By: Alex Perez
AirTutors is a new program that neuwirth is partnering with. Once you get into class you have to open your chromebook because the tutoring is online with an instructor, It kind of feels like zoom meetings all over again.
AirTutors is a new type of tutoring that takes place during AVID class to support students with an online mentor or tutor. In Airtutors you walk into class and log into your chromebook. After that you log into the actual AirTutors website. Once you're in, it's kind of like a zoom meeting layout and there's a button you press that lets you join a digital whiteboard where your tutor helps you with whatever topic you are doing. You are presented with a headset that lets you talk in case you have questions, you also have to have your camera on. From my experience I can say it's pretty easy because you just learn about on-level stuff or stuff that you have done in the past, I would also say that it's pretty helpful because I learned about things that I didn't know before. There’s different lessons that you do which makes it feel like an actual classroom.
11th graders this year were kind of used as test dummies to test out AirTutors to see how it is and how it impacts the students. Teachers and Administrators said that they would implement it into other grades if AirTutors goes well for 11th graders. 11th graders were given this tutoring program because our results from the I-Ready testing showed that more support would be helpful, so only a select few of juniors were chosen for this first trial. When I asked 11th grade math teacher Ms. Murrell why AirTutors was created she said this, “I don't really know why it was created but I know that there were fewer students who passed Math than English, and Alliance supported AirTutors to help students prepare for CAASPP and other things.” I also asked Ms Murrell if we are going to see AirTutors in the future and she said, “The goal is to add more students from different grade levels because it provides more support for everyone.”
Students I don't know if you are going to see this program in the future, but if you do just be prepared for another thing like zoom, and lets you control your learning a little more. It can be helpful if you put effort into it, and who knows, it might help you meet the standard on the CAASPP, which is a great thing.