6 Ways Schools Are Using AI Tutoring To Reach More Students For A Lower Cost
AI tutoring is fast becoming a popular, affordable tutoring solution in elementary, middle and high schools across the US. Find out how principals and math department heads are slotting AI tutoring into the school day in a variety of ways, all aimed at achieving better outcomes in math.
This guide to AI tutoring use cases shows how the schools we work with are using AI tutoring to promote student progress in math across the school.
What is AI tutoring?
AI tutoring uses artificial intelligence to deliver one-on-one support, helping students learn at their own pace. Advanced intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) used for AI tutoring, like AI math tutor Skye, adapt instruction in real time, respond to student input, and give immediate feedback.
AI tutoring replicates the experience of traditional online math tutoring, offering adaptive, dialogue-driven, one-on-one instruction in which students communicate with their tutor via a shared screen and a microphone headset.
Why AI tutoring?
Year after year, we speak with schools that have to ration tutoring to the students who need it most because of tighter budgets and reduced staffing.
While our mission has always been to close the math achievement gap with affordable tutoring, our traditional solution was becoming unaffordable for many school budgets.
With the potential of AI, we saw a responsibility to apply the proven, evidence-based approach from 10+ years of tutoring that schools know and trust to a more affordable AI model.
And so, after many months of building and refining, AI math tutor Skye is now helping thousands of students close the math achievement gap. To match schools’ challenging budgets, we’ve been able to make one-on-one tutoring far more affordable.
You can also read independent assessments of Skye written by educators like yourself: EdTech expert Jodie Lopez’s independent assessment of Skye and AI math tutor review by vice principal Neil Almond.
AI math tutor Skye
Skye is built on the same principles and by the same team of current and former teachers, who have created Third Space Learning’s online one-on-one tutoring programs for schools since 2013.
Just like traditional tutoring, AI math tutor Skye talks, tutors, and responds to your students in real time.
With unlimited sessions and students for one low fixed yearly cost, every student who needs support can receive it.
Since the start of 2025, students have spent over 5,000 hours talking math with Skye.
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Download Free Now!How real schools are using AI tutoring
AI literacy and AI in education are still new concepts, so here we’ve collected the six most common use cases schools give us for running AI tutoring with Skye, so you can see how your students and staff can put it to work too.
1. Ease of scheduling weekly one-on-one slots – before, during or after school
According to research by the Education Endowment Foundation, regular one-on-one tutoring has excellent evidence for improving student outcomes, providing on average five additional months’ progress.
Evidence also shows that the most effective tutoring:
- is in short, regular sessions
- runs for a set period of time
- explicitly links to class teaching
- is monitored for progress by teachers
This is how schools have used online one-on-one math tutoring with Third Space Learning since 2013: picking a time slot that works for their students and scheduling tutoring to run one or more times each week for the students they feel need it most.
Math lessons tailored to the school and the students’ needs
Just like our traditional tutoring, AI tutoring sessions with Skye are built on human expertise and tailored to each student while still enabling teachers to control the content covered. This means schools can use their regular, scheduled tutoring sessions in a variety of ways:
- Address individual gaps and math misconceptions
- Focus on specific strands, concepts and topics
- Align with class teaching
- Pre-teach tricky topics
- For test review
What changes with Skye? More students and more flexibility
With AI tutoring from Skye, schools can continue to use tutoring in this way, but with increased ease and flexibility, and for more students at a lower cost.
No matter how many sessions each school needs, there’s just one low fixed yearly price, depending on school size.
Scheduling AI tutoring
Previously, all Third Space Learning tutoring sessions took place with one of our community of STEM specialist tutors, meaning we needed to factor in the scheduling of both the student and the tutor. As such, tutoring time slots were available on the hour and the half hour.
We don’t need to worry about Skye’s schedule as the AI tutor can start up every 5 minutes – whenever works best for the school.
Schools can use spoken AI math tutoring to build their own custom tutoring schedule that fits into their school calendar, student and staff needs, and quarterly or semester-based school events.
With an in-person tutoring program, you can only serve a limited number of students, and if a child is absent the day a tutor comes in, that’s a wasted session. There are no complications like that with Third Space Learning.
The ability to scale the tutoring, and Skye’s ability to respond on the fly to students’ misconceptions, were the key things I saw.Madeline Loeb, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Primary Hall Charter School, Buffalo, New York
2. Intensive review in the lead-up to state assessments
Of course, tutoring is most effective as a long-term solution rather than a ‘quick fix’, but the reality remains that many students would benefit from more intensive support as tests draw closer.
When tests are looming, schools often want to increase the number of their sessions, but before Skye this could be difficult to organize and it would add to their annual cost.
Now, with on-demand AI tutoring for a fixed annual payment, you can double or even triple each student’s weekly sessions in the spring for zero additional cost. Schools can provide more sessions each week without paying any more. It’s all included in the fixed low yearly cost.
This means no more last-minute orders, juggling who gets the extra help, or compromising on the requirements of each student. You could even give every borderline student a personal math tutor right up to the day of the test. It really is that flexible.
3. Ad-hoc cover sessions when staff are absent
Staff absences have shot up in recent years, leaving leaders scrambling for last-minute coverage.
This is one of the most commonly cited challenges for principals and math department heads. Because Skye is available every 5 minutes, you can launch a one-off tutoring session using AI math for any class that is without its usual teacher, and students can continue to receive high-quality teaching.
