Solutions
Solutions for everyone who teaches
Pencil Spaces is the virtual classroom for tutoring, schools, colleges, training, therapy and more. Start with your industry to see the problems people like you run into and how Pencil Spaces solves each one. Or browse all 176 problems by role, moment or outcome.
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Industries
45 industries in 7 groups
Who
Program leaders, Tutors, Students, Parents
When
Getting started, Before the lesson, During the lesson, After the lesson, Milestones
Helps you
Teach better, Save time, Earn more
Mapped
176 problems in 40 jobs
Aujourd'hui
148 solved, 24 partly solved, 4 coming soon
Start with your industry
Tutoring
- High-impact tutoring56 problemsHigh-impact tutoring that proves it worked
- Tutoring companies50 problemsRun a tutoring company families stay with
- Independent tutors45 problemsMore teaching and less admin for independent tutors
- Learning centers and franchises20 problemsEvery center, online and in person, run the same way
- Test prep21 problemsTest prep that shows students where they stand
- Tutoring marketplaces16 problemsA classroom built into your tutoring marketplace
- Nonprofit and volunteer tutoring22 problemsVolunteer tutoring that runs like a program
- Reading and literacy programs21 problemsReading tutoring for every early reader
- Math tutoring22 problemsMath tutoring where you see every step
Les écoles
- K-12 schools and districts40 problemsLive online teaching for every school in the district
- Charter schools and networks21 problemsOne way of teaching across every campus
- Online and virtual schools34 problemsAn online school that feels like a real school
- International and IB schools22 problemsInternational teaching across languages and time zones
- Independent and boarding schools20 problemsLive teaching for students wherever they are
- Homeschooling and microschools18 problemsSmall schools and homeschool groups, taught live
- Early learning12 problemsLive lessons simple enough for a five-year-old
- Special education and SEND16 problemsLive teaching that fits every learner
- Special needs, need by need38 needsWhat lessons need for dyslexia, autism, ADHD and 35 more
- After-school and summer programs20 problemsAfter-school and summer learning kids show up for
- Teacher professional development11 problemsProfessional learning teachers actually use
Subjects and skills
- Language learning22 problemsLanguage classes where everyone gets to speak
- English language teaching22 problemsEnglish lessons online, from first words to fluency
- Coding and STEM22 problemsCoding and STEM classes, hands on and online
- Music lessons18 problemsMusic lessons online, with the instrument in view
- Art and design classes10 problemsArt classes where everyone draws together
- Enrichment classes22 problemsEnrichment classes kids ask to come back to
- Faith-based education14 problemsFaith-based classes, taught live from anywhere
- College admissions counseling13 problemsAdmissions counseling with every essay in one place
Colleges and adult learning
- Colleges and universities20 problemsLive teaching for every course, on campus and off
- Community colleges19 problemsClasses that fit around work and family
- Campus tutoring and writing centers13 problemsCampus tutoring and writing centers, open online
- Medical and nursing education20 problemsMedical and nursing teaching, live and hands on
- Graduate and business schools19 problemsGraduate and MBA classes built on discussion
- Adult education and GED21 problemsAdult education that meets learners where they are
Work and professional learning
- Corporate training17 problemsCorporate training people remember
- Customer and partner training17 problemsCustomer and partner training, live and on brand
- Certification and continuing education20 problemsCertification prep and continuing education, live
- Bootcamps and career training19 problemsBootcamps where learners build, not just watch
- Workforce development20 problemsWorkforce training funders can see working
- Coaching and mentoring12 problemsCoaching and mentoring that builds on every conversation
- Course creators and cohort courses12 problemsCohort courses with a live classroom of your own
Health and care
- Speech, occupational and behavioral therapy18 problemsSpeech, occupational and behavioral therapy, online
- Healthcare and telehealth15 problemsTelehealth visits with a shared screen that does more
Libraries, museums and platforms
- Public libraries11 problemsLibrary programs and homework help, live online
