With an eye on both improving scheduling ease and retaining tutors, Iowa State's undergraduate tutoring program is using a new system this year. Knack is a national tutoring platform that features an online scheduling app but each school's peer tutors. Universities -- about a hundred so far -- are billed for students served to keep tutoring sessions free for students.
Adriana Gonzalez-Elliott, who leads the Academic Success Center, said her team tweaked Iowa State's in-house program over the last several years in response to student preferences.
"We improved our match student-to-tutor rate for high-request courses and increased the pay for tutors to $15 per hour," she said, "but in surveys we conducted, the message from undergraduates was that they really want an individualized experience and they get to set the terms."
What's different
The Knack platform lets students request individual or small group sessions, in person or online. Student and tutor also get to set the length of a tutoring session. The previous program featured small group, in-person options only, which made it more challenging to schedule sessions among a tutor and two to five students.
Gonzalez-Elliott said she's approaching this year as a pilot.
"We want to take tutoring to the next level. We also want to make sure this is a good fit for Iowa State and for our students," she said.
This fall, 91 Iowa State courses are included in the service offered through Knack. All students in all sections of those courses will have access to Knack. Gonzalez-Elliott said she reviewed two years of student data to identify the courses. Each had at least five requests for tutoring assistance each term. Students in the selected courses any term -- fall, winter, spring, summer -- may seek unlimited tutoring through Knack. In the previous Iowa State system, undergraduates could request tutoring help in any course, a service pledge that sometimes proved difficult to fill.
Serving all students
Iowa State's course catalog is loaded into Knack, which allows students to request help in a course outside of the current semester's selected courses. Knack tracks those requests and offers Iowa State the flexibility to, mid-semester, add a course with a significant number of tutoring requests.
"If students feel they need tutoring 'right now' but don't see their course on the list, they should come in and talk to us," she said. "Let's have a conversation about where you're struggling.
"Sometimes it is about the course content, sometimes it's about time management or study skills. We have other resources at Iowa State, depending on what the issue is," she added.
The transparency about courses served, price and ease of scheduling may encourage more students to seek tutoring help. Gonzalez-Elliott said that across the board, other universities who use Knack tutoring reported after the first year that 50% of the students they served hadn't sought tutoring services previously.
"If we're focusing on access and equity and reaching our students where they're at, this is an opportunity to improve that," she said.
Benefits to tutors
As in the previous program, Knack tutors are high-achieving Iowa State students who have taken the course and achieved a B grade or higher. They complete a two-hour Knack training course online and earn $15/hour, paid by Knack. Similar to, say Uber Eats food delivery, they'll self-select tutoring requests at times they can accommodate. Tutors who respond quickly get the assignments -- but they're limited to 15 hours of tutoring per week.
If no peer tutor picks up a student's request, Knack has professional tutors who can fill requests and work with Iowa State students.
Funding for Knack tutoring comes from the dean of students office and a strategic plan initial investment (2022) focused on improving student retention and graduation rates.