Practically, what happens is that students who have previously had sessions with Skye continue with their learning journey as normal, and any new students receive a quick introduction from Skye before moving on to their chosen program.
4. Set homework sessions with Skye
Most take-home tasks still rely on paper worksheets or auto-graded quizzes that can’t diagnose why a student is struggling. Skye brings the same one-on-one conversations students enjoy in school straight to their kitchen tables, giving them a tutor’s guidance even when you’re not there.
Because Skye is only ever teaching lessons that have been created by math teachers like you, you can be reassured that the feedback and support given is accurate and age-appropriate. This is very different from other AI tools that simply provide a right or wrong answer (and sometimes they don’t even do that well) without building the student’s understanding.
Homework developed in partnership with schools
It’s really important to us that every feature is built in collaboration with schools to ensure it:
- complies with FERPA and your district’s student privacy policies;
- integrates seamlessly with existing Skye progress reports;
- keeps teacher workload to almost zero – no grading, no manual uploads.
Schools can use homework sessions with Skye in a few ways:
- Teacher-scheduled sessions – you choose a day and time; Skye appears in students’ headphones just like an online lesson.
- Self-launch windows – set a homework ‘slot’ (for example, any time between 4 pm and 7 pm); students start their session when it suits family routines.
- Always-on catch-up – for older classes, give students controlled freedom to launch Skye after school whenever they hit a tricky topic.
What I really appreciate is that it covers the grade-level expectations, but it can also back up and fill in the gaps students need to close to get there. That combination is exactly what we were missing.
Kathy Garcia, Principal, Moffat PK-12, Moffat Consolidated School District, Colorado
5. As an instructional aide for additional math interventions
While tutoring is predominantly used as a math intervention for the students who are most in need, there’s no reason why schools can’t use tutoring for a wider cohort of students.
While you or your teacher focus on whole-class instruction or a specific group, Skye can be used to give any number of students their own personalized math intervention. At no extra cost.
Because Skye is AI-driven, it never has to split its time. Ten, twenty or fifty students can all receive individualized tuition in the same lesson slot for the same fixed annual price, instead of eating into your staffing budget or paraprofessional hours.
For example, Moffat PK-12, a small school in Moffat Consolidated School District, Colorado, has a combined 4th and 5th grade class. Splitting one teacher’s attention across two grade levels in the same room is tough – one group usually ends up waiting while the other gets support.
With Skye, the teacher can split the class in half. While she delivers direct instruction to one group, Skye works one-on-one with every student in the other, then the groups switch. Instead of one group waiting for support, every student is engaged in meaningful learning the whole time.
The results followed. After a single semester with Third Space Learning, the school’s NWEA MAP data showed real movement in exactly the grades using Skye most: 5th grade reached the 64th percentile for growth, and 4th grade the 52nd percentile for growth, with achievement rising from the 55th to the 65th percentile.
In the combined class it was especially beneficial: the teacher could split the group in half, delivering direct instruction to one while the other worked with Skye, then switch – instead of one group waiting for support, every student was engaged in meaningful learning.
Kathy Garcia, Principal, Moffat PK-12, Colorado
6. Before- or after-school math club
Many of the schools we work with use Skye as a fun math club before or after school, to give students who need a little extra support with math some dedicated time with their own tutor.
This targets progress for the students who need it in a low-pressure, engaging way, without disrupting the school day or class schedules.
Sessions can be scheduled at a regular time slot, and students can work through lessons in the order suggested by our experts. Teachers can also reorder lessons to target students’ misconceptions, or launch sessions on demand for pre- or post-teaching support whenever they’re needed.
Making the most of Skye for your students
With Skye each student:
- Works on the exact gap you (or Skye’s diagnostic) have identified – they never have to follow the same lesson as the student next to them.
- Gets true one-on-one attention the whole time – Skye listens, questions, gives hints and nudges them forward just like a skilled human instructional aide.
- Stays perfectly in sync with your curriculum – every lesson comes from the teacher-designed Third Space Learning library.
- Finishes with instant feedback you can use immediately – progress and misconceptions are logged in real time, ready for their next classroom lesson.
At a time when schools are under pressure to do more with less, solutions like Skye offer an efficient, scalable option that works alongside existing classroom support to help close gaps and keep all learners on track.
READ MORE:
- 10 Benefits Of Online Tutoring Every Principal Should Know
- Best US Online Math Tutoring Platforms for Student Success
- Voice-Based AI Math Tutoring vs. Text-Based: Why Conversation Matters For Math Progress
- How Education Technology Supercharges Our Math Tutoring And How You Can Use It Too
- The Best AI for Math: Teacher-Rated AI Tools and Programs Compared for Schools
- Intelligent Tutoring Systems: 7 Research-Backed Principles for Building an Effective AI Tutor
- Will AI Replace Teachers? And Why The Answer Matters More Than You Think
- AI Literacy in Schools: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Leaders
Do you have students who need extra support in math?
Skye – our AI math tutor built by experienced teachers – provides students with personalized one-on-one, spoken instruction that helps them master concepts, close skill gaps, and gain confidence.
Since 2013, we’ve delivered over 2 million hours of math lessons to more than 170,000 students, guiding them toward higher math achievement.
Discover how our AI math tutoring can boost student success, or see how our math programs can support your school’s goals:
– 3rd grade tutoring
– 4th grade tutoring
– 5th grade tutoring
– 6th grade tutoring
– 7th grade tutoring
– 8th grade tutoring
