We all know that students in physics classes sometimes need extra help.
This can be especially true for students taking physics to fulfill
general-education requirements. Something has come up here at Bluffton
College and I could sure use the help of phys-l people.
At a recent meeting with the dean (of the whole college), I was
chastised for not providing tutors for students having problems. This
really shocked me. Am I completely out of touch with what other
institutions are doing today? Are other physics or science departments
using departmental money to pay for personal tutors?
Before you respond, let me make it clear what I am talking about.
Students needing help might imagine several ways of getting it.
(1) See the professor during office hours.
(2) Go to a recitation section led by a graduate student or upper-level
student.
(3) Go to a "help desk" staffed by a graduate student or upper-level
student.
(4) Get a personal tutor to spend 2-4 hours per week helping one
student study, solve problems, write lab reports.
At Bluffton College I am already doing options 1 through 3. However,
if a student asks for a personal tutor, I typically recommend some good
physics students who might fulfill this task, but the meeting times and
financial arrangements must be worked out between the student-in-need
and the tutor.
I am now being told that I should be paying for these private tutors
from my departmental student-assistant budget. Mind you, my budget is
not being increased... therefore this is one of those non-funded
mandates that descends from high. We put about 250 students per year
through a general-education physics course. I suspect that if personal
tutoring were available for free, easily half of the students would ask
for it. If a tutor worked with one student for one hour per day for
four days a week, and if 100 students asked for this, that would be 400
hours per week. At minimum wage that would be $2000 per week.
Since our undergraduate student work contracts are for 8 hours per
week, I would also have to find about 50 tutors. Aside from that fact
that I don't have anywhere near that many qualified students, can you
imagine how hard it would be to train these tutors. As it stands now,
we have a hard time teaching our "help desk" students to answer
questions without actually doing the problem or writing the lab report
for the student. We also work with the help-desk staff to make sure
they know what is going on in class, in lab, and how we want the
students to approach various problems or reports. That involves
working with about 4 student helpers. I'm trying to imagine managing
this with 50 tutors?
I would be most interested in hearing which of the four services you
provide at your institution. If there are different services you
provide that I didn't mention, please describe. If you have ball-park
knowledge of the cost of your "tutoring" program, that would also be
helpful. I am interested both in what is happening at large
institutions as well as small.
Thanks,
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817