Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) and STEM Tutoring Toolkit. Courtney Hadsell, PhD

Transcription

1 Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) and STEM Tutoring Toolkit Courtney Hadsell, PhD

2 2 Table of Contents Table of Figures... 4 Overview and Motivation for STEM Academic Support Programs... 5 The Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) Program... 5 Drop-In Tutoring... 6 Program Structure Overview... 7 Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort, the EPIC program... 7 The EPIC Leader in the Classroom... 8 EPIC Sessions What Goes on... 9 Drop-In Tutoring Recruiting EPIC Leaders and Tutors Building Your Team Characteristics of EPIC leaders that will Excel Characteristics of Tutors that will Excel Training Reading Apprenticeship Classroom Management, Wait Time, and Redirecting Questions Wait-time Classroom/Student Management Redirecting Questions Relationships between Students, EPIC Leaders/Tutors, and Faculty Scheduling Scheduling EPIC Sessions Community College vs. 4 Year Institution EPIC Scheduling Challenges... 23

3 3 Managing Tutor and EPIC Leader Uniform Contracts and Job Duties Timelines Conclusions and Reflections... 28

4 4 Table of Figures Figure 1: EPIC Branding Logo... 7 Figure 2: Sample Schedule of Available Math Drop-In Tutoring Figure 3: Sample Training Schedule for EPIC Leaders and Tutors Figure 4: Tutor Training Wait-Time Handout Figure 5: Relationship between Students, Tutors, and Faculty Figure 6: Tutor and EPIC Leader Nametag Figure 7: Sample Tutor Work Contract Figure 8: EPIC Leader Work Contract Figure 9: Sample Tutor and EPIC Leader Evaluation Form Figure 10: Sample Timeline for Setting up Tutoring and EPIC Program... 28

5 5 Overview and Motivation for STEM Academic Support Programs At Cañada College an engineering major or STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) transfer student needs to take several pre-requisite courses before becoming eligible to take lower division engineering transfer required courses or upper division STEM courses. These pre-requisite courses can pose a challenge for a student with poor study skills or a lack of understanding on how to approach STEM courses. To help students through these courses we have developed two in-semester academic support programs to teach and encourage positive study habits, help students get answers to questions, and prepare them with the necessary skills to be successful in the rigorous courses required of a STEM major. We have both a broad and targeted approach to accomplish these goals. The broad approach is offering dropin tutoring for key challenging classes with specially trained tutors. The targeted approach is called the Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) Program which is based on a modified supplemental instruction curriculum. The Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort (EPIC) Program EPIC is a modified Supplemental Instruction program that has specifically been developed to target STEM courses with extensive problem-solving requirements. The basic structure of the program involves assigning a student as the EPIC leader, who has previously successfully completed the course with a new section of the course. This leader attends class at least once per week (more if a class has high units with additional classroom time) and runs three hours of study group sessions outside of class each week. There are multiple reasons for having the EPIC leader in the course with the students, the first of which is that it allows the leader to connect with the students and be a visible recognizable person that can help them. This is especially needed in lower level courses where students may have a significant level of math-phobia and may not know how to ask for help. Another reason for the in-class presence is that it also allows the leader to regularly connect with the faculty and have a better understanding of how and

6 6 when the faculty is presenting the course material. This allows for leaders to discuss the material with the students in the same manner as it was presented by the faculty in class. Drop-In Tutoring In addition to EPIC we also offer free drop-in tutoring for most STEM courses. Tutor schedules with available course coverage are posted in the STEM center and online for students to find times when someone they can ask for help will be on duty. This model allows for students to get minutes of help when they get stuck on a particular concept of their course material. The goal is to encourage students to do their work and study in the STEM center where they have access to get help when needed, but also discourage students from relying too much on tutors by not allowing longer appointments. Additionally, STEM faculty is also encouraged to have their office hours in the STEM center and act as a resource to both students and tutors. To be hired on as a tutor, all tutors go through the same training with the EPIC leaders since many of the skills that are covered are translational to any academic assistance program. This training will be discussed further in the Training section on page 15.

