by Claire Golden
I’ve worked as a tutor at PSU’s Learning Center since last fall. Last term, when everything started getting serious with the COVID-19 pandemic, we switched to online tutoring. Socially distancing isn’t really an option for tutoring, because you have to get close to the student to see what they’re working on. So I’m extremely lucky to have the ability to work remotely because it offers less risk for both students and tutors. The Learning Center continues to offer remote tutoring and academic coaching this summer, and we’ll just have to see what this fall looks like.
But you may be wondering the same thing I was: How does online tutoring even work? Turns out it’s quite simple. Every organization does it differently, but the Learning Center uses two apps: Penji and Zoom. (Remember a few months ago when basically nobody knew what Zoom was, and now everybody has it installed?) Penji is used to schedule your appointment with a tutor. You can book 30-minute sessions during the tutor’s availability. Right before your session, you’ll get an email from Penji with the link to the tutor’s Zoom room, so all you have to do is click and join.
The tutoring session is the same as usual: you can get help with practice problems, studying, concepts, and language conversation…anything you would cover during a normal in-person session. You can share your screen or use the whiteboard to write out what you’re working on. The tutor will be live on screen (my bookshelf is usually in the background during my Zoom sessions, and sometimes my cat will walk by). It can be weird at first getting used to the online tutoring format, but it doesn’t feel so weird after a while. In fact, I like it by now.
So if you need any tutoring or academic coaching during the last few weeks of summer term, don’t hesitate to swing by. We’ll be happy to see you.