Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The Academic Achievement Center (AAC) celebrated National Tutor Week (Oct. 5-9) by hosting a Tutor Appreciation Ice Cream Social on Oct. 8. The AAC employs 30 peer tutors and held this event to honor the service they provide to Lawrence Tech students.

AAC tutors, hired based on their academic excellence, interpersonal skills, and faculty recommendations, work between 5-20 hours per week and sometimes tutor up to 10 students in a day.

At the event, tutors were lauded for their hard work and dedication and enjoyed all-they-could-eat ice cream sundaes and “tutor treat” bags filled with candy and small gifts like mechanical pencils, key chains, and Play-do.

A contest was held asking tutors to describe the best thing about being a tutor, and votes were cast by Lawrence Tech students, staff, and faculty who attended the event. The winning response, from math tutor Levente Dojcsak, featured a fire-breathing dragon representing the task of tutoring quantum mechanics. Levente won a $50 gift card for his skill. Other entries included haikus, drawings, and elegies to tutoring.

The AAC mission is to educate, empower, and inspire students to become independent and successful lifelong learners. Research demonstrates that peer tutoring promotes active learning and critical thinking skills, benefitting everyone involved – the tutor, the student, the course instructor, and the institution. Further, tutoring is positively

correlated with higher course grades and GPA, better long-term retention of information, and greater persistence to graduation. 

National Tutor Week is celebrated every year during the first week in October, but tutor appreciation is welcome any time at the AAC!

 

–        By Nicole Huntsperger

Academic Achievement Center Coordinator

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