Lions and Tigers and Elephants, (&) Oh Deer!

I’m in India – Two flights, 8500 miles and twenty-two plus hours and here I am. It’s my third trip. I feel I’m a pretty seasoned India traveler. For example, I know to put mosquito repellent on before I step off the plane. It’s past midnight so the repellant is designed to keep away the malaria-carrying night-time mosquitoes vs. the mosquitoes during the day that carry dengue fever.

One can take anti-malaria medicine in case some of the night-time mosquitoes find their mark despite the repellent. There isn’t an anti-dengue medicine as far as I know. I do know something about dengue fever, though. My father was an army doctor stationed near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii during WWII and was tasked with figuring out where and how soldiers were contracting an awful hemorrhagic fever (now known as dengue). He got out a map of Oahu and charted the route of soldiers who came down with dengue. He figured out most of them waited at one of the bus stops on the island near standing water. My father surmised mosquitoes were to blame and ordered all standing water drained out from flower pots, puddles on the ground, etc. The army was able to stave off the dengue-carrying daytime mosquitoes and hence the disease.

With mosquito repellant applied, I exit the plane and my India adventure resumes.

After a week of meetings and tutor-business stuff, I had the pleasure to travel with TutorVista CEO Ganesh and his family to the mountains of Coonoor, around 300 km from Bangalore. To get there we drove through Bannerghatta National Park that has lions, tigers, monkeys, deer, elephant, and panthers.

http://www.indiantigers.com/bannerghata-national-park.html

Thirty-six hairpin turns up the mountain (each numbered and labeled), we visit a wonderful town with a temple elephant decorated trunk to tail and flower-covered float.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/16/stories/2007121653390300.htm

Finally we end up in Conoor. It’s a nice hill stations in the mountains at an elevation of 1,800 meters known for its tea plantations.

http://www.coonoor.com/about.htm

It’s remarkable but even in this quaint town in the mountains past the lions, tigers, elephants and monkeys we have a TutorVista tutor! He tutors students who live 8,500 miles and 300 km away from the comfort and convenience of his home. This truly is a flat world!

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Safe Tutoring

Child safety is a serious matter. The news frequently reports about teachers and others in authority who violate trust and act inappropriately with the children they are supposed to shepherd. Parents rely on coaches, teachers, tutors, and others to help guide and develop their kids.

But in today’s computer and internet world, how safe is your child if he or she works with an online tutor? We all know that on-line tutoring is very convenient. Mom and dad don’t have to drive the student to a tutor’s home or a business location. Students can go home after school and log in for their on-line tutoring session and no tutor physically comes to the house. But despite its convenience, is it safe? How do we ensure students are safe and secure while doing on-line tutoring?

There are ways to ensure child safety in an on-line tutoring environment:

1. On-line tutoring means your child is not physically with the tutor. Student and tutor are separated by distances as much as half-a-world away. For a tutor in India, it could cost a year’s salary for the tutor to fly where the student is or for the student to make the trip to India. And tourist visa’s and passports are required. This physical separation is a benefit for child safety.
2. Use steadily employed tutors rather than a tutor exchange or independent contractors. Avoid situations where predators can be connected with kids online under the guise of tutoring the way some predators hang out in chat rooms. Don’t use a tutoring exchange that lets anyone off the street post an ad and connect with kids.
3. Ensure your online tutor has passed a certification course that includes child protection.
4. Verify your online tutor’s qualifications and ensure he or she has had a professional, educational and personal background check.
5. Monitor student-tutor exchanges. Forbid your child from engaging in any student-tutor communications outside a tutoring session and monitor that communication in real time or through recordings. At TutorVista, students and tutors are required to interact with one another only during tutoring sessions and using our service delivery platform. Tutors understand this policy (it’s part of our certification process) and know too that violation of this policy will result in immediate dismissal.
6. Be involved in your child’s education – in school and online

Students using online tutoring can get safe, secure and protected educational help in a way face-to-face tutoring may not even support.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want

Last week I attended the SIIA Ed Tech Business Forum with hundreds of education technology & services providers, funders, marketers, biz-dev people and press. In a keynote speech, Dr. Thomas Houlihan from the Institute for Breakthrough Performance described problems in education as “systems” problems that can’t be solved with a band-aid or one-dimensional change. He also invoked the attendees to take a leadership role.

