City College of San Francisco:
Embedded Tutoring Program

The Beginning

Visiting the City College of San Francisco English Lab tutors correlates with higher grades and pass rates. CCSF looked at the success of students who made frequent use of the school’s tutoring program, and then at which equity populations were struggling the most in transfer-level English, and found that they often weren’t the same population. The embedded tutoring program brings tutors to the students who need them the most but who are less likely to visit on their own.

The goals of the CCSF English Department Embedded Tutoring Program are to assist students, particularly underrepresented minority students, basic skills students, and students who are struggling, to stay in their courses, increase their independence and confidence, meet the SLOs of their courses, pass the courses, and persist to the completion of their goals.

CCSF decided to build upon the extant tutoring program for basic skills, expanding it to integrate tutors into 6-unit transfer 1A + 1AS English courses, and investing in professional development for the team of tutors.

Implementation

CCSF’s Equity-funded program expanded existing tutoring, hiring 12 part-time professional tutors, and investing in their professional development. Tutors become student mentors and supplemental instructors. They participate in:

• Ongoing professional development

  • Content-specific workshops

  • Cultural awareness and communication series

  • Time management, tutor narrative and value proposition for resumes and LinkedIn, and various college success workshops

• Collaboration, communication and feedback loop with instructors

  • Paid Student Orientation Training at the beginning of the semester

  • Classroom Presentations

  • Open LAD department meetings

  • Visits, guest speakers, tours, and activities with other departments

Student Experience

When asked about how the tutoring program helped them, students said:

Improved my writing
75%

Improved my reading comprehension
40%

Improved my study skills
38%

Helped me find other resources on campus
30%

Early Outcomes

Initial outcomes have been strong, with a dramatic increase in success for traditionally marginalized students. The program helps close the achievement gap.

As a result of tutoring, students report feeling greater confidence and less anxiety: 82% of tutored students believed they would succeed in their classes; 70% applied tutor-taught test-taking strategies to academic coursework outside of English; and 74% learned how to use multiple resources outside of English.

The embedded tutoring program not only helps students succeed in English, but provides benefits that help them in other courses as well.