Author: Team Yup

Hello everyone!

We hope you had another excellent week! In preparing the Outstanding Student Feedback Award, we had the opportunity to read through a variety of sessions that were filled with dynamic interactions with Yup students! Please read the rest of the post for some important reminders and tips. As always, thank you for bringing your expertise and love of math to our young learners!

Outstanding Student Feedback Award

Congratulations to Edward Turkson for earning the Outstanding Student Feedback Award! This award is given to tutors who receive consistent, outstanding written feedback from students over several weeks along with demonstrating excellent overall performance.

Some of Edward’s exceptional student feedback comments include:

• “I loved working with him!”
• “He was very nice and had a good sense of humor”
• “Best tutor on this app!!!”
• “You are so patient and kind! I enjoyed working with you :)”
• “Mr. Turkson was very positive, patient, and kind.”
• “Thanks for getting me through my math I really appreciate it thank you so much”
• “Helped nicely, went into depth. Explained how to apply what I was doing to different questions”
• “Thanks for being my tutor today on yup! I enjoyed the experience and had a lot of fun!”
• “He’s very helpful and very straight to the point!”

 

Well done, Edward!

Nominate Yourself for the Tutor Spotlight!

We want to see your highlights! Please nominate yourself so we have the opportunity to view and celebrate your achievements and incredible interactions with students!

Please fill out the Tutor Spotlight Nomination form so we can continue to celebrate the amazing interactions you have with students! A reminder that there is a $25 reward for being featured! 

We are looking for sessions where:

• The student has a positive experience which is shown by the student:
  • being very willing to do the work.
  • leaving a positive rating.
  • being positive throughout the session.
  • finding solutions to problems that were challenging them.
• You earned a high rubric score.

In the submission, we want to see a summary of what made your session successful. This could be highlighting a specific moment (i.e., you offered the perfect explanation for the student). Or it could be the session as a whole because sometimes there isn’t just 1 stand-out moment. 

Attendance Metric Issue Resolved

This week, tutors reported that the attendance metric was displaying inaccurate information in their workbooks. This issue has been resolved and all information has been stored correctly so bonuses etc will be calculated on the correct attendance data. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused and thank you for reporting the issue quickly!

Student Preferred Names

An important part of building rapport with a student is using their name. Sometimes the name in our systems (which is used to populate the canned responses) does not match what the student prefers to be called. For example, Abigail may prefer to go by Abbey. If you encounter a student who indicates a different preferred name, please DM Haddie in Slack with the session number where the request is made and we will update the student’s name in our systems.

 Reporting Inappropriate Student Behavior

Occasionally students behave inappropriately (i.e., use profanity or post images that are not math-related). When you end a session due to inappropriate messaging, please DM Haddie in slack with the student’s name and the session number. The behavior will then be reported to the student’s teacher.

Upcoming Dates

Hi everyone!

We hope you had a wonderful week filled with positive student interactions and “a-ha” moments! We want to apologize again for the payroll error that led to a delay in payment this week. We are so grateful for your thorough communication and patience as we corrected the error! In the remainder of this post, we are excited to share a feature update, celebrate a tutor’s success, and provide some clarification and reminders. Thank you for your continued dedication to ensuring that every student is empowered to learn!

Tutor Spotlight

Congratulations to our tutor spotlight: Madhumathi Raman! Madhu highlighted an excellent session she had with a student where she reviewed multiplication with negative numbers. In this session, she masterfully transformed the concept from abstract to concrete. Madhu commented that “the more fundamental the concept is, the more challenging it becomes to teach sometimes. I tried a couple of ways to try and teach [the student] how to find the resulting sign and the representation of the resulting number, and after some discussion and several whiteboard examples, they got the hang of it and solved additional problems independently”. On top of providing clear and thorough instruction, Madhu cleverly used the whiteboard to navigate around a technical issue thus maintaining the flow of instruction. The student reflected on her time with Madhu by sharing “I have had Ms. Raman in the past and she was the best throughout all of my sessions with her. She had a bright attitude the whole time and was super supportive while I was trying to solve the problems. Overall, she is a great Yup tutor and I would definitely recommend her for any student who needs a tutor”. We couldn’t agree with her more!

