Online tutor service open for business: co-ordinator

Learning Assistance Centre hired more tutors to encourage students to submit essays

Morgan Modjeski, Staff

Students seeking feedback on essays should submit them online to the university’s Learning Assistance Centre, according to the Miriam Unruh, thecentre’s co-ordinator.

The learning assistance centre (LAC) has been offering students help with writing skills, note-taking skills, study methods, and time management since 1983, according to Unruh, .

The online service was set up in 2006, but was a “low-key” tool, said Unruh.

“I was pretty slow about advertising [the online learning assistance centre] — mainly because it was a new service and I did not have very many tutors. I did not want us to get too many requests and not able to fill them all.”

For the first two years of the online program, there were two tutors who were trained for online tutoring. Now there are seven fully trained tutors available to work on essays submitted online.

Students can e-mail their essays from their university accounts, asking for advice on specific questions and help with common concerns: thesis statement, logic, organization, coherence, citations and grammar.

Unruh estimated that approximately eight students submit essays per week, or 30-40 per month. This is an increase from last year, when an estimated 20-30 students used the service.

“My goal is for the students who would find this service useful [is] to be able to access it. So it sort of depends on the students and what the need is.”

The online resource is designed to help students who are unable to access the service on campus because of geographical and scheduling reasons.

“We have a fair number of students who take courses, who are in northern Manitoba and in the outlying rural communities who might come in for courses but leave immediately or who are mature students with kids and jobs, and coming into see a writing tutor is complicated,” said Unruh.

“Some students don’t necessarily want to go see someone face-to-face,” she said. “They’re insecure, thinking people will assume they don’t know how to write.”

Unruh also noted that some students use the resource to ensure that “they’re on the right track,” before submitting their papers in class.

The LAC offers professors pamphlets to distribute to students at the beginning of the term.

According to Anita Ens, an LAC learning skills specialist, four professors have already taken them up on the deal.

David Annandale, an English instructor, said that he handed out pamphlets to his students in part to make the transition from high school to university easier.

“Well, I think it gives [students] an additional resource, especially in [their] first year. The transition between high school and university can be difficult, and the demand placed on essay writing in particular can be a real challenge for students,” he said.

“Since classes are so huge, there are limits to how much time any one instructor can spend with any one student, and it’s a valuable resource for students to have somewhere to go on top of their instructor to get help with their work.”

The LAC has provided letters offering their online services to Extended Education professors, who are passing them on to their students. The LAC has also requested the front page of the university’s website to advertise the online resources.

Last year, there were 2,700 appointments made at LAC. Sixty per cent of the students who use their services are University 1 students, according to Unruh. The LAC offices are located on the first floor of Tier, across from the University 1 office.