Tutoring and Academic Resources
Peer tutors facilitate tutoring and collaborative learning through the Center, which is open 24 hours through most days of the academic calendar as a study space for students. Kollett Hall also provides Windows and Macintosh computers, laser printers, scanners, photocopiers and a fax machine for students. Students can access course-specific software, Web, and writing applications or just take a quick look at e-mail as they pass through.
The Center is part of an ongoing planning project to provide technology-rich workstations, student-centered services and inviting learning spaces. The Center’s labs and computer classrooms comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and multiple stations are equipped with universal access technologies, including specialized software and scanners that may assist patrons with hearing, visual and learning impairments. Workshops are available to augment instruction from professors. The Filene Center for Academic Advising and Career Services also offers resources, programs and services for faculty and for students to enhance teaching and learning across Wheaton’s liberal arts curriculum.
Academic Resources supports collaborative student learning through the College Writing Program and the Center for Quantitative Analysis and by coordinating a robust tutoring program that offers students the opportunity to work with department-selected peer tutors trained and paid by the center in introductory and intermediate courses across the curriculum. Students desiring to work in this program, either as tutors or tutees, will find information and schedules at wheatoncollege.edu/Kollett
College Writing Program. The Wheaton College English Department oversees the College Writing Program, keeping a long-standing commitment to writing as an intellectual activity. Every member of our English Department teaches First-Year Composition (English 101), which is required of all first-year students, except those who have passed the Advanced Placement examination with a 4 or 5, or have passed the Wheaton exemption examination. But attention to writing proficiency does not end with the completion of a student’s first year. Supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the new Wheaton Curriculum allows each department to develop its own discipline-situated approach to writing. Within each department students both write to learn and learn to write.
Support for student writing is provided through consultations with our writing associate and our peer writing tutor program. Our writing associates teach First-Year Writing and consult individually with students about their writing projects and processes. Our peer writing tutor program, begun in 1978, offers a collaborative learning model for students at all stages in their writing development.
Evidence of writing beyond the classroom takes many forms, including publications such as Midnight Oil and Rushlight, which are written, edited and managed by Wheaton students.
Center for Quantitative Analysis. The Center for Quantitative Analysis supports the faculty in developing curricular and pedagogical resources that fulfill the college’s commitment to making quantitative analysis and numeracy an integral part of the educational experience of every Wheaton graduate. Through its QA learning associates and peer tutors, it seeks to provide students with the means to appreciate and further develop quantitative reasoning skills and numeracy, not only in calculus and statistics courses, but also across the curriculum.
Tutoring. Peer writing tutors, trained and supervised by the Writing Program, provide assistance on written assignments. This tutoring is available in the Kollett Center; hours are posted each semester. In addition, writing associates offer professional assistance to students on special projects.
Quantitative associates in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science offer professional assistance with quantitative questions. In addition, peer Quantitative Analysis (QA) tutors provide assistance to students in need of fundamental quantitative skills development necessary for success in quantitative and quantitative-influenced fields such as statistics, calculus and mathematical concepts. Like the writing tutors, the QA tutors work out of Kollett Hall, and their hours are posted each semester.
Course tutors, trained and supervised by Academic Resources staff, provide academic tutoring in all academic areas at Wheaton. Tutoring is offered on a drop-in basis on Sunday through Thursday evenings according to the schedule, which is published each semester. In addition to the study skills tutoring offered by preceptors, the Filene Center for Academic Advising and Career Services offers academic success workshops throughout the academic year. Topics covered include time management, major declaration and academic support groups. The center also hosts two “for-fee” reading and study strategy courses offered by the Baldridge Reading and Study Skills course, offered one weekend in November. Visit the center online at wheatoncollege.edu/advising.
Disability services. The Filene Center for Academic Advising and Career Services also provides services for Wheaton students with disabilities. The Assistant Dean for Academic Resources and Disability Services is available to discuss accommodations and services that are available to students with documented disabilities. For more information, see the college Web site at wheatoncollege.edu/Advising/Help/ADA.html.