Congratulations again, Madhu and thank you to everyone who submitted highlights from their sessions – it truly was delightful to read through your submissions!

Platform Update

Our engineers are always hard at work improving existing features and developing new ones to help support our mission to ensure all students are empowered to learn. A new translation feature will be deployed on Monday. Tutors and students will have the ability to select either English or Spanish from the dropdown menu at the top right of the message window. Once selected, all messages will automatically translate into the desired language. The graphic below demonstrates how the feature will work. The screen on the left is the tutor and the screen on the right is the student. 

As with any feature, please let us know if you have any questions or if you run into any issues. Thank you to our engineering team for your work on this effort!

Reporting Inappropriate Student Behavior

Occasionally students behave inappropriately (i.e., use profanity or post images that are not math-related). When you end a session due to inappropriate messaging, please DM Haddie in slack with the student’s name and the session number. The behavior will then be reported to the student’s teacher.

Schedule Reminder

A quick heads up that Monday, February 21st is a United States federal holiday, and therefore most schools are out of session. We adjust tutor schedules on federal holidays to account for the predicted reduced demand. The altered schedule for this holiday will be released on Friday, February 18th so please be sure to check for adjustments to your regular Monday schedule.

Communication Reminders and Updates

To provide some clarification regarding who to reach out to for various questions and concerns please refer to the table below.

Hi everyone!

We hope you have had an excellent week! We are always looking for ways to highlight and celebrate the incredible work that you do. To this end, we would like to reestablish the Tutor Spotlight. Please see more information below and nominate yourself! The rest of this week’s post includes a milestone celebration and the results from the tutor satisfaction survey. As always, thank you so much for the care and dedication you bring to your work with our students!

Tutor Spotlight 

The award allows you to share a particularly positive experience you had with a student. We want to celebrate you so please nominate yourself!

We are looking for sessions where:

• The student has a positive experience which is shown by the student:
  • being very willing to do the work.
  • leaving a positive rating.
  • being positive throughout the session.
  • finding solutions to problems that were challenging them.
• You earned a high rubric score.

In the submission, we want to see a summary of what made your session successful. This could be highlighting a specific moment (i.e., you offered the perfect explanation for the student). Or it could be the session as a whole because sometimes there isn’t just 1 stand-out moment. 

Next week, we will pick our tutor spotlight. Please fill out the Tutor Spotlight Nomination form so we can continue to celebrate the amazing interactions you have with students! A reminder that there is a $25 reward for being featured! 

Milestone Celebration

This year marks Hem Chandra Bhatt’s 8th year as a Yup tutor! He has brought positivity, thoughtfulness, and a love of learning and math to our students from the very beginning! With a userID of only 12, H.C. has tutored a whopping 11,457 sessions to date. He has impacted the lives and learning of so many students and the quotes below are just a drop in the bucket of the thousands of comments left over the years.

• “He was patient and understanding. He explained everything clearly. I didn’t understand much of what I was doing and when I got done I understood perfectly! Awesome teacher!”
• “One of the very best tutors I’ve had so far!”
• “He helped me solve my math problem quickly while teaching me how to apply the methods to similar problems. Best teacher I have encountered so far!”
• “Great teacher to work along with!”
• “Thanks so much for all you do!!”
• “I had no clue what I was doing and now I completely understand something I didn’t even know how to do. Thank you so much for helping me!!”
• “I’m much more confident in my skills now!”
• “Thank you for your help! You were very positive and thorough. I sooo appreciate it!”

