MIT undergraduates help US high schoolers tackle calculus

This year in a rural school district in southeastern Montana, one high school student is taking calculus. For many people, calculus is daunting enough, even when teachers are used to offering it and peers are around to help. Studying it solo can be even harder. Yet this lone student has an unusual source of support: weekly tutoring directly from an MIT undergraduate, by Zoom, a long-distance but helpful way to stay on track.

It's part of a new program called the MIT4America Calculus Project, launched from the Institute last summer, in which MIT undergraduates and alumni work with school districts across the U.S., from Montana to Texas to New York, to tutor high school students. The logic is compelling: Students are highly proficient at calculus at MIT, where it is almost a requirement for admissions and success. The new civic-minded outreach program lets those MIT people share their knowledge and skills, getting high schoolers ready for further studies and even jobs, especially in STEM fields. 

“Calculus is a gateway for many students into STEM higher education and careers,” says MIT Professor Eric Klopfer, a co-director of the MIT4America Calculus Project. “We can help more students, in more places, fulfill requirements and get into great universities across the country, whether MIT or others, and then into STEM careers. We want to make sure they have the skills to do that.”

At this point, the project is working closely with 14 school districts across the U.S., deploying 30 current MIT undergraduates and seven alumni as tutors. The weekly sessions are carefully coordinated with school administrators and teachers, and the MIT tutors have all received training. The program started with an in-person summer calculus camp in 2025; by next summer, the goal is to be collaborating with about 20 schools districts.

“We want it to have a lasting impact,” says Claudia Urrea, an education scholar and co-director of the MIT4America Calculus Project “It’s not just about students passing an exam, but having tutors who look like what the students want to be in the future, who are mentors, have conversations, and make sure the high school students are learning.” 

Klopfer and Urrea bring substantial experience to the project. Klopfer is a professor and director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and the Education Arcade at MIT; Urrea is executive director for the PreK-12 Initiative at MIT Open Learning.

The MIT4America Calculus Project is supported through a gift from the Siegel Family Endowment and was developed as a project in consultation with David Siegel SM ’86, PhD ’91, a computer scientist and entrepreneur who is chairman of the firm Two Sigma.

“David Siegel came to us with two powerful questions: How can we spread the educational impact of MIT beyond our walls? And how can we open doors to STEM careers for U.S. high school students who don’t have access to calculus?” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth.

She adds: “The MIT4America Calculus Project answers those questions in a perfectly MIT way: Reflecting the Institute’s longstanding commitment to national service, the MIT4America Calculus Project supplies an innovative answer to a hard practical problem, and it taps the uncommon skill of the people of MIT to create opportunity for others. We’re enormously grateful to David for his inspiration and guidance, and to the Siegel Family Endowment for the financial support that brought this idea to life.”

The U.S. has more than 13,000 school districts, and about half of them offer calculus classes. The MIT effort aims to work with districts that already have existing programs but are striving to add educational support for them, often while facing funding constraints or other limitations.

In contrast to the one-student calculus situation in Montana, the project is also working with a 5,000-student district in Texas, south of Dallas, where about 60 high school students take calculus; currently five Institute undergraduates are tutoring 15 students from the district’s schools.

“Other organizations are involved in efforts like this, but I think MIT brings some unique things to it,” Klopfer says. “I think involving our undergraduates in this is an awesome contribution. Our students really do come from all over the place, and are sometimes connecting back to their home states and communities, and that makes a difference on both sides.”

He adds: “I see benefits for our students, too. They develop good ways of communicating, working with other people and building skills. They can gain a lot of great experience.”

In addition to the in-person summer calculus camp, which is expected to continue, and the weekly video tutoring, the MIT4America Calculus Project is working on developing online tools that help guide high school students as well. Still, Urrea emphasizes, the project is built around “the importance of people. A community of support is very important, to have connections that build over time.  The human aspect of the program is irreplaceable.”

The MIT tutors must pass rigorous training sessions that cover pedagogy and other aspects of working with high school students, and know they are making a substantial commitment of time and effort.

It has been worth it, as teachers say their high school students have been responding very well to the MIT tutors.

“For students to be able to see themselves in their tutors is a really cool thing,” says Shilpa Agrawal ’15, director of computer science and an AP calculus AB teacher at Comp Sci High in the Bronx, New York, where 15 students are participating in the project.

“It’s led to a lot of success for my students,” adds Agrawal, who majored in computer science at MIT. She is part of the national network of MIT-connected teachers who have been helping the program grow organically, having reached out to Jenny Gardony, manager of the MIT4America Calculus Project.

Gardony, who is also the math project manager in MIT’s Scheller Teacher Education program, has been receiving enthusiastic emails from teachers in other participating districts since the project started.

“I have to start by saying thank you,” one teacher wrote to Gardony, adding that one student “was so excited in class today. The session she had with you made her so confident. She’s always nervous, but today she was smiling and helping others, and that was 100 percent because of you.”

Gardony adds: “The fact that a busy teacher takes the time to send that email, I’m touched they would do that.”