WHY ARE MY MATH TEACHERS AT THE WALK-IN TABLE?

I thought that more students might come ask questions if they were in an environment less threatening than a "Professor's Office!!" With other students all around, it seems the AARC might be more inviting than a one-on-one session with their old fogey professor. Besides offering my 220 students a chance to seek help in a hospitable environment, I find that my upper division undergraduate students are also taking this opportunity to get their questions answered. Again I think that they see me in a less formal light when I'm sitting at the Walk-In table. I've also had the opportunity to tutor students from classes other than my own, which has been interesting.



Dr. Joe McWilliams
Department of Mathematics


Different students are available at different times of the day, and I want to make sure that everyone has access to office hours. I think the walk-in tables are a great, nonthreatening environment to work on math together. It's a great challenge and great fun to try to engage each one exactly at their unique 'trouble spots.' I really enjoy the people who work at the walk-in tables. A fun community has formed around those tables!


Dr. Keith Hubbard
Department of Mathematics


I have a hard time getting students to come to my office. I know that students go to the AARC regularly, and I was hoping that they'd get to know me better there. I've really liked working at the walk-in table. I like getting to switch gears and think about problems in different courses, and it's been instructive for me to see the way the peer tutors interact with the students.

Dr. Jane Long
Department of Mathematics






It's been great. I still hold some of my office hours in Math and Nursing, but I probably have 4 to 5 times the traffic in the AARC. If my students don't need to see me, I can help students in other courses. It also seems to be a better place to get to know my students.

Dr. Tom Judson
Department of Mathematics

ACADEMIC ADVISORS UNITE!

AARC initiated the first ever Academic Advising Consortium (at least the first ever that we know of!) and met at the AARC with academic advisors from across campus in January. This would be a great picture except that Dr. Shockley can hardly been seen. Please know that he was there!

MARRIED AND LOVING SI--COLLYER AND COLLYER

SI Leaders provide assistance that I could not otherwise provide during lecture hours. They challenge students with exercises that simulate exam questions; they provide exercises to students to enhance critical thinking skills; and, as former students in my class, they provide valuable and sage advice for studying and succeeding in my course. Students who regularly participate in SI group have, unequivocally, better exams scores than others! I rely on the SI program as part of my course planning. My reliance is rewarded by great SI Leaders. I have had three SI Leaders -- Meagan, Dennis, and Bethanee-- who deserve all of the credit for making SI an effective part of my course!

Dr. Michael Collyer
Department of Biology

SI is an indispensable support for A&P, and I wish my students would make use of it more regularly, not only before the exams! This semester, I have a great SI leader for my class, Franziska, and not only does the fact that she, also, is German make it fun to work together, she is also very knowledgeable, as well!

Petra Collyer
Department of Biology

SHE WALKS ON WATER--BY DR. JEFF BREMER AND DENNIS BRADFORD

Savannah is the greatest. She needs little input from me since she has great notes from when she took the course. She knows what the students need to succeed and covers the material well. I couldn't ask for better.

Dennis M. Bradford

Department of History

I can't say enough good things about Savannah. She has consistently been one of the best students we have in the history department and has been a model SI. She checks in with me every day after class and asks questions to follow up on lecture. Her success is shown by the fact that several dozen students showed up earlier this week for her SI session. In fact, she's so good at what she does I am suggesting (strongly) that she go get a Ph.D. in American history.

P.S. Savannah also can walk on water.

Dr. Jeff Bremer

Department of History

WHY I HAVE AN SI--BY CYNTHIA DEVLIN

Jennifer's goal is to teach and the knowledge garnered during her tenure as an SI has provided her with an opportunity that many undergrads never experience. What has been exciting and rewarding for me is to have observed the gradual changes over time in her general demeanor, her knowledge of history, her organizational skills, and her comfort level with students. Specifically, I challenged Jennifer to orginate several questions for exam puposes. We "molded" them into strong test questions that provoked my students to use their "gray matter"! I wish only the best for her future success!

Cynthia Devlin

Department of History

NO ONE IS BORED WITH THE BOARD

Sure, you’re familiar with the CHAT where students can talk to a tutor in real time on the OWL (Online Writing Lab), but do you know about "The Board” ?

“The Board” is the OWL’s online discussion forum containing gripping, humorous, and often deeply personal responses to some of freshman writing courses’ most common writing prompts. Contributions originate from our very own AARC writing tutors.

These resources serve as great models for student writers and may even prove useful for creating class lessons!

Read the entries by logging on at http://mycourses.sfasu.edu/.
Don’t have access to the AARC OWL? Request a guest pass by e-mailing brownjf@sfasu.edu.

JE NE SAIS QUOI

As Melissa Boiles writes: There is a certain je ne sais quoi about what happens in the AARC…a bit of life that wasn’t there before, a bit of fun, of inspiration, of energy, of love for a subject. How do we pin down exactly what happens between students when one helps another become great?

(Melissa likes to speak French now whenever she can as she is taking French class with Perry Moon!)

Our "special something" has made defining what we do here difficult, but like everybody else we need to define our work in terms of learning outcomes. After hours and hours of constructing, deleting, and constructing again, we determined our learning outcomes for tutors to be:

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS
MOTIVATION SKILLS
INDEPENDENT LEARNING COACHING
STUDY STRATEGIES MODELING
TIME MANAGEMENT MENTORING

Still our learning outcomes tell only part of our story. It's really the Je ne sais quoi that makes life here at the AARC so exciting. Melissa and the rest of the AARC team invite you to come over and "feel" it for yourself!