The methods reviewed in this book are obviously not the only methods. Especially as new techniques are invented and evaluated, they might not even remain among the best methods. Creative developments which work better are to be welcomed.
So from the mass of experience and research evidence on paired methods accumulated so far, what guidelines for future developments can be extracted?
In this section you will find an outline of design considerations and a checklist of "engineering" criteria likely to maximize success in developing new methods for parent and peer tutoring in literacy activities. The emphasis will remain on flexible, adaptable, low technology and inexpensive procedures which are easily transmitted. Those educators inventing their own local procedures may find this helpful.
Which aspects of the learning situation can we change to yield better learning? The METTLE acronym is a handy reminder of the six main aspects - Materials, Equipment, Task, Teaching behavior, Learning behavior and Environment.
These six aspects can be useful when analyzing classroom teaching, but here their relevance to the design of new paired learning methods is the focus. In the past teachers have often given undue emphasis to the importance of materials and equipment. Thus if a child was slow to learn, a "special" reading scheme or the introduction of expensive hardware such as computers was often the first recourse. In many less wealthy countries these options are not available, but their reading standards do not necessarily suffer as much as might be expected.
It is clear that tutoring systems which are dependent on specific educational materials or equipment are unlikely to truly empower - they will be too expensive, too restricted in scope and interest and always too like a welfare handout, risking creating dependency. The real challenge is to design tutoring systems which can be used by anyone, anywhere, with any material which is to hand and is of interest.
The whole point of paired learning activities is to empower the participants for their own purposes within their own natural environment - with all its constraints. The activities need to be feasible within the natural ecology of the family or the peer group and be capable of becoming embedded and self- sustaining there. They need to be engineered to enable pair to meet their own goals.
Paired learning activities should thus be more concerned with the nature of the Tasks involved. For maximum motivation and sense of personal ownership, some free choice from a range of options is always to be preferred. While methods for the pair to assess the difficulty of any task can be outlined, they should decide what they feel ready to attempt.
Most crucially of all, pairs need close guidance about what the tutor should do and what the tutee should do. The options and prescriptions should be carefully thought and worked through to ensure that tutor and tutee Behavior will interact successfully at every stage. This requires careful planning. Guidelines for organization and structuring successful interaction are outlined below.
What benefits is program expected to have? This is important for marketing, recruitment and subsequent evaluation purposes. The program must not interfere with the regular school curriculum, but should dovetail into it. It should also capitalize on the qualitative differences and advantages of paired learning tutoring as compared to school instruction. Keep the objectives modest for your first attempt. Do it small and well. Engineer in success for yourself!
Be clear with potential paired learning tutors and tutees (and yourself) about the minimum and maximum competence they will need in the curriculum area of tutoring. You need to have an pretty good idea about the feasible range of ability differential which will allow the pair to function effectively given the materials and interactive behaviors involved. If tutor competence is in doubt there must be reference to some acceptable master source to verify correctness, since over- learning of errors would leave the tutee worse off than when they started.
The methods you choose should be able to be used without major modification by participants of different ages and abilities with different life situations and needs. Flexibility also needs to accommodate different learning styles and different ambitions, in different physical environments. Clearly, the more you specify expensive and special materials, the less likely it is that these flexibility requirements will be met.
Likewise, your chosen methods should in the medium term enable and empower the pair to deploy a range of strategies, rather than strait-jacketing them into a single professionally preferred one. Activity should preferably be varied and multi- sensory, with switches between different styles of reading, listening, writing, speaking, and so on. Sustaining some novelty is important - we don't want to make it seem like boring homework!
Methods should involve responsive interactivity from both members of the pair. Otherwise one may soon decline into being merely a checker or a passive audience and motivation will soon evaporate. The method should promote a high rate of time on task, with an emphasis on keeping going. Maintaining the flow of activity increases the number of learning opportunities and helps stave off anxiety and boredom.
Likewise, both members of the pair must gain some intrinsic satisfaction from the activity. Pure altruism may be enough to get a pair started, but it will not sustain the interaction in the long run. Basically, it's got to be fun for both or all involved.
The method should avoid any authoritarian overtones. Try to build in democracy. The tutee should have a substantial degree of control over the process of tutoring and preferably over the curriculum content and materials as well. Tutee control of the amount of support offered by the tutor is especially valuable, since otherwise tutees may feel either unsupported or constantly interrupted. Tutees and tutors should be able to exercise choice and initiative - deprived of the opportunity, they will never develop the skills.
Should be simple, clear and above all specific. Instructions are probably best given as a series of sequential task analyzed steps in the first instance. Tutors like to be told what they have to do to be right, at least at the start. Once they have developed more confidence and understanding they will choose for themselves when to start extemporizing.