Aaron, Yup’s CEO and co-founder, has known H.C. for a long time. In reflecting on H.C.’s tenure with Yup, Aaron had this to share:

As one of the very first tutors to join our platform, back when we were MathCrunch, Bhatt has seen all our ups and downs, and patiently experienced all of our failures and leanings. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with him and the stability his presence brings. Every year I look forward to receiving an email from him celebrating another year of tutoring and helping to empower every student to learn with Yup. Thank you for everything you do!

A huge thank you to H.C. Bhatt for all that you have contributed to Yup and your steadfast dedication to empowering every student to learn!

Tutor Satisfaction Survey Results

Thanks to all of you who took the time to complete our Tutor Satisfaction Survey! The survey had a 63% response rate from our tutor community. Broadly, tutors reported satisfaction in their experience tutoring with Yup. Of those surveyed, more than 88% reported satisfaction across all categories. We think that this is a reflection of improvements made to the platform, our continued attention to balancing schedules within the bounds of our current demand, and the research that has been done to ensure that we are fairly benchmarked with industry standards (particularly in terms of compensation). We are so pleased that our tutors have a positive experience working with students on our platform and working with Yup!

Please take some time to review the more detailed result from the survey outlined below.

Thank you again for your time in providing us with this helpful feedback!

 

Hi all,

We hope you have had a fantastic week! Thank you to everyone who completed the Tutor Satisfaction Survey! Your thoughtful feedback will help shape areas of focus in the next few months. It was so nice to meet those of you who were able to attend the informal chats with me this week. It was great to hear your voices and gain even more insight into the varied experiences of our tutor community.

This month marks the return of the Outstanding Student Feedback Award. With schools returning from the winter holiday and back in full swing, the Yup Team has been swimming in sessions and seeing some fantastic positive feedback from students. It is one of the best parts of our jobs! We are excited to continue to celebrate our tutors who make students’ Yup experience awesome with the Outstanding Student Feedback Award.

As a reminder, this award is given to tutors who conduct engaging sessions that elicit outstanding written feedback from students. The Yup team will recognize recipients in a newsfeed post along with a $50 bonus included in their next payment. To be eligible for this award you must also demonstrate outstanding overall performance including a strong composite score and overall student ratings – as such, earning it is a special and challenging achievement!

Thank you for all of the amazing work that you do and the care that you take to ensure that every student is empowered to learn!

Outstanding Student Feedback Award

Congratulations to Shernice Kramer for earning the Outstanding Student Feedback Award! 

Some of Shernice’s exceptional student feedback comments include:

• “If you get this tutor you are the luckiest person on Earth”
• “She is a great teacher! Thank you, Ms. Kramer, you are awesome!”
• “Thank you it was hard but I got it”
• “Cool teacher with an extremely positive attitude :)”
• “Helped me figure out something that minutes before was beyond my comprehension – major thank you!”

Way to go Shernice!

TGP Level Update

This month marks the end of the current TGP cycle. We will be reviewing tutor performance metrics for the past three months and making adjustments where necessary in the coming days. If your level changes, we will reach out to understand your preferences and will do our best to accommodate your schedule within the total number of hours that we have available.

Platform Updates and Reminders

Our Yup engineers are always hard at work improving the platform and implementing new ideas. To keep you informed of progress and changes that will directly impact you, updates will be posted to the #announcements Slack channel. At the end of the week, all updates will be posted in the Newsfeed. Please take a moment to review this week’s updates and reminders below.

Bug Reporting

The #bug-reporting channel was retired on Slack. All bugs and issues should be reported by clicking the button. You will receive a message acknowledging receipt of the report or a request for more information.

Common strategies to fix issues

To address an issue on the platform you should:

1. Refresh your browser
2. Log out of the platform and log back in

Please do NOT clear local storage manually (within the Developer Tools in the browser) unless directed to do so by one of our engineers.

Report Issue Update

We want to gather your perspective on the severity of the bug you are reporting. To do so, we have added Priority as a required selection on the Report a bug form. 

More information about the priority levels and Yup’s responses is outlined below. For further information about bugs and other issues please read the Yup Bug Reporting Instructions.

