Policy Breakdown + Chat Lag Fix

NEW POLICY BREAKDOWN RESOURCE

As a startup that’s blazing a trail in education technology, we frequently find ourselves uncovering new problems and adjusting our priorities as new data and learnings come to light. At the same time, we know that these policies can be tough to keep track of!

To ensure everyone is on the same page with what is expected of them, we have created the Yup Policy Breakdown. This infographic organizes all of the bonuses and penalties that Yup Tutors can receive into a one-page resource:

In the spirit of learning, improving, and evolving, we’re also taking this opportunity to introduce some updated policies which are a result of feedback from both users and tutors. These changes, which you can find in the above guide, are as follows:

– New bonus opportunities for positive student feedback
– New thresholds for response speed bonuses and penalties
– New maximum absolute totals and minimums for key tags

Check out the links provided on the right-hand-side of the policy page for more details.

CHAT LAG BUG FIX

Many of you have reached out to us with concerns about a bug that was affecting Tutor Dashboard response time, especially when typing in the chat box. We are happy to report that the Engineering Team was able to push out an update this morning that should address the issue. Let us know if you continue experiencing the lag, or if you notice other issues. See the Bug Reporting document for instructions.

Keep up the great work, and as always, let us know if you have questions or concerns about this post by emailing tutor.support@yup.com.

— Team Yup

Create your own user feedback survey

Tutor Survey – Ops Communication

How can communication between tutors and the Ops Team be improved? We want to know!

Create your own user feedback survey

— Team Yup

Gap Clarification Updates

Recently, we introduced a feature that asks students if they have started solving or previously solved a problem similar to theirs. Now that this information is available to tutors via the Tutor Dashboard, we will be updating the way we assess rubric standard 1.1, which asks “Did the tutor figure out where and why the student was stuck?”

NEW GAP CLARIFICATION PROCEDURE

Going forward, you will be expected to ask the student about their progress only if one of the following is true:

– The student’s response to “Started Problem“ is Yes, but they didn’t upload any work

– The student’s response to “Started Problem” is N/A

When a student responds “No” to “Started Problem” or responds “Yes” and submits work to the Yup Bot, we consider the task of finding where the student is stuck to be complete. At this point, start figuring out why the student is stuck by probing their existing knowledge!

We would like you to continue asking about “why” the student is stuck regardless of how the student responds to these questions (although we strongly suggest that your questions reflect the student’s answer to “Done Similar Problems”.)

In a recent tutor survey, we were pleased that many of you reported utilizing the answers to these questions to ask more targeted questions in the gap clarification phase. (For example, asking the student how their problem differs from others they’ve solved if they indicate having solved similar problems previously.)

Check out the infographic below for a visual guide to navigating Gap Clarification Phase going forward:

As always, let the Operations Team know if you have any questions about these changes by emailing tutor.support@yup.com.

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup

Create your own user feedback survey

PlayPosit Reminder + Response Speed

 

PlayPosit Video Task Reminder

If you have not yet completed the PlayPosit Video Tasks mentioned in this post, we ask that you do so as soon as possible.

The guidelines in these videos bring together, rather than simply restating, a wide variety of our existing tutoring policies, and in a way that helps you move sessions forward efficiently.

We’ll soon be introducing new pay bonuses based on positive student feedback, and if you keep the ideas from these videos in mind, you’ll be well-situated to benefit from them!

If you have not yet received PlayPosit credentials, please email tutor.support@yup.com

Response Speed Reminder Message

Several months ago, we introduced a Response Speed Reminder message that would appear in your Tutor Chat window when you hadn’t sent any messages for two minutes:

After a hiatus caused by a minor bug, this feature is back!

Important: If you see this message before two minutes have passed since your own last message, or if it does not appear when it should, please notify the System Issues HipChat room.

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup

Tutor Chat Bugs + New Users

ADDRESSING TUTOR CHAT ISSUES

Recently, we’ve been looking into issues involving message lag within Tutor Chat. For some tutors, the site occasionally takes a long time to respond to typing and/or drawing. As a reminder, whenever an issue hurts your ability to teach quickly and effectively, please follow the instructions below!

If you’ve run into this issue, we ask that you email tutor.support@yup.com with a description of the circumstances in which this issue tends to arise. The next time it arises while you’re conducting a session, follow the ‘Dev. Console Instructions’ as laid out in the bug reporting doc:

Yup Bug Reporting Instructions

Then, email a screenshot of the Dev. Console to tutor.support@yup.com.

We normally do NOT want you to refresh your browser while you’re in a session, but if this issue comes up for you, please give it a try, and let us know in your bug report whether or not it helps.

It can be tough for our Engineering Team to debug without having specific system errors to reference, so thank you for your cooperation and patience!

WORKING WITH NEW USERS

With the recent addition of the New User flag, which identifies new Yup students within their student profile, we encourage you to become more aware of how your interactions with these users may influence their newly forming opinions of Yup.

We’ve laid out a few ideas to keep in mind when working with new students to make sure they’re having the best possible experience. It’s important to note that while these practices should be applied to every session, they take on even greater importance when you’re matched with a new Yup student:

Happy tutoring!

— Team Yup