TutorTrac makes tutoring services easier to use
October 7, 2010
The Academic Success Center, a resource for students to gain help with Tutoring services, has a new way to sign up for a tutoring session that makes it more accessible for students.
TutorTrac is a new system that the Academic Success Center started at the beginning of the 2010 fall semester to help students meet their academic goals.TutorTrac has been used to set up 95 appointments as of Sept. 29.
“Most students seem to like the ease of TutorTrac,” said Director of the Academic Success Center Jill Moe. “I’m excited that we’ve been able to create a user friendly system to better serve our students.”
TutorTrac helps students schedule appointments through the English as a Second Language Center, Math Center, Physics Center, Speakers Corner, Writing Center, Chemistry Center and Skills Center. The Skills Center not only helps students with better study habits and effective note taking, but the center also helps with scheduling and time management.
“This helps students deal with anxiety and stress,” said Skills Center Tutor Kris Oberg. “I’m excited that we now have a user-friendly system to better serve our students.”
With the new program, professors will be able to track which students are getting help and zone into data to better help improve the Skills Center.
“Before TutorTrac, signing up for a tutor session was a long, drawn out process,” Oberg said. “TutorTrac now provides more options. This new system will be able to determine the students who use student services versus those who don’t and how that effects their overall GPA.”
TutorTrac is a new program, so there are a few bugs and quirks in it that still need to be worked out. But once those are worked out it will be a very effective and easier process to sign up for tutoring, Moe said.
“I am not a fan [of TutorTrac],” said a tutor in business law, accounting and Spanish, Jim Cipera. “They are still trying to get all the kinks out, but once they fix things, I think it should be a good resource.”
In the spring of 2009, there was a total of 1,668 total of student showings to the help centers, and in the fall of 2009, there were 2,201 total.
“We hope to see more students take advantage of these resources,” Moe said. “We hope TutoTrac will help gain students’ interests in seeking help.”
TutorTrac is able to determine which students use student services and which study services need more attention.
“We encourage students to come in and check it out,” Oberg said, “It’s a good way to get things started, we can help students turn C’s into B’s and B’s into A’s.”
Tutoring services helps students with test preparation, organization, homework, papers, time management and other academic resources. To set up a tutoring appointment students should go to the tutoring website at https://tutoring.uwrf.edu/TracWeb40/Default.html.