Most people dislike wordy educational philosophizing and vague and fuzzy open-ended statements. (Of course you will encounter some middle-class families to prefer to talk about it than actually do it!) Both tutor and tutee should be given very clear (interactive) job descriptions, since without this the process of tutoring can rapidly degenerate into a muddle. The provision of a simple visual map, chart or other cues to remind the pair of how it is all supposed to work may well be helpful.
Especially for those with learning disability or delay, the curriculum materials in use should be individualized to match the needs and interests. However, try to avoid ending up depriving them of any choice. Are the materials to be completely free choice, controlled choice from ranges of difficulty or precisely specified by the professionals, or some continuum of these possibilities as the tutoring develops?
Are the materials required actually available and easy for regular access by pairs? Does the tutoring method adapt to progression on to increasingly difficult materials? Have you specified what the pair will need to have available by way of basic equipment (e.g. pen, paper, dictionary?) and ensured it will be available?
The tutee should not feel as if they are making many errors, since this is bad for morale. If this is not controlled via graded materials, careful accommodation by the tutor to the tutee's natural speed and style is necessary. The provision of swift but non-intrusive support from the helper must be a feature of the tutoring technique, without creating tutee dependency. Errors are potentially the major stress point in the tutoring relationship - but be alert to other possible causes of stress and fatigue in the system.
When an error is made, there should be swift feedback from the helper that this is the case. However, this feedback should not be so immediate that the tutee has no opportunity to detect the error for his or herself. Error signaling should be positive and minimally interruptive.
A swift, simple, specific and preferably consistently applicable error correction procedure must be clearly laid down. Tutees should be encouraged in training to see this as supportive. The procedure should draw minimum attention to the error. It should distract as little as possible from the main objective of the task in hand. There should also be a strong emphasis on self-checking and self-correction, both higher order skills which need to be fostered.
"Don't say don't" - strongly recommend positive error signaling, correction and other procedures which are incompatible with the negative and intrusive behaviors which might otherwise occur. It is ineffective to give a list of prohibited behaviors.
Be specific about the need for praise. Make recommendations about what to praise (especially self-correction and initiative-taking), how often to praise, how to praise (verbal and non-verbal aspects), and the need for variety and relevance to the task.
Deploy individual token or tangible rewards only if all else fails, since otherwise motivation and participation might well stop when the goodies run out. Some group acknowledgement of participation via badges, certificates, etc. might be valuable and acceptable, and is useful advertising. You need to manage the group ethos of your project to develop mutual support between participants - otherwise when you stop, they stop.
Emphasize that talk is essential in the learning process. It is not "resting" or a waste of time, if it relates to the activities at hand. It serves to promote and confirm full understanding by the participants and is "genuine work". It also helps avoid mechanical conformity to the surface requirements of the task by either member of the pair.
Ensure the method includes some demonstration of competence by the tutor, which may be imitated (or even improved upon) by the tutee. Too much reliance on verbal instruction will be ineffective. Tutors should also be encouraged to model more general desirable behaviors, such as enthusiasm for the activity.
Participant pairs will also serve as models for other pairs, and the project group should deliberately be kept in contact so that the social dynamic adds a further dimension to motivation. Remember the coordinating professional must model continuing enthusiasm for the program!
Training is essential, and should be done live with both members of the pair present. Don't just rely on handing out a leaflet or a video for home study - it doesn't work. Your training session should include verbal, visual and written information-giving (bilingual if necessary). It should also have a demonstration, immediate practice with a real live activity, feedback for participants about how they did and further individual coaching for those who are struggling.
Training pairs individually is very costly of professional time. Well organized group training can be just as effective, while also serving to develop group support and solidarity. You may need specially pre-selected materials or equipment to hand for the training meeting.
Specify an initial trial period and be very clear about the time costs for the pair should they decide to participate. Remember activity little and often will be most effective, especially with those with learning difficulties.
Give pairs a free choice about participation - there is no point trying to persuade or bully them. However, expect pairs to clearly contract in to participation. You need to know if they are in or out of the program - there is no halfway house. Thus participation is of course voluntary but needs to be seen as total and not optionally partial - otherwise the effect of your program will quickly become diluted.
Ensure there is mutual discussion between professionals and participants about effectiveness and proposed improvements by the end of the trial period. Even if all the participants say different things, it is important that they feel consulted. Discuss continuation options and seek contract renewal by participants, possibly in a range of alternative formats. At this point pairs should be increasingly confident and capable of devising their own adaptations and creating their own novelty, and should be increasingly ambitious.
