tutoring

It’s a week before finals and you are swamped with work: Essays need to be written; tests need preparing for; and labs need to be done. Speaking from personal experience, the hardest part of the week isn’t the excessive coffee-drinking or the all-nighters––it’s the helpless feeling of simply not knowing how to solve a problem or structure an essay. In those moments, the best solution is to reach out and get help. Detailed below is a series of Columbia’s undergraduate resources that one should make the most of.

As midterms are approaching and your daily treks to Butler are starting to turn into all-nighters, you’re probably wondering why you hadn’t started studying or tried reaching out for help earlier in the semester. Before you break down under the overwhelming amount of stress you’re under, there might still be time to redeem yourself and your semester grades (and plan out your next semester more efficiently!) by using the tutoring services offered across colleges here at Columbia.

Clara Monk’s students can see her, but she can’t see them. Looking into the green eye of her webcam, she greets the ten high school students who have logged in and are awaiting instruction. Her only evidence that they are there, and that they are listening, is the stream of messages pinging in the group chat.

Master's student Joshua Beach wants to find you the tutor you've been looking for.

Beach, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student studying the mathematics of finance, recently founded Tutonic, an online tutoring service, with Kyle Cromer and Bill Fan. The online database launched three months ago after the start-up was able to secure $700,000 in investments from Chinese backers. There are currently about 300 tutors using the site.

The site allows tutors to create profiles advertising their services, including educational background and experience in their chosen field.

Students looking for tutors, in turn, can search through the site's database and find ones that match their criteria.

Beach and his co-founders said that they saw the tutoring industry as one on the rise, yet bogged down by outdated business methods.

"Most tutors rely on word-of-mouth referrals and outdated means of going to a coffee shop and tacking up a piece of paper," Beach said.

He noted that traditional tutoring agencies were inflating their prices and reaping the benefits, taking the incentive away from the independent tutor.

As an alternative, Beach used his background in data-driven analytics—he holds a master's in statistics from Yale— to create a site where students can find the tutor that's the best fit for them.

"The agencies weren't using any technology and my roots are in this data driven, data analytics background," he said, "So I'm thinking there's room to bring a web platform that could handle the scheduling, booking and billing. But the better part is if you could use data driven algorithms to help match and pair people up."

Tutonic allows potential clients to rank their learning styles and the material they need help in, then uses this information in an algorithm that Cromer said "weighs attributes" to match the client based on his or her specific needs with a tutor who indicates a corresponding strength with certain material and a certain teaching style.

Looking to the future and Tutonic's potential for expansion, Cromer agreed with Beach's vision for Tutonic as one where "someone in Shanghai could get tutored by someone at Yale."