In another session a panelist remarked that education products and services providers need to ask school administrators and teachers for direction – what do they want? He suggested we build what people ask for…that they know best.

Like “It takes a village to raise a child,” I believe it takes a system to teach a child. Problems with school program implementation are often systems problems. This system includes teachers, books, assessments, policy, administration – all pieces working in concert together. Changing one part of the mix almost never significantly changes the system.

So back to the panelist’s recommendation – should we defer and ask teachers and administrators what they want? Do they know best?

I don’t think so. If you look at all the money that is spent on education, the value ascribed to it, and the tremendous number of vendors who are all too happy to create the products people have asked for, we would certainly by now have the products and services the industry really need if customers could describe what they wanted.

But innovation and major system change hasn’t happened yet. Not even from listening to what administrators and teachers want. We need to be guided by their dreams and the realities of today’s classroom and school and all the components that make up that system, but then we need to be leaders and invent something -- something exciting, fresh and better than what we have been using to date…what we “really, really want.” That’s the job for true industry leaders.
John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Using Tutoring To Increase Student Persistence & Graduation Rates

Many students drop out of community college and four year programs because they can't handle "gatekeeper" courses such as basic developmental math and writing. In a recent survey conducted by Communty College of Philadelphia, 20% of students dropped out for academic and program availability issues.

In this interview on the EDUInsight.com project web site, I address this drop out problem and how it negatively impacts students and educational institutions.

You can check out this interview at http://www.eduinsight.com/archive/john_stuppy.php

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Just the Facts, Mann

My deep love for teaching and learning was sparked in large measure by good family friends, Bertha and Maurice Mann. They owned and ran the Hollywood Professional School in Hollywood, California. HPS is where Betty Grable, Ryan O’Neal, the Beach Boys, Jackson Five, Peggy Fleming, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Val Kilmer, Melanie Griffith, Valerie Bertinelli, most of the Brady Bunch kids and many other actors and athletes went to school. It provided the perfect schedule and flexibility for students who were working professionals.

Mrs. Mann let me attend summer school there as a child and I always looked forward to it. The classes were lively and interesting and Mrs. Mann had a passion for education. She gave me a lot of encouragement and support. I loved to learn and learn new ways to learn.

Mrs. Mann often shared learning techniques she came across at conferences. When I was seven she shared a new learning idea she heard about. It was a way to learn math facts – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The idea is students should just know that “3 x 7 = 21” or “11-4=7” rather than having to figure it out. Having math facts at the ready for rapid recall means students don’t have to waste time constantly calculating those basic things.

Mrs. Mann’s simple, effective technique? She gave me a couple dozen math facts flash cards. These were 8”x3” stiff cardboard cards with things like “2+9=11” and “7+8=15.” She had me tape them in strategic places around my room. I put one flash card on the headboard of my bed, the ceiling high above my pillow, wall by the light switch, wall above my desk, closet door, inside of my bedroom door, outside of my door, bathroom mirror over the sink, wall above the toilet, wall opposite the toilet, fridge door…everywhere. As I moved around my room each day, I saw these math facts. After a few days Mrs. Mann gave me new cards to replace the ones I had learned. Before long I knew all my math facts cold.

This learning method wasn’t high tech. But it was simple and it surely worked.

I still recommend Mrs. Mann’s “immersion” method for learning math facts today. While computers can display math facts flash cards and have some interesting features, they can’t be freely used everywhere a paper flash card can. Computerizing every education tool for the sake of computerizing them doesn’t make sense. Are there “back to basics” ways to learn we’ve lost sight of? Are there new types of manipulatives that bring concepts to life? Can we be more mindful of ways to leverage and stretch our resources and use the right tool for the job?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Same Race – Better Horse

At first, some innovations are not as cost-effective or fine-tuned as the products or services they replace. Clayton Christianson’s book The Innovators Dilemma pointed out that in the early stages, many innovations are a poor replacement. But then over time…that’s when some innovations shine. Christianson also pointed out that it’s often impossible for existing, entrenched companies to successfully launch innovations. They have too much invested and are set in their ways.