- Museums and virtual field trips11 problemsVirtual field trips that feel like being there
- Education platforms and software12 problemsAdd a live classroom to your education platform
Or start with who you are
- Program leaders59 problemsRun a program families and funders trust
- Tutors53 problemsMore of your time spent teaching
- Students40 problemsLessons that work for every student
- Parents24 problemsKnow what happens in your child’s lessons
Or with when it happens
- Getting started33 problemsGetting started, without weeks of setup
- Before the lesson30 problemsReady before the lesson starts
- During the lesson52 problemsEverything that happens in the lesson
- After the lesson37 problemsThe work that follows every lesson
- Milestones24 problemsProgress you can see, term by term
Or with what you want
- Teach better96 problems
- Save time61 problems
- Earn more67 problems
The full map
Program leaders
- No evidence on which program design works
- Funding is hard to win and keep
- Security reviews and RFPs take months
- Switching platforms mid-year is risky
- One setup has to fit every role and site
- Rosters fall out of step with the SIS
- Logins fail, young children most of all
- The same data entered in several systems
- School networks and devices block lessons
- Launching a term or a site takes weeks
- Vendors slow to fix or build what you need
- Too few tutors for every subject and slot
- Hard to judge teaching skill before hiring
- New tutors take too long to be ready
- Little baseline on each student’s needs
- Matching students to tutors by hand
- Getting the right materials to every tutor
- No shared standard for good teaching
- Student data under COPPA, FERPA and GDPR
- No control over what AI does with students
- Messages miss families in other languages
- Hard to stand out and prove impact
- Families see the vendor’s brand, not yours
- Availability lives in a dozen places
- Building a term’s schedule takes days
- Every change ripples through by hand
- Finding a substitute in time
- No control over who changes the schedule
- Students and tutors forget to show up
- Uninvited guests, leaked links, stale access
- Schools don’t know what tutoring covers
- No-shows and join failures at start time
- Audio and video fail mid-lesson
- No live view across every lesson
- Help requests pile up during lessons
- Children alone online with adults, unseen
- Too few lessons are ever observed
- Coaches can’t give every tutor feedback
- No evidence when a complaint comes in
- Attendance entered and fixed by hand
- Engagement and satisfaction go unmeasured
- Families hear little about each lesson
- Questions and complaints get lost
- Tutor pay rebuilt from timesheets
- Good tutors leave mid-term
- Poor fits and mid-term changes linger
- Delivery drifts from the model across sites
- Underperformance is hard to prove fairly
- Proving compliance to every district
- Under-dosed students spotted too late
- Hard to show tutoring caused the growth
- Reports stitched together from many systems
- Research takes months of data wrangling
- No clear view of cost per child
- Overhead grows with every new site
- Invoices don’t match lessons delivered
- Families churn without warning
- Renewals need proof that’s hard to show
- Each new site, language or age is a project
Tuteurs
- Slow hiring and repeated clearances
- Unready for their first real students
- Learning the tools in front of students
- Matched with students who don’t fit
- Mandatory training and sign-offs pile up
- Keeping availability current every week
- Clashing calendars across programs
- Hearing about changes too late
- No buffer between back-to-back lessons
- Meeting a new student cold
- Deciding what each student needs next
- Hours spent finding and making materials
- Rebuilding the board before every lesson
- Hunting for links and logins
- Students late, locked out or lost
- Inheriting students with no context
- Not knowing what the class is covering
- Echo, noise and frozen video
- Every student on a different device
- Writing math and diagrams with a mouse
- Juggling slides, videos and websites
- Hands-on ideas don’t work on a screen
- Students looking at the wrong spot
- No shared language with the student
- Building rapport through a screen
- Attention drifts, young kids most of all
- Quiet students, and the tutor talks most
- Differentiating for a whole group at once
- Disruptions and meddling with others’ work
- Students who don’t want to be there
- Running out of time, ending late
- Can’t see a student’s work as they do it
- Can’t see who’s stuck in a group