news@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

When the class of 2015 descended on College Walk this past week, its members encountered the stream of gargantuan letters that decorate the façade of Butler Library. Carved permanently into the stone, the names of authors like Homer, Plato, and Vergil serve as enduring reminders of Columbia's rigid, uniform education through which incoming students study the same slate of authors and texts year after year. Quite simply, the Core Curriculum maintains a masterful balance of having a "standard" education that all students in the college can share while abstaining from the evils of standardized testing that often hamper the secondary school experience. However, this quality isn't concordant across campus. Columbia's Double Discovery Center (DDC), the office in charge of educational outreach in the local New York City school system, often finds itself at odds with the University's identity as the cradle of contemporary civilization. Instead of embracing the school's undergraduate emphasis on "the person behind the score," the DDC pushes students into the system without regard to their actual education. Beginning in 1965, the DDC set out on a mission to share the rich educational tradition of the University with first-generation and limited-income college-bound students in Harlem and other local communities. The Center recruits heavily each year from the Columbia student body, generally training around 200 members to work through its various outreach initiatives. Today, the DDC provides test preparation, counseling, and tutoring services annually to more than 1,000 students, grades seven through 12. Unfortunately, these efforts are often for naught. When volunteers go into middle and high schools, they intend to help students in problem areas and develop a college preparation plan. However, with pressure from teachers and administrators who require lofty test scores for their own evaluation, the emphasis is automatically shifted to test preparation. For seventh and eighth graders, practicing skills for the Specialized High School Admissions Tests is the driving focus of biweekly after-school tutoring. For students in secondary school, the program is predominantly based on preparation for the Regents exams, the PSAT, and the SAT. The DDC's less-accessible summer session presents a marked improvement over the after-school program, allowing high school students to take two academic classes, but SAT preparation is still a linchpin of the summer program. Yes, test scores are often an important part of the college admissions process. However, the overwhelming concentration on preparation is a failure of the current system, not something Columbia should be promoting. This approach ultimately does students a disservice when they are placed in a college setting since they only know how to "game" a test. Even Columbia's Office of Undergraduate Admissions, which this past year turned down more students than ever before, has devalued standardized test scores in its admissions decisions. Taking a more holistic approach to applications, Undergraduate Admissions is now evaluating students within their context and placing the strength of their ideas over the strength of raw numbers. While the DDC claims to have incredible empirical success in getting students to college and helping them stay there—the program touts a college enrollment rate of 98 percent and an undergraduate graduation rate of 66 percent—there are several fundamental flaws with the way these statistics are used to provide support for the center's progress. First, the Double Discovery Center is a self-selective program, requiring an application complete with an academic transcript and parent or guardian's financial information. The application itself notes that students must be "interested in applying to or re-entering college or a GED program." Since the students who ultimately become a part of the program already express a clear interest in higher education, it should come as no surprise that DDC's statistics exceed the national average of 66 percent undergraduate enrollment and 58 percent college graduation. The program attempts to funnel more students into college and claims success in doing so, yet it completely ignores a large cohort of students who haven't considered college as a viable option. Furthermore, these numbers unveil another flaw in the Double Discovery Center's endeavors: While the college enrollment rate among DDC alumni is 32 percent higher than the national average for all US high school students, the gap for the graduation rate is much smaller, standing at only 8 percent. This could stem from the center's focus on meeting benchmark criteria and getting kids into the system by any means necessary while leaving them unprepared for the rigor of a college curriculum. This is not to say that Columbia students shouldn't be actively engaged in New York City schools. Programs like America Reads, Artists Reaching Out, and Youth for Debate make a prodigious impact on the community by linking undergraduates with inner-city students. However, such initiatives fall short of the all-encompassing approach that the Double Discovery Center takes to intellectual exploration. Columbia needs a program like the DDC, but only if it represents Columbia's own educational values. If the DDC wants to remain a centerpiece in the push to ameliorate the problems of urban education, it will need to shift its focus. Let's be honest—"teach-to-the-test" tutoring isn't going to promote a love of learning. The DDC instead needs to prepare students to succeed in a true academic setting—one that asks insoluble questions, leaves room for open-ended answers, and actually fosters critical thinking. Jared Odessky is a first-year in Columbia College.Worm in the Big Apple runs alternate Tuesdays.

To the editor: As a Barnard alumna (BC '96) and a former tutor for the Liberty Partnerships Program (1992-1996), I write to you to inform you about my disappointment regarding Barnard's decision to no longer support the Barnard Liberty Partnerships Program. The Liberty program is a mainly state-funded program that provides free tutoring, college counseling, and SAT preparation to low-income junior high and high school students who are at risk of failing academically (most of whom are minority students). All tutoring and mentoring is provided by Barnard and Columbia students. Recently, Vice President of Community Development Vivian Taylor announced to the parents and students of the Liberty Program (on the day the program was scheduled to start) that the college was ending its support of the program, not for financial reasons, but because of a change in vision. This local community program is no longer in sync with Barnard's new global vision. Although I am in complete support of Barnard's global initiatives, I do not believe that they should be at the expense of an already well-established local community program. The Liberty Program did not just provide tutoring to students. To its tutees, it provided hope and inspiration for a brighter future. For many students, Liberty also provided a much-needed shelter from the many hardships these children faced in their daily lives. To its tutors (all Barnard and Columbia students), it provided a sense of community, allowing us to become part of a group of individuals dedicated to enriching the lives of disadvantaged children. Liberty allowed us to transition from students to educators and leaders. We served as role models to young men and women who, more often than not, were left craving trustworthy relationships. Liberty's success speaks in the number of students that successfully go on to college. As a result of their experiences in the Liberty Program, many of these graduates also go on to serve their own communities. As a Barnard and Columbia alumna, I strongly believe that it is important to maintain a program that is in sync with the goal of the University of using education to better serve our communities. Alicia Hurtado Barnard College '96 Sept. 20, 2010

