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Embedded tutoring is a high-impact practice that can improve student outcomes in gateway courses. A course redesign process at Sam Houston University has seen improved passing rates as faculty members embed tutoring into their courses.
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Tutoring is a high-impact practice that can help students better engage with course material and improve study skills, but not all learners engage with on-campus tutoring services.
Campus leaders at Sam Houston State University in Texas launched a course redesign pilot in 2021 that increased offerings for embedded peer tutors.
Over the past three years, faculty members have seen students use tutoring services more frequently, along with decreased failure rates in gateway courses and a heightened culture of innovation in course redesigns.
The background: SHSU’s Academic Success Center (ASC) has offered peer tutoring for several years, but a five-year, $2.2 million Department of Education Strengthening Institutional Partnerships grant helped scale efforts. In addition to redesigning high-DFW courses, grant funding has been applied to internship and career-readiness work and a zero-credit academic recovery course.
Now, five courses with a failure rate of 25 percent or greater are selected each year to undergo a redesign.
“As part of this process, faculty are introduced to the various tutoring and facilitated study sessions available, including the embedded tutor program,” says Madison Seagraves, assistant director of tutoring at the Academic Success Center.
The course redesign program, run by the Teaching and Learning Center, has four key principles: collaboration, communication, flexibility and culture. SHSU strives to create an environment of mutual respect and understanding between academic support staff and faculty members, so “gone are the days of feeling like being invited to redesign a course is a matter of being on the naughty list,” says Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, director of the Teaching and Learning Center at SHSU.
Encouraging embedded tutoring wasn’t a direct goal of course redesigns, but it is one low-resource intervention that has demonstrated impact on student success.
The tutors are undergraduate and graduate student employees who serve as liaisons between the support office and classes, sending weekly communications encouraging learners in the courses to attend one-on-one tutoring sessions, small group discussions or study sessions.
Most faculty members identify students who would make competent tutors, who are then hired by the ASC. Tutors are trained each term on classroom engagement, the tutoring cycle and mandatory safety practices, and they receive continual development at staff meetings.
Put into practice: Each example of embedded tutoring looks a little different, with various faculty from a variety of disciplines engaging in the course redesign, Seagraves explains.
A group of faculty who teach U.S. history is piloting a screener test in courses, delivered in the first week to gauge students’ learning, which will inform tutors’ work throughout the semester to provide targeted study skill review sessions.
A chemistry course incorporated into class time weekly “power hours,” led by embedded tutors who review course content in a group setting. Some classes offer individual embedded tutoring in the classroom space or in the ASC.
“In all cases, one thing we’ve found is that by embedding the tutors in the classroom, we increase their opportunities to serve students and their credibility with those they aim to help, including the faculty teaching the courses,” Seagraves says.
The impact: Of the redesigned classes since the grant period started, 100 percent have incorporated some form of embedded or aligned peer tutoring. “When the data shows that it helps students, word spreads,” Mitchell-Yellin says.
This has resulted in a direct correlation with higher student participation. In general chemistry, for example, 45 percent of students participated in some kind of academic support service outside of class, compared to 24 percent before the pilot.
Across courses, failure rates have dropped three percentage points over the first two years after completing a redesign. One course, biology for nonmajors, saw a 19-point year-over-year drop in failure rates from spring 2023 to spring 2024.
After ACCT 2301: Principles of Financial Accounting was redesigned, the portion of students passing the course increased four points from fall 2021 to fall 2022, and that grew an additional nine percentage points between fall 2022 and fall 2023. Similarly, Contemporary Biology saw passing rates increase eight points from fall 2022 to fall 2023 and then 19 points from spring 2023 to spring 2024.
Another benefit of the program has been normalized use of tutoring services and academic support resources, as students attend tutoring and study sessions as a class cohort while learning from a near peer who demonstrates care and dedication.
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