7 7 Program Structure Overview Embedded Peer Instruction Cohort, the EPIC program We created the EPIC program because we wanted to provide a space for students in barrier STEM courses to not just get course content questions answered, but to learn and develop skills that will help them become a successful STEM student. Educational research has shown that it is important for students majoring in STEM to form study groups and develop a cohort of fellow classmates to work with. We encourage this through the EPIC program which is not marketed as tutoring, or something for only struggling students to participate in, but rather we encourage all students in the class to come and work together on problems related to the course. The basic structure of the EPIC program is based on the internationally known Supplemental Instruction Program. (info.umkc.edu/si/) Though the programs look similar, where EPIC diverges is in what goes on during the EPIC study sessions. These sessions are run by an EPIC leader who offers help if needed, but whose main purpose is to go over the tools of how to be successful in the class. This includes the EPIC leader bringing extra problems for the students to work on together in the session to help the students master the material. EPIC leaders are students that have already successfully completed the course that they are paired with that also demonstrate overall academic excellence. Each semester EPIC leaders are paired with pre-requisite STEM courses where they attend class at least once a week and then run three hours of study sessions (EPIC sessions) just for that class each week. The role of an EPIC leader has many facets, all of which are important to the overall goal of the program to promote student success. Figure 1: EPIC Branding Logo

8 8 The EPIC Leader in the Classroom It s important for the EPIC leaders to be a part of class as much as possible. In our model the students attend lecture at least half of the time. There are numerous reasons that we have the EPIC leader attend class with the students. EPIC leaders attend class for the following reasons: 1. To stay current with the content that is being covered in the course This includes how the material is being covered by the instructor of the course. 2. To connect with the faculty over topics that the students are struggling with This allows the students to see the EPIC leader and faculty member interacting which will hopefully encourage students to interact with the faculty as well. The faculty can share practice problems/worksheets with the EPIC leader for them to use as a guide in the EPIC sessions. The EPIC leader can share insight with the faculty on what the students they are working with are struggling with in case more class time needs to be dedicated to a particular concept. 3. To be a recognizable face to the students when they come to The STEM Center for help Students may be reluctant to ask for help, or overwhelmed by finding a person to help them. If they know the exact person that can help them with their course we are eliminating a barrier to that student getting help. This is especially important for students that may be nervous or embarrassed about seeking help. 4. To demonstrate the in class behaviors of a model student EPIC leaders are encouraged to take notes and participate in the class discussion where appropriate and encouraged by faculty. Our reasoning for not having the EPIC leader attend every class is that finding students with a schedule that accommodates their EPIC classes has been a great challenge based on how courses are scheduled at our institution. It is also more cost effective to not have EPIC leaders attending every class and a way to divert money to more active help. Some of our instructors have really

9 9 taken to having EPIC leaders in their class and have found additional ways to incorporate them into the course beyond acting as a model student and those leaders attend class more often. One of the ways that faculty will incorporate the EPIC leaders in their course is as an extra set of eyes in the classroom. If the faculty member is using group worksheets/problems the EPIC leader can assist one group while the faculty member assists another. We are essentially lowering the student to teacher ratio for in class assignments. EPIC leaders are instructed to use time before or after class to connect with the faculty and collaborate over what content should be covered in the weekly EPIC sessions. We have experimented with separate weekly meeting times between faculty and EPIC leaders with limited success due to availability of both the instructor and EPIC leader. These timing constraints are especially challenging if the faculty is an adjunct, since in our area that translates to them commuting between different institutions and not necessarily have dedicated extra time on our campus to meet with students or EPIC leaders. Additionally, the EPIC leaders have a weekly paid planning hour which they use to pick problems out of the book or review problems that the instructor has given them for their upcoming sessions. This allows the EPIC leaders to have something prepared to bring with them to direct the sessions and encourage the development of the necessary problem solving skills by encouraging the students to persevere and work together. EPIC Sessions What Goes on EPIC is a modified Supplemental Instruction curriculum. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is an international program started at University of Missouri, Kansas City ( We saw a need to adapt the SI program to serve students in the problem solving based courses that STEM majors take. What this translates to is the structure of the program being very similar to SI but what goes on in the sessions being very different. EPIC leaders are trained in classroom management, reading apprenticeship, and modern math and physics education techniques to help students answer their own questions and to facilitate students working together and learning from each other. Ideally, an EPIC session has students of varying capabilities who will collaborate to solve problems and learn techniques from the EPIC leader and other students on how to be successful in the course. EPIC sessions center around building skills that will not only serve the student in that course but subsequent courses as well. EPIC leaders come to sessions

