All U.S. Military Children Get Online Tutoring for Free

To support U.S. military children with their schoolwork, online tutoring from Tutor.com is now available to them for free. This is a beneficial resource that allows military children to get help with homework, studying and other coursework from a professional tutor anytime they need it, as the service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Children of Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force active-duty servicemembers, National Guard and reserve personnel on active duty in a deployed status, and Defense Department civilians in a deployed status are eligible to participate. If you have any of these students in your school, they can access Tutor.com at www.tutor.com/military.

How Online Tutoring Works

Unlike face-to-face tutoring, which puts heavy scheduling and transportation burdens on students and their parents, online tutoring services allow students to meet with their tutor anytime, from any computer, without ever making an appointment.

Students typically work with their tutor for 20-30 minutes and use that time to focus on a specific problem or issue on which the student has been working. The spontaneous nature of online tutoring means that students are able to get help the moment they need it, before frustration sets in that causes many students to abandon the problem.

Online tutoring sessions are conducted in an “online classroom” where students and tutors work through problems using an instant messenger-like text chat and a shared whiteboard. The most advanced online classrooms offer features like multiple whiteboards, graphing tools and the ability to share files and web pages back and forth. A few online tutoring services even record the entire session so students, parents and teachers can review the session at any time.

Online Tutoring Improves Homework Completion

The most frequent application of online tutoring is to support daily homework completion. Millions of students get stuck on a key concept while working on homework and don't have reliable access to high quality help.

Repeated failure to complete homework assignments can quickly cause students to fall behind—leading them down a path to a bad test score or course grade. Online tutoring offers students access to help at the exact moment when they get stuck, and a way to break the cycle of missed concepts and homework assignments.

Online Tutoring Supports Differentiated Instruction

Online tutoring is a one-to-one learning experience that allows for truly differentiated instruction. In anonymous online tutoring sessions, students are not shy about telling their tutors exactly how they need information to be presented. Comments like: “I need to see an example of graphing a quadratic; and I want to put this in chart form" are commonly seen in session transcripts.

Online Tutoring Supports College Readiness

Students who have regular access to online tutoring and homework help programs report higher levels of confidence that may lead to students enrolling in more challenging coursework. Many states see improving student enrollment in higher-level mathematics and science courses as a critical component of their overall college readiness plans.

Online tutoring and homework help programs offer schools a remarkably effective way to provide key academic support to their students. Online tutoring gives students access to help at the critical moment it is needed, so they can go to school the next day, ready to learn.

Tutor.com is an AASA School Solutions partner and has negotiated a special discount for AASA members. To learn more about Tutor.com, contact Bart Epstein, Senior Vice President, at bepstein@tutor.com or by phone at (703) 486-0284.

Return to the AASA Toolkit: Supporting the Military Child.