High Leverage Tutor Moves

Some decisions matter more than others

Certain moments in sports are “high-leverage”: a break point in the fifth set of tennis; a free throw in the final seconds of a basketball game; a fourth down in the last minute of a football game. The actions in those moments are common – ripping a forehand winner, making a 15-foot shot, completing a pass – but they have an outsized impact on the result of the game.

These moments exist in tutoring also. They may not take a lot of time, and they may seem routine, but they impact the outcome more than other moments.

Choosing good tests.

Two students might produce the same quantity and quality of work, but if one student is working with official practice tests and the other is working with outdated or poorly written tests, the first student will improve more quickly. This decision impacts dozens of hours of student work, but it only takes a moment of the tutor’s time early in the process.

Assigning the right amount of homework.

This is a quick decision I make every week. If I can get a student to do more good work, he’ll improve more quickly. Three hours of great homework are better than one.

Of course, I can’t assign 20 hours of homework. He almost certainly wouldn’t do all of it. He would most likely do part of it poorly, thus getting very little out of the assignment while simultaneously wasting those materials. (For example, if a student answers half of the questions in a practice test, I won’t ever get a useful score prediction from it.)

The trick is to assign the maximum amount of homework that the student will do well.

Making the assignment clear.

If I don’t email the exact assignment I want, it probably won’t get done. Exercises will be forgotten. Tests will get partially finished (“Oh, you wanted the math also?”) It doesn’t matter if we discussed it during the session. Students are very busy and will choose the smallest assignment they can plausibly claim to have understood. But if you clearly list every item you want the student to complete (preferably in an email, with a parent cc’d), the homework completion rate will be much higher.

Checking on homework.

I took a lot of music lessons growing up. There was often a piece or exercise I didn’t particularly want to practice. If I thought it was optional, or that the teacher wouldn’t ask me about it, I’d probably skip it. But if I knew my teacher would spend even one minute of lesson time on that exercise, I would practice it all week. I didn’t want that awkward moment:

Zane (my teacher): “And how did that Arban’s etude go?”

Me (sheepishly): “Uhh, actually…”

It’s the same with test prep homework. “Optional” practice gets skipped, and so does anything you don’t ask about in the session.

Explaining the work.

Many students will do a fair amount of work for me just because I’m the teacher and I asked for it. But if they understand why I’m assigning things – why practice tests and redos and targeted practice will ultimately help them achieve their goals – they will do more and better work for a longer period of time. It’s the difference between trudging up a hill in the heat “because I guess that’s what we’re doing” and making that very same climb knowing that you’ll be sitting in the shade in 30 minutes drinking ice-cold water if you just keep up the pace.

This is not an exhaustive list – what moves would you include?