10 10 with difficult example problems that were curated either by the course instructor or the EPIC leaders themselves. It is then the goal of the sessions to have the students work through these problems together. They do this while the EPIC leaders facilitate the direction of the group asking pointed questions to get the students to move in the right direction as well as making the students explain their thinking at every turn. Additionally, at the beginning of the semester EPIC leaders will work with the students on Reading Apprenticeship training and the importance of reading and understanding their textbook. The goal of the sessions is not to have the EPIC leader answer student questions like a tutor, but rather to learn to work out the answers to their own questions. That s not to say that there are not times during the session where the EPIC leader will go over material with the students and answer questions, but the ultimate goal is to encourage the students to work together to answer their own questions in a guided environment. This way all students can benefit from the sessions as advanced students will be forced to explain their reasoning and struggling students will benefit from learning from their peers. If a student needs additional help, or is unable to come to the sessions they have drop in tutoring available as well. Drop-In Tutoring In the Cañada College STEM Center we structure our drop in tutoring to offer as few barriers as possible to students coming in seeking help. Students are scheduled throughout the week and subject specific schedules are posted within The STEM Center and online for students to see when a tutor is on duty that can answer questions about a specific course. Tutoring is offered for as many STEM courses as possible with a focus on mathematics since all STEM students are required to take multiple math classes. Many of our tutors who have been tutoring for multiple semesters can tutor a variety of classes and will be listed on multiple schedules. A sample schedule of current math tutoring options can be seen in Figure 2.

11 11 Figure 2: Sample Schedule of Available Math Drop-In Tutoring The structure of our drop in tutoring has been optimized for efficiency and current educational research recommendations. When a student comes to The STEM Center seeking help all they need to do is approach a tutor (wearing a tutor vest and name tag) and say the subject they need help with. If the tutor cannot help with the specified subject, the tutors are responsible for connecting the students with the right person or giving them the necessary information for when someone that can help with their specific course will be on duty. Depending on how busy The STEM Center is a student may work with a tutor from minutes or for the tutor s entire shift. During most parts of the day the demand is such that most tutors sit with a student from minutes before moving to help with another student. This drop-in model works exceptionally

12 12 well for problem solving based classes (a majority of STEM Courses) and encourages students to come prepared with a specific question or to study in the STEM Center and ask questions as they arise. It also limits the ability of student to completely rely on a tutor to complete a whole homework set with them. Tutors are instructed to not explicitly work on any graded assignment for the student. They are allowed to help students and answer questions but all graded work must be the student s own product. This is generally less than ideal in the student's mind and requires some coaching, but through struggling with the material the student is really making the necessary connections to be successful in all areas of the course. Specifics on how tutors are trained to work with students can be found in the Training section. Previously, tutoring had been offered on a 1 hour appointment basis. This posed a number of challenges which led to switching over to a drop-in model. These challenges were: Cost Students were able to book a 1 hour appointment for up to 2 hours each week. That translated to tutors being paid to only help one student for an entire 1-2 hours, even if a student only had 10 minutes of questions. Student Reliability Frequently students would not show up for tutoring sessions which would translate to a tutor being booked ahead of time but not actually working with any students. Students receiving too much help Many students were taking advantage of the system to have the tutors work with them on each week's homework set. Students would not have tried to start the homework set prior to coming to see the tutor and were using the tutor as a crutch to get their homework done. This does not translate into improved course performance since the student did not have to develop the necessary mental connections to come up with the problem solving processes on their own. Switching over to a drop-in model definitely had some growing pains. Students needed to be coached on how to approach tutoring so they would get the most benefit out of their time with the tutors. Tutors have been trained on how to talk to the students about getting the most out of their time with them. Students are coached to work on their homework in the tutoring center

