McGraw Center tutoring highly recommended

Students went to the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning for help with a class almost 1,000 times last semester. And 96 percent of those times, students said they would recommend the tutoring service to a friend, according to data collected by the McGraw Center.

Students said the free tutoring sessions, which are held Sunday through Wednesday on the third floor of Frist Campus Center, present challenges and benefits for both tutors and struggling students.

Unlike peer tutoring offered through the residential colleges, students attending McGraw Study Hall do not arrange meetings in advance. Students can get help with specific assignments or general concepts, though they cannot count on individual attention, especially on busy nights.

But Nic Voge, the McGraw Center’s associate director, said that group tutoring helps in the learning process.

“Because we don’t have private tutors, that forces students to collaborate and work together through a certain problem,” he explained. “Research has shown that this style of self-explanation is really important in flexibly adapting one’s existing knowledge to a novel problem.”

This semester, McGraw Study Hall offers tutoring for introductory courses in chemistry, economics, math, physics, and operations research and financial engineering. Statistics provided by the McGraw Center indicated that there were 959 total visits to McGraw Study Hall last semester, of which 753 were from A.B. students and 206 from B.S.E. students.

Student tutors are expected to attend sessions once or twice a week and must have received an A-level grade in a course, though Voge said they are selected based on factors beyond academic aptitude in their chosen discipline.

“Most people already self-select based on grades, so that’s just kind of the prerequisite, not a determining feature,” he explained, adding that the center also considers an applicant’s prior experience and ability to clearly explain all the steps to solve a problem.

Peter Petrov ’12, who has taught physics at McGraw Study Hall since February, said that tutoring has been a “great experience.”

Jessica Zhou ’10, who currently teaches ORFE and has also taught math and economics during her two years as a tutor, said that while her experience has largely been positive, students seeking help often struggle to plan ahead, which may cause staffing difficulties.

“One problem is that students tend to come in the night before the homework is due, so during those nights, we could sometimes definitely use an extra tutor,” she said. “But on nights where homework is not due the next day, it’s usually quiet, so they could help make our lives a bit easier if they did the work a bit earlier.”

Zhou added, however, that sessions are “generally well-staffed.”

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Voge noted that tutors face some challenges that course instructors do not.

“One of the challenges of being a tutor is being prepared for anything a student might bring, because they don’t know what’s coming in the way an ... instructor does,” he said. As a way of addressing this challenge, Voge suggested that faculty give tutors access to their courses’ Blackboard sites or other course materials.

Students who use the service said that the benefit of working at McGraw Study Hall comes not only from tutors, but also from working with classmates.

Andrea de Sa ’13, who received instruction in math and economics last semester, said she benefited from group work at McGraw Study Hall.

“The reason I became involved is that it’s easier to get problem sets done in a group, bouncing ideas around, especially given time constraints,” she explained, adding that “no one should go into McGraw expecting one-on-one attention, but they will always get their question answered, even if they have to wait a bit.”

Saswathi Natta ’13, who has received tutoring in physics, math and chemistry at McGraw Study Hall, explained that the biggest strengths of the tutoring sessions are their convenience and camaraderie.

“I go pretty much every day that they’re open and study outside, so it’s really easy to just drop in if I have a question,” she said. Since all students at the McGraw Center are undergraduates, “you see them around campus and make friends that way.”