Volunteer With Tutoring Plus

It only takes one hour a week!

Our committed volunteers help advance educational equity by offering free tutoring, mentoring, and enrichment programming for Cambridge students in grades 4–12.

We connect with youth by building relationships beyond homework and academic help. This can take shape through conversations about interests and hobbies, discussing short- and long-term goals, and/or sharing stories about various life experiences. Youth benefit from having an additional person in their lives who can serve as a role model, and our volunteers make an impact by offering consistent support and enthusiasm.

Tutoring Plus volunteers commit to at least one academic semester for 1 hour per week at their chosen program location. 

In-person volunteer opportunities are available from Monday–Thursday at our 6 program locations:

  • Fletcher Maynard Academy (225 Windsor Street, Cambridge, MA 02139): 6-7pm

  • Cambridge Street Upper School (840 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02141): 6-7pm

  • Fresh Pond Apartments (362 Rindge Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140): 6:15-7:15pm

  • Rindge Commons (402 Rindge Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140): 6-7pm

  • Finch Apartments (675 Concord Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138): 6-7pm

  • Community Art Center (119 Windsor Street, Cambridge, MA 02139): 5-6pm

Steps to Becoming a Volunteer

Volunteer Application

1.

Our application is the first step to becoming a Tutoring Plus volunteer. It is estimated to take 10 minutes.

CORI Check

2.

For our students’ safety, we run CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) checks on all prospective volunteers. You will be sent a document to sign via DocuSign after completing our application. You will need to provide a photo of a government-issued ID and the last 6 digits of your SSN.

Volunteer Handbook Quiz

3.

To get familiar with our policies, expectations, and structures, you will complete an open-book quiz using our Volunteer Handbook!

Matching Conference

4.

We will reach out to you to schedule a quick Matching Conference, so we can get to know you better! This allows us to thoughtfully match you with a student based on academic profiles and personality.

Confirm your Student Match!

5.

We will send you a Match Confirmation email with your student and program location information. After confirming, we will see you at Tutoring Plus!

EXPECTATIONS FOR VOLUNTEERS

Tutoring Plus encourages our volunteers to engage in activities separate from homework. We like to remind our volunteers to think of themselves as not only tutors, but also as mentors to our youth. For this purpose, we have other academic activities available, hold game nights, and are willing to help coordinate mentoring activities outside of tutoring time.

Volunteers Can Expect:

  • To receive individual match support on any issues or challenges you are facing.

  • To spend the majority of the session working on academic work (75-80%) and some of the session mentoring/relationship-building (20-25%). *However, this can vary depending on the young person and the day.*

  • To be flexible around subject matter. *On some nights, the youth may have homework in other subjects or on multiple subjects.*

  • To encourage their young person to finish their homework while you are there to help and to prioritize working on homework with you that they may need extra support with.

Volunteers Can’t Expect:

  • Direct access to teachers and parents.

    • *Volunteers should notify Tutoring Plus staff if they would like to be in contact with their match’s teacher or parents. We can work with the teacher and parents to provide you support.*

  • To see a semester syllabus (not all teachers provide them) or to see all graded work/tests, etc.

    • *However, some youth carry this work in their school binder and may have it with them.*

Successful Volunteers…

  • Are consistent and dependable

  • Are patient and understanding

  • Are mindful and considerate

  • Share their excitement for learning

  • Are actively involved in helping their match to work through homework and other academic activities/projects

  • Check-in with staff regularly for both positive feedback and any concerns

  • Ask staff for extra assistance or support when they need it

  • Encourage their young person to challenge themselves with a growth-mindset approach (see page # 19)

  • View behavior management and motivation levels as opportunities for learning and improving

  • Realize that their volunteer experience is as much of a learning opportunity for them as it is for the youth

WHAT TO EXPECT IN SESSIONS

One-on-One Session Structure:

When you arrive at program, one of the first things you will be asked to do is sign in on our attendance tracker. Then, based on the program site, you will find a seat somewhere with your match. Sessions with your young person may look different from week to week, based on their homework, activities they are interested in, or simply how they are feeling. We encourage our students to work on homework for a majority of their session. However, there is no strict structure to tutoring time, and what you work on beyond homework is up to you and your young person. If you have an idea of what you would like to do with your student, we always encourage our volunteers to apply their creativity and flexibility in shaping a session that will be enjoyable for them and their match.

Tutoring Time:

Volunteers arrive during the second half of our program for tutoring time, which is a time for students to quietly work on their academic assignments, with support from you. A student may not have homework to work on every week. If a student has already completed their homework but has brought it to tutoring time, one strategy is to review their homework and **check for understanding**. Ask your student to teach you about what they are learning, or how they got to the answers on their homework. This can be an effective strategy for any topic or subject that you know your student is learning about, as practicing the content and being able to teach you about it encourages a deeper understanding of the information.

Mentoring:

As a volunteer, your role is not just that of a tutor but also a mentor. While tutoring time is a space for homework, you should also utilize this time to get to know your young person. If you feel that your student has completed enough work or is not having the best day, then we also have board games and other activities that students and volunteers are free to use. As you get to know your young person, you can use your best judgment to structure your session in a way that you feel is best for that day.

Volunteer Session Notes:

At the end of the night, we ask all volunteers to fill out Volunteer Session Notes (VSNs). Volunteer Session Notes serve as a space for volunteers to let the staff know how the session went overall, how your match did, what you worked on, and to share any comments about the night by writing in the last section. These comments can simply be how you felt your session went, funny anecdotes from your student, or anything else that you feel is worth mentioning. We highly encourage you to leave a comment, because any feedback we receive is extremely helpful for the program and for supporting you in. Although we do review the Volunteer Session Notes after each session, we also strongly encourage volunteers to contact staff directly if there are any issues, concerns, or questions so that we can provide support as soon as possible.

Tutoring Time Activities

There are times when youth will come to the program having already finished their homework or simply have no homework to work on. In these cases, the Tutoring Plus staff have designed a catalog of additional academic activities for matches to work on together.

PLUSwork

PLUS (Prep, Learn, Understand, Share) activities align with the monthly units that are taught in the Tutoring Plus curriculum and are meant to be completed within one session. For example, during the month of the “My Community” unit, PLUSwork activities will emphasize learning about and understanding different communities, and how the concept of community applies to the young person.

Tutoring Plus Portal

The Tutoring Plus Portal is the central hub for many Tutoring Plus resources, but importantly also contains various tutoring time activities.

Tutoring Expeditions

Expeditions are lessons or projects made up of a series of cumulative activities and are designed to be completed across multiple sessions. These lessons allow youth to dive deeper into a topic they are interested in and ultimately demonstrate their learning through a final project. Topics include financial literacy, coding, writing, and engineering.

Explorations

Explorations, like PLUSwork, are activities meant to be completed within one session. However, explorations are not related to the Tutoring Plus curriculum in any way, and are simply additional enrichment activities for students who would like to explore a new topic or a topic of interest. Examples include activities about the solar system, the brain, psychology, and animal ecosystems.

Math Resources

Tutoring Plus utilizes a number of math resources to reinforce basic problem-solving and arithmetic skills for youth across all programs. Task cards are a great chance for students to practice critical thinking skills.

Literacy Resources

Our staff use a number of tools to help support youth in literacy development. To support your student with reading fluency and comprehension: utilize the literacy-based task cards, pick a book on your student's level to read with them to completion, ask them reading comprehension questions. We have a number of other resources if needed; ask your site lead for more support!