13 13 either alone or with other classmates. They are then instructed to come up with a list of questions as they work independently. Once they have some specific questions they can call over a tutor and get the help they need to finish the problem set on their own. This hopefully imparts the students with a greater sense of self accomplishment and ability to reproduce the methods that they learned on in class assessments. Even with this there are still students that come into the tutoring center looking to have someone do their homework for them. This is where a staff coordinator comes in handy to talk with the students and explain to them how tutoring works, and that it is set up to make sure that the students don t just do well on a homework set, but succeed in the course as a whole. This is just one of the many instances where campus staff support is needed. Recruiting EPIC Leaders and Tutors Hiring student EPIC leaders and tutors is crucial to implementing in-semester academic support. There are a number of qualities to look for in the students that will be filling these positions. All tutors and EPIC leaders are faculty recommended. This recommendation is crucial because if the tutors and EPIC leaders are people that the faculty choose they will have confidence in their proficiency and thus recommend their current students to seek out help with them. At Cañada College many of the qualified students lack the confidence necessary to apply for a tutoring or EPIC Leader position on their own. Special effort is needed to court qualified students and help them see that they are capable and will be provided with the tools to be successful. This is generally well worth the effort as these students tend to blossom into excellent EPIC leaders with experience. Building Your Team The following section will detail the traits that are favorable in leaders and tutors that have been successful at Cañada College. This section does not intend to be an exhaustive list of the only types of students that will be successful tutors and EPIC leaders but rather to serve as a guide based on the student leaders that have been successful at our institution. Many students don t come into their position with the skills necessary for success, rather they learn and adapt to become successful leaders, which is where the training comes in to give them the necessary tools

14 14 to be successful. Ideally you will have student leaders that encompass a variety of personality types and background stories so that you can connect with as much of your student population as possible. Students have a variety of learning styles and thus a variety of tutors and EPIC leaders is crucial to success. Another important aspect is to partner with the faculty to gather a recruitment pool and help encourage students to come to the center and seek help. Characteristics of EPIC leaders that will Excel At Cañada College we have some basic requirements for our EPIC leaders: Faculty Recommendation Overall GPA of 3.5 Grade of A in course that they will be serving as an EPIC leader for Ability to talk in front of classrooms and encourage students to attend EPIC sessions These requirements have been cooperatively developed in conjunction with faculty to ensure that there is a minimum acceptable level of quality for the academic support being offered to current students. The reason for the overall GPA of 3.5 is that the EPIC program involves the student to commit to a course for the entire semester and a historical demonstration of being able to balance their course load is necessary for a position requiring this level of responsibility. Occasionally there might be some flexibility in this if a particular faculty member requests a specific student who they have developed a professional relationship with for their course. The grade of the A in the course represents some level of mastery of the content that they will be helping with which will hopefully translate into the leaders and tutors being able to direct the students down the right path. Characteristics of Tutors that will Excel At Cañada College we have some basic requirements for our student tutors: Faculty Recommendation Overall GPA of 3.0 Grade of A in course that they will be tutoring for

15 15 Approachability and understanding of students in varying academic positions These requirements have been cooperatively developed in conjunction with faculty to ensure that there is a minimum acceptable level of quality for the academic support being offered to current students. The reason for the overall GPA of 3.0 is we also view our tutors as model students and this GPA means that they have navigated their coursework and thus will be helpful in coaching other students to navigate their coursework as well. The grade of the A in the course represents some level of mastery of the content that they will be helping with. Our tutors sit out in the open in The STEM Center and need to be able to engage with students. Student tutors should be welcoming and encouraging. Their role is to talk with students and assess their actual needs and encourage them to accept the challenge in front of them. There is no room for tutor arrogance and condescension in The STEM Center. These negative characteristics are frequently weeded out through the interview process, training, and on the job evaluations. Training Training is an important component to having a successful program. Student leaders and tutors are frequently nervous about their new responsibility and need guidance on how to approach students and work with them. Even students with former tutoring experience will need additional and continuing training to give them to tools to be successful in these positions. At Cañada, tutors and EPIC leaders go through a full day of training at the beginning of every semester regardless of how long they have been serving as a tutor. They also all enroll in a one-time single credit tutor certification course. During the day long training more advanced tutors will lead some of the sessions throughout the day to pass on their first-hand knowledge to new tutors. Ideally, if possible, there should be multiple days of training to ensure that new tutors get enough practice with the techniques they are learning. We cover a variety of topics in our training and a sample schedule of the day long training can be seen in Figure 3.