Take a look at online learning. Eleven years ago I started working with one-on-one on-line tutoring over the internet. The idea was a student and tutor would use their computer to talk and interact through a shared virtual whiteboard. At the time, the voice interaction was pretty crummy -- echoes, dropped calls, gaps and delays were common. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and this was despite the fact one had to pay more for the technology infrastructure.

However, look at where things have moved today. Now, the technology used for voice chatting over the internet and sharing a virtual whiteboard is a reliable commodity. It works! And students love the whole platform and thrive on the online experience.

But is it effective? That’s the big question, isn’t it? I did a study of over 500,000 K-12 students who were tutored in reading and math –face to face vs. on-line. The result? There was no difference in effectiveness gains as measured by pre-- vs. post-test growth on standardized tests between the two groups. .

So students getting tutoring via the internet achieved the same gains as those students going to a learning center and meeting with their tutor face to face. This is an encouraging finding for the education technology industry. It suggests you don’t have to sacrifice education results for convenience.

Online tutoring is more convenient and affordable and highly effective . The next stage in the evolution of the industry is to figure out how to take advantages of technology to increase the effectiveness beyond face-to-face tutoring. More on that in an upcoming blog.

Have you taken an online course? Was it engaging? What factors made it relevant and interesting? More or less effective?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

The Butterfly Flapped Its Wings and Amazingly, Forty Years Later…

I went for a walk. And then I saw one…and then another…they were everywhere! Monarch butterflies were flitting and flying all around the neighborhood. There weren’t any there yesterday but now I could see at least 20.

Where did they come from? Did they just hatch?

I started thinking of the 8” think dictionary my family had at the top of the stairs in my house where I grew up, and the three feet of shelf space each that the Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book and Book of Knowledge took up in our family library. Forty years ago, I was equally curious then about how certain words should be spelled and where things like Monarch butterflies came from, but my intellectual pursuits back then usually followed this pattern…

“Mom…How do you spell 'mnemonic'?”

“Go look it up in the dictionary,” my mom would reply.

So I would trudge up the stairs, open the big book to “N” and look for “nemonic.” Of course the monstrous dictionary didn’t put a little red squiggle under the word when I looked it up in the wrong place, nor did it suggest “mnemonic.” If I didn’t find the word right away I was less likely to try and satisfy intellectual curiosity the next time.

Using the encyclopedias back then was usually more productive – assuming my brothers put back each of the volumes the last time they used them.

But this is 2007. While I walked, I pulled out my Treo phone, logged into Google, and searched for “Monarch Butterfly.”

Wow! While I was still walking among these little delicate creatures, I discovered:

* Monarch’s migrate as much as 3,000 miles flying South for Winter and North in the Spring
* They are poisonous snacks for predators and are brightly colored to make sure predators know they aren’t the yummy ones

So these butterflies didn’t just hatch today – they literally “blew into town” and miraculously, could travel many miles a day while seemingly flitting about.

What a great time we live in when we can easily learn things just in time and on the spot! To the three R’s standard when I grew up – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic, we should add two more:
4. Reach – connecting with people through email & postings, and
5. Research – easy, fast, productive searches to a wealth of information and resources

Has your life changed with Reach and Research?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Voice of Reason

Should you use online tutoring with a typed “chat” setup or voice-based program? I’ve been sold on voice-based online tutoring for years. This means the student and tutor talk to each other using their computers though they can be thousands of miles apart. How? A cool technology called “Voice over IP” (VoIP) makes this possible. A computer phone call usually sounds cleaner and clearer than a regular phone call. The student plugs in a headset with a built in microphone to his or her computer’s speaker and microphone jacks and uses that to talk to and listen to a tutor with the same setup far away.

It amazes me when online tutoring companies try to fob off text-chat-only services as state-of-the-art high-tech learning platforms. Some say “The jury is out on VoIP” or “You don’t need voice to explain problems because things like math are the ‘language of symbols’ and you don’t need a second ‘language’ to understand, explain and solve those kinds of problems.” This is rubbish! They say this because they can’t support voice! That, and they juggle 3-5 students at a time with text chat while a voice conversation is geared around one-on-one tutoring.

Many students type slowly. They have a question but they are hunting and pecking their way to ask it. And they wait for their tutor to type an answer – then they have to read that answer. Or was that the answer to the previous thing the student typed? Of course if you are getting tutored in a library or other setting where talking is not allowed, a text-chat service makes sense.

