cross-fertilization of ideas among teachers involved in similar work. The meetings usually take place before or after school in a relaxed atmosphere. The teachers plan sessions, discuss techniques, prepare materials, assess progress, and share their feelings about the impact of tutoring on their students and themselves.
Peer tutoring builds on students' strengths and gets all students more involved. Rather than being acted upon, they are the key agents in the schooling enterprise. At a recent conference on peer tutoring, Anthony Alvarado, superintendent of New York City's Community School District 2, put it this way: “The most important outcome essentially is a re-creation of the social glue that re-forms us into communities, and by that I mean how kids are connected.”
The first step in promoting reciprocal tutoring is to mobilize teachers and administrators and help them see themselves as activators of this untapped source of energy.
