Students in need of help or assistance in their homework can now get tutored right at home. In collaboration with the other six University of Hawai‘i community colleges, KCC launched its Smarthinking program, which serves as an online tutoring service for students.
The community colleges launched the program last fall. Louise Pagotto, vice chancellor of academic affairs, said the community colleges paid for this service from the Mainland-based company.
“We bought into Smarthinking as a community college system,” Pagotto said. “(The colleges) chipped in money to get this.” Pagotto said because the purchase includes a set amount of hours for tutoring time, each KCC student is limited to five hours on Smarthinking per school year. According to a usage summary provided by Pagotto, the seven community college campuses have a total of 5,240 contracted hours.
As of Feb. 19, students at KCC have used almost 273 hours on Smarthinking in 390 sessions, according to the usage summary. Pagotto said she hopes more faculty members will encourage their students to take advantage of the program.
“I think (students will use it),” she said, “because if they know about it and they know the subject area – there are a list of subjects (to be tutored in) – they would certainly use it.”
To use the service, students can log into the MyUH portal, click on “MyTools” and then “Connect Now” in the Smarthinking channel.Not all subjects are available for tutoring, but Pagotto said there is a wide range of subjects to choose from, such as basic math through calculus, biology, accounting, finance, Spanish and writing.
“More students are using it for writing than for anything else,” Pagotto said. “It may be because the writing faculty promoted it more.
Students are encouraged to submit drafts of their essays to Smarthinking prior to turning them in class so they can get early feedback and make the appropriate changes to their assignments.
Liberal arts major Alesha Choe, 21, is taking two English courses this semester. In her English 272Q class, using Smarthinking counts as extra credit. Choe said although she doesn’t have time to use it because of her job, she thinks it could be useful to other students.
“I haven’t used it,” she said, “and I’m too lazy, honestly. I guess if you have the time for that it could be beneficial.” Pagotto said the writing lab can encourage students to do their work earlier.
Although Smarthinking is a 24-hour service, students may not always have a chance to talk in real time with one of the graduate students that serve as tutors. There is a schedule available for live tutoring sessions, but students will need to work with the time differences. Choe said she sees why Smarthinking is convenient, but she prefers face-to-face interaction with her professors.
“I’d much rather hear (from) the teacher I’m getting the grade from about what I’m doing wrong,” she said. “Maybe on my own time I’d like constructive criticism on my writing but I don’t really care to hear it from someone other than the person who’s going to grade me.” Students should try Smarthinking because it’s convenient and can help them manage their time, Pagotto said.
“I think that for students to have access to help when they need it is terrific,” she said. “If you’re working on something and you’re at home and need something, you can get your answer when you need it. It encourages you to do stuff ahead of time. And from what I understand, the feedback is very high quality.”