But if voice is possible, it makes no sense to limit the interaction to typing. Speaking is five times faster than typing for most. Students quickly say what they don’t understand and explain what they’re thinking. Voice is best!

Voice chat is easy, reliable, and uses inexpensive tools such as a head-set with built in microphone ($16-35). And if for some reason VoIP isn’t working, switch to an alternate VoIP tool. If all else fails and there’s no VoIP platform that’s working? Then you suffer like in the “old days” and use text chat!

Have you had a chance to compare voice-based tutoring to text-chat tutoring?

I welcome your thoughts and comments.
John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Further Thoughts on Textbooks: How did they get so big and what can we do about it?

People complain about the price of textbooks. Rising textbook prices diminish the affordability and availability of “Education for all.” I was pleased to receive emails responding to my first blog on textbooks.

Dan Rinn at Cengage Learning wrote that many factors have caused higher production costs for textbook makers and these costs result in higher bookstore prices. Dan pointed out Cengage’s ichapters.com provides lower cost digital access to textbook materials and is one way his company is addressing the high cost of textbooks.

How did textbook prices get so high? Art Bardige in his book New Physical Ideas Are Here Needed describes what happened in the textbook industry over the last 20+ years.

In the 1980’s elementary textbook publishers made most of their money from “consumable” workbooks sold each year for each new class of students, not the textbooks. In college, students were likely to keep their textbooks for their personal library so publishers sold new books to each class.

But in elementary schools, workbooks went out of fashion and out of budget around the same time schools could easily copy materials with high speed copiers. Profit from workbooks took a dive. Publishers added material to books for obscure state standards to win state adoptions and began making books more colorful and bigger.

In college, book prices reached the point where students could no longer justify keeping old class textbooks for their library so publishers started making new, bigger editions every year or two -- older editions were obsolete.

Bigger books means higher development, production, shipping, and warehousing costs to the publisher and higher costs to schools and students. The typical textbook today can be 4 times larger than the textbook 20-30 years ago.

What can we do to stop textbook bloat? Seven years ago I worked with the formation of a portfolio company called Classwell Learning. Classwell deliverd online assessments to identify a student's skill gaps and let the teacher select supplementary materials for each individual student under a single school or district subscription fee. The teacher clicked a button and a colorful, personalized workbook printed at the local Kinko’s. Each student had only the explanations, examples, and problems he or she needed.

This seemed like a great idea. But like other innovative ideas, it seems to have gotten acquired, incorporated and then diluted or forgotten. It was ahead of its time. Can we catch up now?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

No More Pencils – No More Books!

I was stunned. I was at the bookstore with my son to buy his college textbooks and was aghast that several of them cost more than $100 each! Why haven’t textbooks gotten smaller, lighter and cheaper over time the way computers and so many other things have done? And if textbooks have gotten more expensive, have they gotten better?

When I was in high school there were some math concepts I just didn’t “get.” My mother arranged for my teacher to tutor me after school. Within a month my tutor filled in those critical skill gaps and I finally “got it.” I could apply these skills in new areas – from algebra to physics, to chemistry, stats, etc. I was really unstoppable once I had this solid foundation.

What magic textbook did my tutor use? He didn’t use any textbook at all. He had a good sense of what I was supposed to know at that grade and he gave me some problems to figure out if I knew how to do those things. If I didn’t, he worked through the steps so I knew what to do.

Are textbooks better than other tools? In the last few years I have seen engaging software tools and resources that take learning to a whole new level. Simulations, animations and videos bring things to life in ways printed materials can’t.

While my math textbook showed me a few examples while modern day simulation tools let a student create an infinite number of their own examples and scenarios..

Should children continue to use textbooks? It’ss definitely easier to hand out a book and know each student can access the material at home, on the bus, in the library and the classroom without specialized equipment, connectivity or power. It’s nice to know exactly what each student is looking at on a particular page.

But can we reach a state where no one needs pencil and paper and instead, interactive computer-based tools bring fresher information with up-to-the-second corrections, unlimited examples and a sense of control? A book can’t learn what you’ve done and make recommendations for what you need to do next. A learning management system can.

Can we usher in a world of “no more pencils, no more books?” What are the advantages of a textbook? Do you think there’s a better way? Is there a way to implement this better way? I welcome your ideas and feedback.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

How To Pick the Perfect Puppy: Is There a "Pop-test" for Students?