Emphasize self-checking. Some simple form of self-recording is desirable, and both members of the pair should participate in this. Periodic checking of these records by the coordinating professional takes relatively little professional time but is very valuable in making everyone feel as if they are working together.
This may need to be supplemented in at least some cases by further individual enquiry of one or both members of the pair. If the time is available, direct observation of the pair in action, either in school or at their home, can be extremely revealing and diagnostically helpful. This can be done on an individual basis with a pair who are finding particular difficulty, or in a group setting at a more general "booster" meeting.
Turning from monitoring the process of paired learning activities to evaluating their products or outcomes, be clear as to the objectives of evaluation. There is little point in doing it for its own sake - what are you going to do with the results?
Feeding general data on their success back to the participants might well increase their longer term motivation. Publicizing the data might expand subsequent recruitment or attract additional funding. But how should you review to what extent the curriculum content of the activity has actually been mastered and retained in the longer term?
Criterion-referenced tests closely allied to the tutoring process are likely to give the most valid (and most impressive) results. However, a norm-referenced test in the same general area is a more stringent test of generalization of skills acquired and might be construed as more "objective" by outsiders. Obviously you could only use such measures with the full agreement of the participants, which may not always be forthcoming.
You might at least solicit subjective feedback from the participants on a consumer satisfaction basis. Any questionnaire or brief interview schedule will need to be designed carefully to ask very specific questions and avoid inbuilt positive bias. You will in any case benefit from the "grateful testimonials" effect, but try to defend yourself from any possible criticism of being "unscientific". Since you don't need a lot of extra work, also remember to make it easy to score and summarize!
Comparison or control groups of non-participants are great if you can get them. Do try and save a little spare energy to collect longer term follow-up data on at least a sub-sample, to check if there is any wash-out of gains made in the short term. However, also ensure the evaluation procedure does not overwhelm or stress the participants - or indeed yourself.
You will need to build in some means for continuing review, feedback and injection of further novelty and enthusiasm. Otherwise pairs will not automatically keep going and maintain the use of their skills. Again, the social dynamic of the group is important. You are likely also to need to consciously foster their broadening the use of these skills to different materials and contexts for new purposes. All of this will consolidate the progress made, build confidence and empower the pair still further.
When pairs have developed sufficient awareness of effective tutoring to begin to design their own systems, you know you have done a good job. As tutees themselves recruit a wider range of tutors, the tutee becomes even more central as quality controller of the tutoring process.
In peer tutoring programs, the raw material is always to hand (except for children who truant - but even they often turn up for their peer tutoring session). Parent tutoring or Family Literacy programs can have much larger recruitment problems, especially in disadvantaged areas.
Of course, some of those in need will remain unreachable, at least for now. Families who have not enjoyed a good relationship with school in the past will naturally be suspicious.
However, schools who can offer a failure-free method of known cost-effectiveness have inherent marketing advantages. They can say things like "come to school for 1 one-hour meeting and we will show you how at home in just 5 minutes a day for 5 days a week you can make your child a much better reader".
Furthermore, they can say this confident that experience and research back them up, confident that the first graduates of the program will spread the good news over the garden fences of the neighborhood, confident that once some momentum builds the problem may be meeting all the demand.
They can also say this knowing that while the major marketing thrust may be in terms of parents helping children, which is highly socially acceptable, once a family has been empowered all kinds of other tutoring arrangements will spring up, truly embodying the full concept of paired learning.
In many cases the school will never know about these - they will involve that vast majority of low literacy adults who hide their problem away and will never present themselves for a regular adult class. Paired learning activities are a highly potent means of involving disaffected low literacy adults. For many reading with their child is the only way of socially legitimizing reading books of low readability and infantile content. For many, "helping" their child is their only motivation to read.
However, we will never reach all the families we would wish. Paradoxically, a school operating a successful parent tutored paired learning program can place the most disadvantaged children who are left out in a still worse position relative to those who are participating in the program. This is of course where peer tutoring in school comes to the rescue.
Many teachers feel compelled to arrange alternative extra support for the most needy non-participant children, perhaps via volunteer adults coming into school or by giving up their own recess times to act as surrogate parents. Where any non- professionals are deployed as tutors, all the engineering considerations listed above apply. However, the organizational complexity of fixing up a reliable rota of substitute parents who are available often enough to actually make a difference to the child's attainment should not be underestimated. The teacher's own time is much too valuable to be used in this way.
Peer tutoring is the obvious answer. If appropriate methods are deployed, both tutees and tutors gain in attainment - the tutors "learning by teaching".
With an understanding of the basic principles of engineering for paired learning, you can begin to design projects and programs specifically tailored to your own neighborhood and classroom circumstances.