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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter April 9, 2016

An evaluation of Crescent School vLearning – an online peer-tutoring program

  • Ronald Chow EMAIL logo and Jonathan Libby

Abstract

Tutoring is often a useful supplement to traditional classroom teaching in Canada. Cross-age tutoring, which involves a tutor a few years older than a tutee, has been reported to be more effective than same-age tutoring, as it promotes responsibility, empowerment and academic performance. However, the current same-age classroom teaching may act as a barrier to cross-age tutoring because the latter requires plenty of coordination, preparation and organization. At Crescent School, an all-boys independent school in Toronto, Canada, a pilot online cross-age peer-tutoring program was launched in September 2014, named Crescent School vLearning. The purpose of this study was to formally assess the program, and quantitatively gauge its success. Thirty-six questions were randomly selected from the vLearning website, examined for response time and response quality as assessed by students and teachers. The fast response times as well as the high-quality of responses have resulted in the program gaining traction in the school. As vLearning continues to catch-on with students, the team of Upper School tutors will soon need to be expanded to accommodate the increasing volume of questions.

Acknowledgments:

We would like to thank the faculty of Crescent School, namely Jennifer Ferguson, for their support and assistance in the program and its evaluation. Also, we thank all tutors, tutees and administrators of vLearning for contributing to the program.

References

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Received: 2016-1-23
Accepted: 2016-2-20
Published Online: 2016-4-9
Published in Print: 2017-2-1

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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