I love dogs. Well, I love good dogs – ones that are good defenders but not aggressive. They like to play, but know when it’s time to relax. Oh. And one that doesn’t tell a burglar where all the good stuff is in the house for the price of a pat and a scratch!

So how do you pick the perfect puppy? I have had good luck with my own K9 SAT, also known as the “Pop-test.” Take a brown paper sack, fill it with air and close the opening with your fist, then smack it down into the palm of your hand to make a huge popping noise.

The results are usually that the puppy that passes out won’t hold up to the rigors of yard patrol, visitors and the occasional dropped dish. Ones that bite the bag (and the hand holding it) are predictably unpredictable -- better to stay clear of those. Ones that don’t notice could be deaf or too much of a slug. But the ones that jump up inquisitively and want to check it out are the kinds of pups that can make good dogs.

Is there a “Pop-test” for children? What about high-stakes tests like the SAT? Is this a Pop-test that can accurately determine which college should accept a student? In many parts of the world, high stakes tests determine completely where a child can go to school . If there are 351 openings in the class and you scored 349th, you’re in! If you scored 352nd from the top on the test, you’re out of luck.

In the US however, college admission is more complex. Many colleges take into consideration high SAT scores, exemplary grades, letters of reference, athletics, community service and special circumstances. With all those factors, it’s hard to imagine how a school can make the best overall choices regarding incoming students.

Seniors in high school may be surprised (and a bit concerned) to see the lines on college applications requesting information on activities, groups, volunteerism, sports, etc. It would be too late do a project, recast grades for the last few years or try out for the football team at this point.

About the only thing the student can likely improve is his or her SAT or ACT test. Students may think “I’ve been through high school so I’m naturally ready for the SAT.” Wrong. Or, “You can’t prepare for a test like that.” Wrong again.

Knowing even just a few things about these tests can help students better their scores. And regardless of the debate over the fairness of such tests, a better score can only help.

I read a recent article in Money magazine that chided parents for spending money on SAT and ACT prep courses, college application counseling and other services. But if you’re a puppy in the basket, do you want to run the wrong way or do the wrong thing when you get the Pop-test? It's best to figure out how to improve your chances of getting picked to be in a good home.

POP!

I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Online Dating & Tutoring

I was at a conference recently and during a session on viral marketing, one of the panelists talked about the value of community-building – how beneficial it is to attract people to your site and motivate those loyal members to invite others. This is the key to the success of internet powerhouses like FaceBook and MySpace.

The panelist then cited the dichotomy of online dating sites. They are popular and used by many people who value the service, but those same people rarely tell their friends they are on the site. These sites may have loyal fans but those fans aren’t inclined to tell people they use the product or how well the service has worked for them.

As I listened, it struck me how many parents who have been using tutoring for their children for years do the same thing. Like online dating, tutoring is something people find worthwhile but they don’t tell anyone they are using it. Why is that? Why the “tutor-but-don’t-tell” practice? Are people embarrassed their children need help?

Tutoring is a sensible resource for all students – those who are struggling, the ones who are keeping up and students who want to get ahead. But some parents may feel there is a stigma attached to tutoring. The reality is, those parents are acting in their child’s best interest. Tutoring empowers children by helping them overcome educational obstacles. So why did my friends not want to tell anyone they were getting tutoring for their kids?

Or could they be trying to get a competitive edge for their kids? Friends are friends, but if your kid is competing with the neighbor’s kid for admission to the local university, I suppose there’s some logic to it. You would think though that kids who are in the same school, who have the same teachers, perhaps go to the same orthodontist, could each use tutoring to improve their situation.

If you’ve seen kids who were struggling and saw the effect it had on their self-esteem, then saw the effect that tutoring and the subsequent improvement had on them, you would agree that individualized help and attention is essential. I struggled with some key concepts in math and algebra, received tutoring and it made all the difference. Nothing is better than the smile on the face of a child who once struggled, and is now proud of their grades and accomplishments. You know that every child deserves tutoring.

Isn’t the world a better place if more students learn what they are supposed to and leave school as capable, skilled, productive young adults? Isn’t it better for society to make resources available to everyone which are proven effective?

I welcome your thoughts.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com