16 16 Figure 3: Sample Training Schedule for EPIC Leaders and Tutors In addition to these day long training sessions, tutors also attend monthly staff meetings that include additional training modules. Sessions offered during the semester sometimes couple with other campus resources such as the Disability Resource Center (DRC). It s important to leverage your campus resources so that students get as much valuable information as possible. The module offered by the DRC cover topics such as: De-escalation, defining learning disabilities, and working with students with Learning Disabilities. These modules have proven invaluable to

17 17 the tutors as it gives them a tool box to draw from when working with students that may not be coming from the same place as them academically. Additional Training Modules and Partnership suggestions: Working with Specific Student Populations such as English as a Second Language students and Non-Traditional Students Campus Resources such as financial aid, the Learning Center, or Special Programs Helping students build meaningful relationships with fellow students and faculty such as how to form study groups and how to approach faculty Time Management and structure of effective study time Reading Apprenticeship All tutors are trained in Reading Apprenticeship. The Reading Apprenticeship program has been established as a research validated way of helping students improve their subject specific reading literacy. It was originally developed by WestEd to help students in k-12 more successfully learn and retain information from reading in specific subjects. Due to the success of the program it has expanded to community colleges and more recently STEM specific disciplines. More information about the program can be found at Our tutors are specifically trained in Talking to the Text, and how to transfer this knowledge to the students they are working with. Talking to the Text encourages students to slow down and read sentences individually, questioning each sentence to determine the meaning that the text is trying to convey. Classroom Management, Wait Time, and Redirecting Questions. Since EPIC leaders will be outnumbered by their students in their sessions it is important that they have the necessary skills to manage and guide the students. Wait-time EPIC leaders are trained to get over the uncomfortable feeling of asking a student a question and not immediately getting an answer. The natural tendency of the EPIC leader is to want to swoop in and save the student from struggling with the problem. This natural tendency is counter to

18 18 what is required to help the students learn. While the students struggle, they are making the connections necessary to continue to be able to solve problems in an assessment situation. The tutors are trained to wait until the student appears to no longer be thinking productively. Once the tutor has established that the student isn t making progress there are two ways in which they will proceed. The first step is to have the student explain what they are thinking which involves asking the student to go back to the point where they understood things and talk thought their reasoning. This gives the tutor an opportunity to diagnose where the problem is while forcing the student to slow down their thought process while they verbalize. Once the tutor has a better understanding of the student s thought process they can proceed to the second step which is to ask the student a more guided question to help facilitate them making a bridge over their confusion to the next step in the problem. This process then repeats until the student has a handle over the problem that they were previously struggling with. At the end of the session, the tutor asks the student to explain the whole process back to them to recap what they just learned. There are points in time in the process where the tutor might find it necessary to explain parallel concepts to help the student arrive at the solution, but we strive to have the tutors and EPIC leaders not doing the work for the students. Our wait-time handout can be seen in Figure 4.

19 19 Figure 4: Tutor Training Wait-Time Handout Classroom/Student Management In both EPIC and drop-in tutoring our tutors are working with groups of students. As such, it is important that tutors and leaders have the tools and confidence to manage groups of students. We spend time in training talking about how to organize students and keep them on track. This starts with the leaders bringing something with them for the students to do in the sessions, or a drop-in tutor organizing students who have come with questions for the same course (even if they are not in the same section) together. This technique allows the tutor to leverage the students to answer each other s questions. This takes some of the pressure off the tutor/leader from having to be the only one that knows the answers to the questions. We spend time doing practice sessions that give new tutors the opportunity to find their footing with a group of practice students. This particular part of the training is difficult because there isn t a one way to deal with a group of students so the tutors need to learn through practice which way best works