- “I get it” that isn’t true
- Not knowing when to slow down or move on
- No one to reach mid-lesson
- Signs of harm or distress go unnoticed
- Exposed when alone online with a minor
- Inappropriate content or uninvited people
- Hours lost to grading homework
- Feedback that’s vague, late or ignored
- Remembering where each student left off
- Practice between lessons doesn’t happen
- Keeping parents updated takes time
- Complaints with no record to point to
- Logging attendance after every lesson
- Writing notes and reports by hand
- Submitting and fixing timesheets
- A different login and tool for each program
- No one watches them teach
- Catching up after absences and summers
- Unpaid prep, waiting and no-shows
- No clear path to raises or promotion
Students
- Getting lost on the way into class
- Only a phone or a locked-down Chromebook
- Lessons clash with classes, sports or jobs
- Forgetting, or no adult to get them there
- A new tutor who doesn’t know them
- Lessons cancelled or tutors missing
- Bad connection, can’t hear the tutor
- Joining from a noisy, crowded room
- Too many controls for young or new students
- Accommodations missing in the lesson
- Nervous with a new tutor
- Uneasy on camera, with home on view
- Afraid of being wrong in front of peers
- Strangers or bullies in the lesson
- Unsure who sees their work and data
- A lesson pitched at someone else’s level
- Messy boards and abstract explanations
- Learning in a second language
- Too shy to interrupt and ask
- Losing their place on the board
- Hard to write math, code or text on screen
- Shy, or drowned out by others
- Group work online falls flat
- Rushed, held back, or work erased
- Other tabs, phones and games
- Tired, or having a bad day
- Work that feels boring and irrelevant
- No say in goals or activities
- “I’m just bad at this”
- Effort that goes unnoticed
- Forgetting what was covered last time
- Homework at the wrong level, no feedback
- Stuck, with no one to ask until next week
- AI that gives answers, not understanding
- Tutoring that doesn’t match class
- Feedback that’s only right or wrong
- Unsure what to work on next
- Online tests that don’t fit how they work
- Can’t see how far they’ve come
- No idea if they’re ready for the test
Parents
- Accounts and passwords for every child
- Unsure the home setup will work
- Not knowing who the tutor really is
- Wary of recordings and AI on their child
- Re-explaining their child to every tutor
- Finding a time that works for the family
- Being home to get a young child online
- Rescheduling around illness and holidays
- A child who refuses to go
- Concerns not handled seriously or fast
- “It was fine” is all they hear
- Unsure their child actually attended
- Updates full of jargon and numbers
- Language barriers with the program
- Slow answers, issues left open
- Not knowing what to practice at home
- Can’t help with unfamiliar methods
- Kids using AI to skip the work
- Their child’s anxiety and stress
- Their child doesn’t click with the tutor
Browse by job
- Program leaders: Decide, fund and buy
- Program leaders: Set up and connect systems
- Program leaders: Recruit, train and keep tutors
- Program leaders: Enroll and match students
- Program leaders: Schedule and staff lessons
- Program leaders: Keep lessons running
- Program leaders: Assure teaching quality
- Program leaders: Keep students safe and stay compliant
- Program leaders: Track attendance and outcomes
- Program leaders: Communicate with families and partners
- Program leaders: Run the economics
- Program leaders: Retain and grow families, partners and sites
- Tutors: Onboard and get matched
- Tutors: Manage the schedule
- Tutors: Prepare lessons
- Tutors: Start the lesson and keep it working
- Tutors: Explain and show
- Tutors: Engage and manage learners
- Tutors: Check understanding
- Tutors: Keep continuity
- Tutors: Work with parents and teachers
- Tutors: Do the admin
- Tutors: Earn and grow
- Tutors: Stay safe and well
- Students: Get in and set up
- Students: Feel safe
- Students: Follow and understand
- Students: Take part
- Students: Stay focused
- Students: Learn between lessons
- Students: Know where they stand
- Students: Stay consistent
- Parents: Enroll and set up
- Parents: Fit it into family life
- Parents: Know their child is safe
- Parents: See if it’s working
- Parents: Reach the program
- Parents: Support learning at home
- Parents: Motivation and wellbeing
- Parents: Value for money
See it in a live Space.
We’ll walk you through it, shaped around how you teach.