Hi all,

My name is Haddie Lueddeke, and I am the new Academics Manager at Yup!

I am excited to dive into my work with you all at Yup! As the Academics Manager, I will interface with you regularly regarding: payroll, your user experience, quality assurance, and helping to ensure that the experience of students matches Yup’s pedagogical best practices. I am excited to bring a variety of experiences to this role, including 12 years as a middle school math teacher, being a dean of students, and developing high-stakes mathematics assessments. I love math and thinking about the best ways to help young people build confidence to tackle challenging problems with a variety of mathematical tools. 

A little bit more about me: I live in Monterey, California with my husband, our three-year-old son, and our two dogs. Outside of work and school, we try to spend as much time together outside – hiking, biking, or going to the beach!

Today’s update is lengthy, but please do take the time to read all of it. Otherwise, please feel free to reach out with general questions via email (haddie@yup.com) or Slack (@haddie). I look forward to working with each of you in providing math tutoring that is rooted in research-based best practices with the goal of empowering every student to learn.

-Haddie

Hearing Your Feedback

Over the past week, I have had the opportunity to review some of your work and have even participated in a few tutoring sessions. I am so impressed with the care and knowledge that you bring to the work that you do with Yup. I would love to learn more about the tutor experience. To do so, I ask that you complete the Tutor Satisfaction Survey which will help guide immediate and long-term areas of focus. Your feedback is very important! Please note that we will pay you for 30 minutes of your time to complete this survey. 

The survey is 10 questions long and should take between ten and thirty minutes. Your insights are vital, and your time is appreciated. Please complete the survey by 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (PT) on Thursday, January 27. 

In addition to the survey, I would like to have the opportunity to meet you and hear more about your experiences tutoring with Yup. Please join me for an informal chat via Zoom on Wednesday, January 26th. In order to accommodate different time zones, I will be available during the two sessions. Click either link to join via zoom at either 9:00 – 9:30 a.m. PT or 4:00 – 4:30 p.m. PT. 

Retirement of Bug Reporting Channel in Slack

We know that there has been an increase in bugs on the platform recently, and we apologize for the frustration it may be causing. We are currently revamping our process for bug reporting and resolution. One issue we are facing is that tutors are reporting bugs to the #bug-reporting channel but not UserSnap. This makes it difficult for our engineers to see and prioritize issues. As a result, we are retiring the channel.

Moving forward, please use the  button on the tutor dashboard whenever you experience an issue. Whenever you do this, our system automatically notifies Yup engineers in our internal Slack channel and gives them real-time information about the issues you’re facing. Please refer to the UserSnap Reporting guidelines for further details.

Algorithm for Tutor Session Assignments

A good question regarding how tutors are matched and with what frequency came up in the bug reporting chat. Some tutors were concerned about getting more sessions than others, so we thought it would be helpful to share how the algorithm for tutor prioritization works more widely. 

Our algorithm prioritizes matching students with tutors who have strong recent performance. It does result in some folks tutoring a higher proportion of shift time than others. However, these are then also the tutors who earn higher bonuses and are given more hours on the schedule.

How many sessions a tutor gets in a given week depends on:

• The algorithm – as explained above.
• The number of hours the tutor works – for example, a Level 4 tutor with more scheduled hours will get more sessions than a new tutor with just a few hours scheduled.
• The hours of the day the tutor works – for example, peak homework hours (i.e. 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. PT) are busier than non-peak hours (i.e. 3:00 a.m. PT).

So in a given week, it is possible that:

• Tutor A gets a bunch of sessions due to:
  • Strong recent performance
  • High volume scheduled and claimed hours
  • Working peak hours
• Tutor B gets few or no sessions due to:
  • Being new to the platform and still developing
  • Few scheduled or claimed hours
  • Working non-peak hours

We do our best to allocate an even distribution of hours between peak and non-peak times to each tutor while also meeting their preferences. We hope this explanation adds some clarity to how we assign sessions.