Students who are dissatisfied by the high price of tutoring and lack of extra help can now turn to the Columbia College Student Council '12, which is pushing for peer tutoring on dorm floors. break Typically, if a student faces difficulties with course material, he or she can attend office hours with a professor or talk to the class' teaching assistant. But when the designated help hours conflict with other classes or activities, or are too short to be helpful, students may need an alternative. "I wish it were true that the classroom environment at Columbia were such that students could learn all the necessary material without outside assistance, but this is definitely not the case in all courses," Sarah Duncan, CC '12, said. Duncan was unable to attend office hours for her Calculus II class because another one of her courses was scheduled at the same time. She finally opted to pay for a tutoring session during reading week. Tutoring provides more individualized attention. While varsity student athletes are eligible to receive free, semester-long tutoring sessions, most students pay for the help at rates of up to 90 dollars per hour. The services cost more than many students can afford. Some, including Duncan, have expressed their frustration with this disparity. She said that it is unfair that some students have access to free tutoring, while others, who also have time-consuming nonacademic commitments, could also benefit from it. To address these concerns, CCSC '12 is working to develop a free, dorm-based, floor tutoring service, available to first-year students. The proposal is well under way. Council members have discussed the tutoring program and plan to move forward with it this semester. To take advantage of the peer-run tutoring, a student would sign up for a certain academic area of interest on a board on his or her floor. They would then be able to browse what other people have written and find students they would be able to help, or students whose help they could benefit from. "It essentially formalizes what most people do already—ask friends for help—while also expanding the pool of resources available," Erik Kogut, first-year class president and CC '12, said. On-floor tutoring was one of Kogut's promises in his campaign this fall. "Our greatest resource is us. Floor tutoring is just a simple way of tapping into that," Kogut said. CCSC '12 will either implement this service for the entire semester, as soon as it finishes organizing immediate, upcoming social events, or it will include the floor tutoring as a part of a final exam "prep week." The latter plan would also include benefits such as extending John Jay dining hall hours to studying students. These details will be determined at CCSC's next meeting in late January, Kogut said. "One of my favorite things about Columbia is that students come from unique backgrounds, and each person brings something new to discussions," Duncan said. "But on the other hand, this means that everyone in the classroom has received a different education, which makes the learning process harder for some students than others, depending on how much experience they have had with the material." news@columbiaspectator.com.

Barnard's Student Government Association grappled with election constitutional policy on Monday night as members discussed recent impeachments and academic support programs. SGA elections are currently underway and are scheduled to end at noon on Wednesday, April 8. Students can now log into eBear to vote. break Members raised the question of whether Rebecca Shao, BC '11, who was impeached earlier this semester from her position as representative to the General Studies Student Council, was eligible to run for the loftier position of vice president of finance. While SGA President Sarah Besnoff, BC '09, who also runs elections, noted that there is no current policy against this in the council constitution, she recommended that next year's executive board conduct a constitutional review in order to address gray areas in election policies. Both Shao and Jackie Bundock, BC '11, former representative for Student Services, were impeached recently with no contest for lackluster attendance at meetings. SGA student elections, which began on Sunday evening at 10 p.m., are scheduled to end at noon Wednesday. As of Monday evening, 25 percent of the Barnard student body had voted. "What I've found in four years of SGA is people who vote are people who write in [suggestions]," Besnoff said. Some of those write-in ideas, she said, were turned over to he administration as suggestions. SGA also met on Monday night with Vivian Taylor, associate dean of the college for academic enrichment and opportunity programs, who discussed a wide variety of academic support programs for Barnard students and students from other colleges and local schools. The Liberty Partnerships Program, Taylor explained, provides Barnard and Columbia students as tutors for teens in seventh through twelfth grades in danger of dropping out of school. The graduation rate from the program is 94 percent. The Science and Technology Entry Program, or STEP, helps students in grades nine through twelve in underrepresented groups to achieve excellence in scientific disciplines. These programs have grown over the course of the year, and Taylor said that she hopes they will continue to do so. Taylor stated that one of the program's goals was to develop a resource center for different subjects, like those in other prominent colleges and universities, but acknowledged that the resource center may have to be sacrificed for resource and financial reasons in order to promote other programs. Taylor suggested putting together a student panel discussing different student studying methods, which was a well-received idea. The council also suggested developing a series of videos on economic diversity on campus similar to ones that had been found useful in the past about racial diversity.