Tutoring: Create a Safe Space for Learning

Building a supportive and student-centered tutoring environment helps tutors and students create a space where meaningful learning can occur. By focusing on the student, rather than solely on academic content, the tone of the tutoring session shifts from “What don’t you understand?” to “How can I support your learning?” This approach prioritizes the individual needs of the student, fostering a space where they feel empowered to take ownership of their learning.

In recent years, disruptions in education have highlighted the importance of addressing more than just academic gaps. Students benefit from developing essential skills such as self-regulation, goal-setting, effective communication, and responsible decision-making. These skills not only help students manage challenges but also strengthen their ability to stay focused, persevere through tasks, and advocate for their own learning needs.

Integrating strategies that build these executive function and self-management skills into tutoring sessions can lead to improved academic outcomes and a stronger sense of personal achievement. Focusing on skills like problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, and self-motivation helps students become more independent learners and prepares them for long-term success.

Applying executive function to tutoring supports students in developing:

• Self-Awareness: Recognizing strengths and understanding academic areas of need
• Self-Management: Utilizing organizational and goal-setting skills to manage stress
• Social Awareness: Navigating and influencing their environment and respecting others
• Relationship Skills: Effectively communicating and collaborating in an array of settings
• Responsible Decision-Making: Using inquiry to thoughtfully identify and approach challenges

Establishing a Student-Centered and Safe Space for Learning

Learning is grounded in relationships. Creating a student-centered learning environment through intentional strategies that promote communication, collaboration, and self-regulation is essential to successful tutoring. This environment is fostered when the tutor and student work together to identify academic needs, engage with positivity and respect, and openly communicate their understanding. When strong rapport is built between students and tutors, students feel more comfortable taking academic risks, asking questions, and actively seeking the support they need to succeed.

To connect with students on both an academic and personal level, consider the following strategies to develop a student-centered and safe tutoring space:

• Establish a safe environment. Establish norms for the tutoring sessions in collaboration with students. What are the agreed-upon expectations? How will each person contribute and participate? Consider creating a social contract for group tutoring. Knowing what to expect and how to behave makes tutors and students feel safe.

• Facilitate introductions and routines. Getting to know students, and having them get to know their tutors and each other, will help establish relational capacity and a safe learning space. Consider mixing up the following introductions and routines to start off each tutoring session:

1. 1. • Respond to a question of the day, such as, “What is your favorite _____?”
      • Make a prediction about a neutral topic.
      • Ask a “Would you rather…?” question. (“Would you rather _____ or _____?”)
      • Reply to a silly prompt to make fun connections. (“If I were a superhero, I’d want to be _____.”)
      • Ask, “What is one high or low since our last tutoring session?”
      • Implement a wellness check-in or an executive function survey using an emotions chart or mood meter. Examples may be found online. 
      • Respond as a character in a story.
      • Tell a telephone story.
      • Share something for which you are grateful.
      • Check in with students with a “Fist-to-Five,” where they can share how they are feeling by showing a fist, one, two, three, four, or five fingers. A fist represents a very low feeling, while a five shows that they are feeling great.

• Use resources to support the process. Provide resources, such as language scripts, to help guide students as they get started with tutoring. The Heart and Brain Feedback protocol is a great resource to support tutors in providing constructive feedback.

• Monitor who is doing the lifting. Is the tutor doing the majority of the talking? Who is holding the pencil or whiteboard marker? Each person should have an equal voice, and the student should lead the work. The person doing the work is the person doing the learning.

• Provide voice and choice. Look for opportunities for students to personalize their tutoring, such as flexible seating options, or to give feedback and support continuous improvement. Having some say in the process will make the tutor and the student feel respected.

• Create a space for celebrations. A physical or virtual bulletin board can be used to celebrate the academic and personal accomplishments of both students and tutors. This type of public recognition of achievement helps to develop a safe tutoring environment.
• Create micro-moments. Community building can happen in small chunks of time, even as short as a minute or two. Combine an academic activity with a personal connection. Students can work with a partner or as a small group. Have them introduce each other to the larger group before presenting their work.

A supportive and engaging learning environment needs to be intentionally cultivated and continuously maintained throughout the year. Consistent use of effective strategies, combined with new ideas from professional learning resources and educational networks, helps sustain this environment. Encourage students to share activities they’ve enjoyed in other settings and revisit tutoring norms together periodically to make adjustments as needed. Fostering skills like self-regulation, goal-setting, and effective communication during tutoring sessions not only strengthens academic growth but also enhances essential cognitive and behavioral skills that support long-term success.

AVID Connections

• AVID’s Four Stages of Building Relational Capacity: This resource provides a model that explores the Four Stages of Building Relational Capacity to assist educators in developing a caring and supportive community that uplifts all members.
• Creating a Social Contract: This resource provides instructions for developing a sense of relational capacity and group buy-in through collaboration in creating a social contract.
• Academic Language Scripts: This resource provides academic language scripts to support the academic conversation during tutorial as well as focused note-taking.