Realize Academic Success Through Tutoring (RASTT) MFCE’s Agile Learning Process Approach
My Favorite Charity Events (MFCE) Organization LLC’s Mathematics Tutoring Program was developed to assist children improve their academic performance in math, improve the prior year’s Standards of Learning (SOL) assessment scores, improve study and learning skills, and to improve their attitude towards learning and school. We aim to provide encouragement and tools to reduce learning frustration, improve their self-esteem, make learning fun, and help them become superstar students.
MFCE has developed an agile learning process called Realize Academic Success Through Tutoring (RASTT). RASTT is based on the SMART Goals process of developing Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based goals as part of its framework. RASTT presents and teaches mathematical fundamentals in 2 week learning rallies with continued assessments and an individual assessment report provided to the student’s teacher and parents at the end of the rally. MFCE provides tutoring 3 days a week in one-hour sessions providing for a six-hour learning rally.
The RASTT process includes group and one-on-one learning in a structured 1-hour session. The process is flexible and allows for rallies to be established for students at different points in their academic journey and also allows for a lengthier rally for more complex math subjects, while maintaining the standardized methodology of RASTT. Students meet as a group at the beginning of the rally session and are presented with the rally’s curriculum, objectives, and expectations for the rally. Each rally session starts with an overview and demonstration of the lesson that will be taught in that session. Students then break into one-on-one sessions with their tutor to work on their lesson using teaching methods used by the school and tools that provide for demonstration and reinforcement of the lesson. All students come together at the end of the session for a review, a summarized reinforcement of the lesson taught.
Lesson plans are developed prior to each 2-week rally with an overall objective for the rally, lessons for each session, identification of the tutor for each child, take home practice worksheets and any tools that will be used in the session. The lesson plans are built on a standardized process of:
Demonstrate
Teach
Review
RASTT doesn’t solve problems for the student, but instead guides them. Our tutors work with the students to provide a foundation through demonstration and teaching to help each child learn to solve the math problem with a follow-up review to reinforce the solution process.
SMART provides a clear goal-setting framework that provides the structure for the MFCE’s RASTT process. Below are the MFCE’s SMART goal criterion:
Specific: The specific curriculum, objectives and expectations for each rally are clearly stated.
Measurable: Continual assessment with end-of-rally individual assessment reports.
Attainable: Lessons are developed to fit the needs and abilities of the students and to enhance academic performance and build self-esteem.
Relevant: Lesson Plans are developed to support improvement in the specific weakness areas identified by the teacher or Mathematics Specialist.
Time-based: RASTT is a consistent 2 week learning rally process. One of the goals of the MFCE tutoring program is to improve on the prior year’s Standards of Learning Assessment scores which are administered at the end of the school year.
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Mr. Turner has worked as an educator for over a decade, first as a full-time Kaplan tutor before shifting into the public-school setting. Mr. Turner originally provided New York City public schools with SAT and ACT tutoring programs on behalf of Kaplan test prep. Since moving to Virginia Beach with his wife and daughter in 2015, Mr. Turner has taught, tutored, and coached students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. He has provided Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy to students with autism ranging in ages from 3-16. As a special education teacher with Norfolk Public Schools, he taught a group of 3rd and 4th grade students with Emotional Disabilities. Through the coordinated support of families, co-teachers, and supportive administration, his team of students (dubbed the “SuperDolphins”) achieved a collective SOL pass rate of over 80 percent. Mr. Turner currently works as a Special Education teacher at Green Run High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and believes strongly that relationship-building and play-based learning are the foundations of academic recovery and long-term success.