Topic: Presentation and Communication Skills Goal: Successfully plan and implement a class the covers the benefits of the Academic Enhancement Center. Activities: Conduct an overview about the benefits of the AEC Hold a discussion with the students about how they believe the AEC might benefit them (better study habits, tutoring help, essay editing, etc.) Hold a tutoring session for them outside of class for MTH 110 (the majority of the class is enrolled in MTH 110 for the semester). Evidence: Include a packet of information with tutoring schedules and AEC hours that would be handed out to students. Also include a summary of how the class believed the AEC could assist them and a write-up of what topics were covered in the tutoring session held outside of class time. Possibly include pictures of an exam preparation session. In addition to the wonderful experiences my RA position has given me, another great experience that I have had is being a tutor for the Math Walk-In Center at the Academic Enhancement Center (AEC). As a freshman mathematics major I had no idea what the AEC was or could offer me, so I wanted to make sure that students knew of the great, free, tutoring service they could take advantage of at their convenience. Since the majority of the class was taking either math 99 or 110 (it was a part of their learning community), I chose to utilize my tutoring experience to provide helpful tips and tricks to becoming a successful mathematics student and also ran a few study sessions outside of class. Although I would have preferred to run one giant study session before a particular exam, my schedule did not offer much free time that also worked for the students. Instead, if students gave me a few days notice, I would stay a little later after class to help answer homework questions or clarify some of the more complex topics. |
 Evidence:
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For those who still wanted help but could not stay after class, I made sure to walk them to AEC where the math walk-ins took place so they knew exactly how to get there. I also tried to give them a name of a tutor who I felt would work well with that student's learning style. In addition, David and I decided to run our own "AEC information session" during one of our classes. We felt that the AEC presentation that most URI 101 classes go to would somewhat redundant, in that he was the Director and I have a year of experience working there. I create a personalized brochure to hand out to the students, along with specific tutoring schedules for the math walk-in center. Along with the general overview of the AEC, we thought a study skills activity would complement this presentation really well. This is not mentioned in my learning contract, but I feel that the activity we ran worked very well and deserved to be mentioned (the directions are still listed under evidence). The activity was as follows: students each took the time to fill out a "backpack," where they would put specific study skills they were good at in the pockets and skills they needed to work on went outside the backpack. They then went around to everybody else in the class and initialed their classmates' pockets where they agreed, or felt the same way. After about 15 minutes of self-evaluation and socialization with others, I then ran a discussion regarding what skills the majority of the class excelled at. We also discussed how you could use skills you were good at to complement those methods that still needed work. For example, memorizing was a particular skill that most felt they needed to work on, so we went over possible solutions to improve that method of studying (flashcards, mnemonic devices, etc.). All in all, I felt that the session went really well and everyone took away practical suggestions to apply to their future studying efforts. |
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