20 20 for them. Additionally, all of our tutors have different personalities and a one size fits all approach isn t reasonable. We have veteran tutors share their experiences on what they use to keep students on topic. The main student management techniques that we work on are: Giving the students space to think Bringing a student to the board to act as a scribe, but not putting the pressure on that student to solve the problem themselves Allowing students time to vent about their frustration, but not getting sucked into participating in that venting Recognizing when students are getting burnt out and mandating a short break or breather before continuing Using more advanced students to answer other students' questions How to seek out help as a tutor when you don t know the answer and none of the students do either Redirecting Questions Frequently frustrated students just want the answer and don t want to struggle through the thinking of finding it on their own. Giving in to this thought process doesn t help students in the long run. Sometimes tutors and EPIC leaders find themselves in a tough spot of a student asking a question directly to them and wanting an answer. During training we discuss the importance of allowing the students to struggle and then we discuss ways of turning questions around on the students to force them to try and answer their own questions. Some of the key phrases that we practice in tutor training are: That was a great question that Michael asked, does anyone know how to answer it? Why don t you explain to me how you got there? How did you do that? Can you tell me more about your process? What are you thinking so far? What are we trying to solve for? What information were we given in the problem?

21 21 What concepts do you think we re trying to use in this situation? These key phrases give the tutors a tool box to draw from to help the students. Relationships between Students, EPIC Leaders/Tutors, and Faculty The last part of training is to help make sure the EPIC leaders and tutors understand their role and how it fits into the academic process. We generally start by defining what the EPIC leaders and tutors are NOT: They are NOT instructors They are NOT expected to know the answer to every question a student asks They should NOT be lecturing They are NOT just another student who can complain about faculty or how the material should be taught Then we move to what EPIC leaders and Tutors are: They ARE a bridge between the students and faculty They ARE to facilitate students understanding They ARE to serve as positive role models on what needs to be done to be successful They ARE to show the students how to ask faculty when they are stuck To outline this process the tutors and leaders receive a handout as shown in Figure 5.

22 22 Figure 5: Relationship between Students, Tutors, and Faculty Scheduling Scheduling is a dedicated task that takes a large amount of time at the beginning of the semester. This will require the coordinator to be dedicated full time to this task for the first 2-3 weeks of the semester. Scheduling EPIC Sessions When is the best time to hold sessions? The answer to this question will depend on the set up of your campus and student availability. At Cañada College an overwhelming majority of STEM classes are only offered Monday-Thursday and most students do not venture to campus on Fridays. Additionally, a large portion of our students have obligations outside of school and do not plan to spend extra hours on campus. This has led to scheduling a majority of our EPIC sessions right before, or right after the class they are paired with. For classes that only meet twice a week (e.g. M/W or Tu/Th) we offer two 1.5 hour long sessions on class days. For classes that

23 23 meet Monday through Thursday, we offer either two 1.5 hours sessions, or three 1 hour sessions each week. We have tried various techniques to schedule sessions which I will detail here, but have settled on pre-scheduling sessions prior to the start of the semester. Initially, we had all students in the class fill out paper surveys with their availability to attend EPIC sessions, as well as a question to gauge how likely they were to attend EPIC sessions. Compiling the data from these sheets and trying to determine the times that will work for the most students is incredibly time consuming. This also lead to us having to reschedule sessions mid-semester because the initial offerings ended up catering to people that had no intention of attending sessions even though they had indicated interest on their original questionnaire. Our second major iteration was to offer a web based form using Survey Gizmo with the assumption that the most interested students would be the ones that logged in and fill out their availability. This also had the same issues as the previous paper versions and resulted in a majority of the sessions needing to be rescheduled again. Currently, what we employ is pre-scheduling sessions without student input. This has led to less sessions needing to be rescheduled during the semester and more regular attendance during the sessions since the students know when the sessions are from scheduled at the beginning of the semester. The ability to do this does take some experience and an overall feel for how students in particular classes schedules look. Typically, sessions are scheduled immediately before or after class in study rooms within The STEM Center unless the class is adjacent to another class that a majority of the students are in. Sometimes sessions will be later or earlier in the day to account for blocks of time when students are in other classes such as Math or Chemistry. This method allows us to tell students the exact days and times they will have sessions on the first day of class while they are still building their schedule. They can then account for the sessions in their schedule from day one of the semester. Community College vs. 4 Year Institution EPIC Scheduling Challenges For campuses where a large portion of the students commute (e.g. community college), scheduling can be especially difficult since many students only plan to be on campus only when they have class. It is for this reason that we ve found it useful to schedule all sessions directly before or after the class that they are paired with. This doesn t always work out for all students in the class and adjustments are made within the first month to accommodate schedules if need

