Turning Failure into Success: Digital Tutoring Activities to Overcome Difficulties in Mathematics at Lower Secondary School

The COVID pandemic had a negative impact on many aspects of students’ lives, including their school results. Studies from all over the world agree that Mathematics is one of the disciplines mainly affected most by school closures. In Italy, the learning loss in Mathematics after the pandemic is higher among secondary school students and in low socio-economic contexts. School failure is connected to low levels of motivation, awareness of one’s own capabilities, and confidence in the possibility to succeed; these, in turn, may cause dropouts. This chapter addresses this issue by analyzing the “compiti@casa” project carried out by Fondazione De Agostini and the University of Turin (Italy). This project aims to support lower secondary school students from disadvantaged backgrounds with difficulties in Mathematics through online tutoring activities carried out by university students as tutors. The target schools are located in the suburbs of various cities all over Italy. The activities are developed in a Digital Learning Environment, using peer education, adaptive learning, and interactive activities. The students’ achievement in Mathematics and their levels of motivation, self-awareness, and confidence are monitored through questionnaires filled out by students, tutors, and teachers at the beginning and at the end of the project. This study shows the effectiveness of the digital activities implemented in compiti@casa to improve the school grades and metacognition in Mathematics of about 300 students participating in the first two editions of the project.