Project Title:
Using E-Tutoring to Bridge the Gap for WSU-Rochester Center Students
Project Director and Other Associated Faculty and Staff:
Jillian Quandt, Coordinator of Tutoring Winona State University, Contact: jquandt@winona.edu, Tel.: (507)457-5680
Ken Graetz, E-Learning Director, Winona State University, Contact: kgraetz@winona.edu, Telephone: (507)457-2339
Project Design:
Currently, there is a need for tutoring in courses such as math, statistics, etc for students at WSU-Rochester Center. The project proposed to provide e-tutoring which will allow a tutor in Winona to serve students in Rochester using web cams and tablets. With this technology, students and tutors can create a one-on-one tutoring session.
Project Evaluation and Outcomes:
During 2004-05 academic year, Web EX communication program was used in conjunction with tablet computers and web cameras and the e-tutoring was offered to students enrolled in statistics course. One student tutor was hired and 6 faculty and staff were involved in the project. While 14 students indicated an interest in e-tutoring, only three students followed through to schedule sessions. One of these students had only one session and then utilized the face-to-face tutor while the remaining two students had 9 and 12 sessions respectively. The outcomes were that the two students who used e-tutoring received grades of “B” and “D” in the course and they thought that tutoring helped improve their grade. Students did complete the study skills assessment module for pre-tutoring but neither completed the post-tutoring module so a comparison of responses was not possible.
Lessons Learned, Dissemination and Sustainability
While the use of e-tutoring by WSU students was limited, the E-tutoring project was considered a success because a partnership was created among advising, academic affairs and e-learning staff and this led to offering a variety of tutoring formats to serve diverse student populations. As a result, a proposal has been written to provide on-going funding in support of e-tutoring. One reason why a limited number of students used e-tutoring may be due to fact that a face-to-face tutor was unexpectedly made available in Rochester for Fall semester and this tutor provided 21 hours of tutoring and students prefer face-to-face tutors over e-tutors. In addition, the e-tutoring software and camera required Rochester students to use a designated on-campus computer station during specific times so this was not convenient form many students. Therefore, it might be ideal to offer two levels of e-tutoring, a fully functioning system and a pared-down version utilizing Desire-2-Learn and allowing students to access tutoring from home or other locations.
A presentation of this project was provided at the WSU E-Learning Faculty Exchange session and this session led to Business Education utilizing the technology to supplement their curriculum. The Project Director plans on making a presentation at the 2006 State Conference of Minnesota Association of Educational Opportunity Personnel.
