Nonprofit

Learn To Be Foundation

  • 20,000 one-on-one tutoring requests and over 11,000 hours of free tutoring
  • Over 600 tutors in 49 states
  • Partnerships in Los Angeles: Dorris Place Elementary, School On Wheels, UCLA Community School, Sixth Avenue Elementary, Pio Pico Elementary
  • Partnerships around the nation: Fox Tech High School (Texas), Say Yes (New York), PS161 (New York), Harmony Elementary (Texas), Clintondale High School (Michigan), Manistee High School (Michigan)
  • Launched Hulu Commercial in September of 2009
  • 17 Learn To Be University Chapters: Boston University, Cornell University, Emory University, Harvard University, Northwestern University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, Texas A&M University, University of Arizona, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at San Diego, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at Dallas, Wellesley College, University of Michigan
  • Winner of Harvard Business School Social Entrepreneurship Award
  • Winner of Bannerman Foundation Award
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1 Submitted Idea

  • 2013 Grants Challenge

    Crowdsourcing Education To Provide Free Oneonone Online Tutoring For Underserved Communities

    PROJECT SUMMARY

    • Aim to improve the current Learn To Be model of free, one-on-one, online tutoring for underserved communities
    • Implement an Adaptive and Persistent Problem Module (APPM) for students and integrate it into online classroom
    • Provide practice problems in almost any math, science and language arts topic
    • Track time needed for student to complete each problem
    • Create adaptive algorithm, in which problems get more difficult based on previous correct answers or easier based on previous incorrect answers and adapts to students’ academic needs
    • Store students’ answers in a database for future recall by tutors; different tutors will have access to same data for student so no ambiguity on what one tutor worked on with a student vs. another
    • Each one-on-one session can now be more specifically tailored to the needs of students, targeting exactly what the student needs help with and honing in on fundamental deficiencies

    PROJECT DETAILS

    Introduction to Learn To Be

    In an interview given to CNN in late 2011, Bill Gates stated that "one-on-one teaching is kind of that ideal that you would like to achieve where you see where they're [students are] confused, you see where they're [students are] bored and you're tuning what you say according to that."

    Since 2009, that ideal is exactly what the Learn To Be Foundation (LTB) has been offering to K-12 students in Los Angeles and around the nation. Through the use of a real-time virtual whiteboard with voice and webcam conferencing abilities, Learn To Be provides 100% free, online, one-on-one academic support to underserved students struggling in math, science, and language arts. In this time, we have recruited over 600 volunteer tutors and have enabled them to teach over 20,000 sessions for over 11,000 hours of instruction to our students.

    Imagine a tutor from Iowa, sitting at a cafe on a portable device, helping a homeless student at a Los Angeles shelter learn his multiplication facts through the LTB online platform. Or a college student in her dorm in Austin helping a student at an elementary school in LA learn how to read. This is what Learn To Be tutors have been doing since 2009. Our tutors are like-minded individuals who are part of a crowdsourcing solution to today’s education problems. Students no longer have one teacher but an army of them scattered across the nation, ready at a moments notice to help out in whatever way possible.

    But in an attempt to create an even more meaningful interaction between students and tutors we need to know what exactly students are struggling with, and as such we have proposed the following project:

    An Adaptive and Persistent Problem Module (APPM)
    Adaptive systems are those in which the questions presented to students adapt based on whether the previous question was answered correctly or not. So as students answer questions correctly, subsequent questions become increasingly difficult.

    And by persistent, we mean that all problems logged by a student will be forever stored for recall. This includes information regarding the correctness of the answer, all incorrect answers inputted before the correct answer was submitted, and how long it took the student to answer the problem correctly.

    By themselves, adaptive and persistent programs already exist. However, none have been integrated so extensively into the constructs of a live, one-on-one tutoring session. We want to implement our own APPM and integrate it into our online classroom.

    Not only does this practice help students to master academic material, but it also allows all tutors to have access to the same data for that student. So, if for example, a tutor was working with a student on fractions during an online tutoring session, he could assign the student problems using the APPM and then subsequent tutors would know exactly how many problems were solved by that student in the previous session, how many were answered correctly, and how long it took them to answer these questions. This would instantly improve the quality of the session because the tutor need not rely on only the student to diagnose problem areas.

    Ultimately, the goal is to close achievement gaps and this can be done when fundamental deficiencies in core subjects are addressed. And once we address these deficiencies, attitudes towards learning improve and students are able to thrive in school, leading to higher scores and ultimately to higher graduation rates.

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