24 24 be. Scheduling EPIC sessions on campuses where a large portion of the students live on campus offers the freedom to schedule sessions on off-hours such as nights and weekends while still maintaining student attendance. Managing Supervision is a key component to the success of the program. Since we are implementing this program at a 2-year college the students that are serving as EPIC leaders are first and second year college students. Since they are still young, the benefit from supervision and access to the coordinator to ask questions when they get stuck is valuable. It is for this reason and others that we currently house all of our EPIC sessions in study rooms within The STEM Center. Additionally, campus space is at a premium so holding sessions in the classroom before or after class isn t an option. If your campus has the space to allow for this it would be recommended scheduling the sessions in the classroom since students don t need to travel anywhere to get to the sessions. Tutor and EPIC Leader Uniform Since we run Drop-In tutoring, it can be difficult for a student needing help to identify a tutor or EPIC leader in the sea of students working in The STEM Center. Therefore, all tutors should wear Name tags and vests while on duty. Since EPIC leaders have designated rooms in which to work in they are only required to wear nametags while on duty. A sample name tag can be seen in Figure 6. Figure 6: Tutor and EPIC Leader Nametag

25 25 Contracts and Job Duties All EPIC Leaders and Student Tutors sign contracts at the beginning of every semester that detail their job duties. This gives the student worker an exact framework of their expectations and what they need to do while working. An example of a tutor work contract can be seen in Figure 7. Figure 7: Sample Tutor Work Contract

26 26 EPIC leaders have additional expectations and thus have an additional contract detailing their job duties and expectations. A sample contract for EPIC leaders can be found in Figure 8. Figure 8: EPIC Leader Work Contract All EPIC leaders are formally evaluated 1-2 times per semester, as well as impromptu coordinator drop-ins every so often. EPIC leaders are evaluated on a number of different metrics relating to their ability to manage the students, timeliness, professionalism, and content proficiency. After formal evaluations EPIC leaders meet one-on-one with the coordinator to go over the facets that they were evaluated on. During this meeting the coordinater will give EPIC leaders tasks to focus on to improve before their next evaluation. This serves to help the EPIC leaders build confidence,

27 27 know where they are doing things right, and know what they need to work on. An Example evaluation can be seen in Figure 9. Figure 9: Sample Tutor and EPIC Leader Evaluation Form

28 28 Timelines The timeline for when things need to get done to successfully set up EPIC and tutoring will depend on your institution. You can see a sample timeline in Figure 10. Figure 10: Sample Timeline for Setting up Tutoring and EPIC Program At Cañada we have a limited staff of veteran tutors on duty during the first week of the semester to answer student questions and spread the word on how tutoring and EPIC works in The STEM Center. With the exception of our accelerated math classes, our full tutoring schedule and EPIC sessions begin the second week of the semester. It is important to notify faculty in advance if you are targeting their class for an EPIC leader. This will allow them to include information in their syllabus about the program and determine if they want to offer any incentives for students attending sessions. Conclusions and Reflections In conclusion there are a variety of way to provide academic support services to facilitate student success. We ve found it helpful to focus on problem solving during every step of the process and use this academic support as a means of helping students develop skills that will serve them throughout their academic path. It is most important to frame the academic support in a mindset of long term development rather than last minute triage. All of these programs can be adapted to suit campus and discipline specific needs.