By Dylan Hackett, News Editor
Douglas College’s premier tutoring service, the Learning Centre, is active for the Summer Semester but with limited hours of availability at David Lam campus. The Learning Centre is available free to all students registered at Douglas College and provides tutoring and mentoring in all areas of study done by professionally-certified tutors.
“We have three kinds of tutoring. There’s drop-in tutoring where you can come in for a half hour and we’ll just work with you on a project, there’s ongoing tutoring which is a regular meeting of an hour per week. It not only is project work but is also for skills for success in your course. For people writing essays we also have online tutoring,” said peer tutor and Other Press Humour Editor, Liam Britten.
While formal sessions make up the bulk of the Learning Centre’s service, tutors also help students who come by with quick questions.
“If you want to come in and ask a quick question, like how to cite something, we have a ton of handouts for all kinds of grammar issues and for science and math but especially for citations,” explained Britten. “[Citations] are probably the biggest thing people have. Professors, especially for first year courses, could do a lot better of a job of helping students with citations of various styles and I find we pick up the slack a lot of the time in those situations.”
The Learning Centre is always looking for new tutors to add to its rosters. “There’s a real need for more science students to get involved, more math students to get involved and, especially in Coquitlam, more nursing students,” said Britten. “There are no volunteers at the Learning Centre. Peer tutoring is the entry-level position. This isn’t the case at all places. SFU only has volunteer tutors, no paid tutors.”
“It is a paid position. You spend three semesters there. You will be among the highest trained or certified tutors in the country or even in North America. You get to meet a lot of great people. If you’re tutoring someone in your own academic aspirations you get to relearn a lot of stuff.
“The best thing for a peer tutor to have coming in is good marks in the courses you plan on tutoring and you have to have a lot of patience in most cases. Flexibility is really key because when you’re tutoring people they learn in different ways and you have to adapt to that and a positive attitude is the other thing. Some people don’t learn at the same rates as others but you have to treat everyone as if they are going to succeed. You have to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in their courses.”
The Learning Centre is open five days a week during Summer Semester at New Westminster Campus and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at David Lam. Online tutoring requests are available 24/7. It is available online at www.douglas.bc.ca/services/learning-centre.html.
