5 Easy Ways to Stretch Your Tutoring Budget
Posted by Jessie Bourneuf on Sun, Jul 03, 2011 @ 06:15 PM
Since 1984 the cost of attending a public college as risen nearly three times as fast as family incomes putting a college education out of the reach of many deserving students. Coming to grips with this economic reality, higher education professionals are re-thinking how best to deliver educational content and support to their students. Increasingly, technology is being used to expand the scope and reach of traditional classrooms.
At AskOnline, our clients are meeting these challenges in creative ways. I would like to share 5 examples of how our customers are stretching their budgets to deliver academic support to their students. In each case you will find common sense at work, and I hope you will find an idea that will work for you.
1. Join Forces with Other Departments
Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio, has a well-established e-learning curriculum for non-traditional students. The Division of Teaching and
Learning provides tutoring to their traditional students and turned to AskOnline to provide an online option for them.
To make the budget work, they collaborated with their colleagues at the campus OWL as well as the Distance Learning Group, splitting the cost of the license
among the three groups. Each of the departments have administrative privileges within the single AskOnline license, and the Stark State AskOnline platform is configured to work for all concerned.
2. Add Aysynchronous Tutoring to Your Toolkit.
Long-time AskOnline client, the Houston Community College System (HCCS), has enjoyed such success with their online tutoring program that demand for tutoring presses the limits of Houston’s tutoring resources. Over 10,000 students a year use the AskOnline platform, and the tutoring center responds to over 100 requests a day for academic support.
To conserve resources, HCCS uses only AskOnline’s asynchronous Ask tool to support their students. Questions are posted and papers are submitted for review in 20 subject areas. Responding within 24 hours, the tutors maximize their efficiency because they can queue their work online to eliminate idle time waiting for students to arrive for help.
HCCS’s 35 online tutors (many of whom are adjunct professors) love this concentrated workflow as it allows them to make the most efficient use of their workday. Benefits to the support center budget are compelling because no one is paid to sit around waiting for a question to arise.
3. Engage Faculty to Cover Tutoring Needs
Finding competent tutors for specialized (often upper level) courses is a common struggle of academic support centers. Several of AskOnline’s customers have discovered a clever way to solve this problem. They have simply asked faculty members to volunteer during a portion of their office hours (or their teaching assistants’ hours) to logon to the college’s AskOnline platform and host a Chat or Discussion session for their specific courses.
This is an easy way for a professor’s students to ask questions about a recent lecture or problem set. Moreover, the faculty find the online feedback helpful when preparing follow-on lectures.
4. Defer Capital Expenditures
Valdosta State University in Georgia has increased its academic support efforts dramatically over the past decade. Since implementing its AskOnline platform in 2006, the number of tutoring visits to the site has increased over 10 fold. Last year over 13,000 students used the Student Success Center.
This growth could not have been accommodated without going online. The physical constraints of the center just could not have fit everyone in. And, adding stand-alone computers to the center would have been cost-prohibitive.
But, with the AskOnline system in place, students use their own computers to get in touch from their homes or dorm rooms. Thus, Valdosta Student Success Center grew to meet their students’ burgeoning needs without having to build tutoring space or to buy and maintain computers and systems.
5. Save on Time and Gas
Non-traditional students who attend classes part-time and who live off campus are a fast-growing segment in higher education.
Getting to classes requires a single-minded commitment on the part of these students.
Adding a trip to the tutoring center is usually out of the question, but getting on line for tutoring can be a lifesaver.
Not having to burn up $4 per gallon gas is a big bonus—and not only for the students. Tutors, too appreciate the time and gas savings afforded by working on line from home or their offices.
At AskOnline, we work hard to make our client tutoring centers as productive as possible. We would love to help you bring AskOnline to your campus.
Jessie Bourneuf, President AskOnline