On May 1st, Pelusa Orellana, Associate Researcher at the Human Development Lab, participated in the fourth annual National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) Conference, held at Stanford University in California, USA. The event brought together over 300 participants, including researchers, school district leaders, and tutoring service providers, to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enhance and optimize tutoring programs in school systems.
This year’s conference focused on the role of AI in supporting high-impact tutoring. “What stood out to me was the richness of the discussions, particularly around AI—not assuming a priori that it will ‘replace the tutor’ or that everything it does is negative, but rather having a balanced conversation about its benefits, always with an ethical perspective,” Orellana remarked.
With a long-standing career in education and research, Orellana emphasized the importance of international collaboration. She noted that this is not her first time attending the event, thanks to her ongoing collaboration with Susanna Loeb and Kathy Bendheim, both part of the NSSA team.
Prior to the main conference, Orellana also participated in two related events: a seminar on AI for district-level education authorities, and a presentation by researchers from CEIBAL (Uruguay) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on Uruguay’s experience integrating technology into primary education.
The National Student Support Accelerator is a program of the SCALE Initiative at Stanford University. Since its launch in 2021, schools and districts across the United States—and increasingly worldwide—have been scaling up tutoring efforts to help students thrive. Nearly 40% of schools in the U.S. currently offer high-impact tutoring as part of their educational strategies.
