How It Works

Blue Engine recruits, trains, and supports recent college graduates who dedicate one year of service to accelerate academic achievement in high-need public high schools.

Our model represents a breakthrough solution: an effective and rapidly scalable team of recent college graduates work for one year as Blue Engine Teaching Assistants in high-need public high schools.  Our unique instructional program focuses on building strong academic foundations in high school in order to ensure that high school graduates from low-income communities have the skills to succeed in college.

In school-based teams, BETAs work alongside classroom teachers to provide academic instruction to small groups of students in core skills including Algebra, Geometry, and English Language Arts (ELA). BETAs decrease the teacher-to-student ratio and collaborate with teachers to customize instruction, increase academic rigor, and build empowering relationships with students at every academic level.

Personalizing Instruction

By dramatically reducing the teacher-to-student ratio in classes teaching core skills, Blue Engine accelerates instruction beyond what’s possible in a typical classroom. With 1 teacher and 30 students, there’s only so much classroom leaders can accomplish on any given day:  instructional inefficiencies, limited time, and complex social dynamics are forces that prevent millions of students each year from pushing the boundaries of their potential.  With 3-4 BETAs in each classroom alongside a teacher, students divide into small groups and learn in intimate settings that minimize inefficiencies and increase time-on-task.

The minimized teacher-to-student ratio and small group structure accelerate student learning.  Because they work with small groups of students, BETAs can focus extensively on each student. This individualized attention enables more personalized instruction:  BETAs can quickly identify cognitive caps and breakdowns in the learning process of a particular student and subsequently tailor instruction to address the specific issues that inhibit that student’s academic mastery. All students are expected to master material, but the techniques and pace of instruction vary based on what will maximize the learning of each student.

Supporting Entire Grade Levels

BETA teams work with every student in the grade level– not just high achieving students, struggling students, or students who opt into the program —a feature of the program that was designed to provide a way for students of all ability levels to have safe, individualized spaces to learn. Our instructional model has been designed to accelerate achievement for all types of learners, preventing students from “hiding” from their teachers, their peers, and most importantly, themselves.

Building Relationships

In addition to accelerating learning, the small group structure fosters strong relationships between BETAs and students.  These relationships empower students to strive for academic achievement.  Students become motivated to succeed and, as they do, they build confidence in their ability to grow intellectually and push the boundaries of their potential.  Ultimately, our BETAs encourage students to become self-regulated learners who take ownership of their own education, throughout high school and beyond.

Outside of the Classroom

As these intellectual and motivational shifts occur inside the classroom, Blue Engine puts in place a number of supports outside of classroom instruction to reinforce academic achievement:

• BETAs and teachers collect data about individual students daily to monitor learning, track progress, and inform instruction.
• BETAs provide additional instruction and support during off periods and after school hours (3-6 p.m.), interventions that increase instructional time without increasing costs.
• Through a partnership with The After-School Corporation (TASC), BETAs lead after-school programming each day, engaging with students in a variety of extracurricular contexts that range from academic tutoring and test preparation to coaching sports teams and directing school musicals.
• BETAs encourage dialogue among students about college, leading sessions on the college application process, participating in SAT tutoring programs, planning and chaperoning college campus visits, and working to create an environment in which students’ regard not only college acceptance, but also college completion, as the expectation.

Read an open letter to all Blue Engine Fellows applicants here.