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GEAR UP chooses online provider for tutoring

Special to The Clarion-Ledger
11/14/04

HATTIESBURG — The Mississippi GEAR UP program has selected Smarthinking as the statewide provider of live, online tutoring for its students.

Beginning this month, more than 8,500 students from schools across Mississippi will have access to math tutors, an essay-review service and live tutoring in six other subjects.

The tutoring services are free, and students can go to www.smarthinking.com to get started.

"We carefully evaluated the online tutoring providers and selected Smarthinking," said Jennifer Phillips, a University of Southern Mississippi staffer and tutoring and mentoring coordinator for Mississippi's GEAR UP, or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. "Their experience, commitment to quality and extensive services made the difference."

She said Smarthinking's trained tutors will help Mississippi students as they do their homework, study for tests, write school and college application essays and prepare for state assessments.

"We will be providing training for teachers at the schools within the next few weeks, and all log-in information (for the Web site) will be provided to the teachers then," Phillips said.

Mississippi GEAR UP students will have access to the online math tutoring service staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Students also can get personalized feedback on their writing from Smarthinking's Online Writing Lab and receive one-on-one help in English, statistics, economics, accounting, physics, chemistry, biology and bilingual math.

Mississippi GEAR UP gives students from seventh grade through high school the academic support and counseling they need to get ready for college.

"These students are working hard to succeed in school and prepare for college," said Neil Allison, vice president of kindergarten to grade 12 services at Smarthinking Inc.

More than 80 percent of Smarthinking instructors have a master's degree or doctorate in their discipline. Smarthinking projects it will provide 300,000 tutoring sessions to 70,000 students this academic year.

In a survey of nearly 1,500 users, 93 percent of students said they would recommend it to a friend, 73 percent said that use of Smarthinking improved their grades, and 92 percent said they would use the service again.

More info

For information on the Smarthinking tutoring program used by Mississippi GEAR UP, call Jennifer Phillips, tutoring and mentoring coordinator for GEAR UP, at (601) 266-5228.