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School district contracts with BrainFuse for tutoring services

A student is wrapping up homework before bedtime.

He has a math problem he doesn’t understand.

There is no one around to ask — or no one who can help with that particular problem.

And math is first thing in the morning.

It’s not too late to get some help.

Warren County School District has contracted with BrainFuse to provide online tutoring services.

“This is 24/7,” district Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Eric Mineweaser said. “They can get on in the morning, at night, weekends.”

Students log in to their accounts through ClassLink or via the district website – www.wcsdpa.org – by clicking on BrainFuse under the ‘for students’ tab and log in with their usual information.

Once logged in, students can select any of hundreds of options that provide flash cards, samples, videos, and other sources.

“The two that they’re going to use the most are Live Help and Writing Lab,” Mineweaser said.

At Live Help, students can select a subject and chat with a tutor. They can upload a picture of the question. They can write or draw the problem. As a sample, Mineweaser pulled in a coordinate plane – Live Help had that available as a standard element – and asked for help finding the slope of a line.

The tutor instructed him that he needed to know two points on the given line and guided him through each step of the problem.

“They’re not just going to do the problem for you,” Mineweaser said.

Students can schedule private study rooms and work together in the system, he said.

At the Writing Lab, you can submit a paper,” he said. “They ask you a couple questions, then you upload. They get back to you within 24 hours.”

There are options for academic essay, college admittance essay, and others.

The questions tell the tutor where in particular to look – introduction, thesis, grammar, and conclusion are some of the possible areas – and evaluates the work. “They give you all kinds of feedback,” Mineweaser said.

In the Skill Surfer area, students will find practice tests, sample problems, videos, flash cards, and many other tools.

BrainFuse provides a recording of each session – including the Live Help – so students can go back to them as needed.

The district has signed up for 1,000 hours of BrainFuse tutoring. Live Help is measured directly. If a student is on for three minutes, that counts three minutes against the district’s time. A Writing Lab request counts as 35 minutes, regardless of the assignment. Skill Surfer doesn’t count against the time bank at all.

Mineweaser receives feedback from BrainFuse about the number of users, when they are online, and what classes the users are in.

While the district has contracted for an initial 1,000 hours, administrators are not hoping to hold a line there. “This is to help kids,” Mineweaser said. “It’s live now. It’s ready to go. Use it, use it, use it.”

“There are so many times a student is home at night and they need help,” he said. “It’s another tool if they want to get on there and use this.”

The district is using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund grant dollars for the program.

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