Learning Commons

New this Spring, students will have the option to create Study Groups for any Mathematics and Statistics courses that are serviced through the drop-in area, similar to how the Learning Commons has created study groups for any other course on campus.  This change in offerings is partially spurred by the ever-changing dynamic of collaborative education, and the increased amount of student requests for differentiation in tutoring options.  Although the concept of a study group is not new to the Learning Commons, the way in which a study group will be created for a Math or Stats class will be different.

Students can request to form a study group for their Math or Stats course in the same way they do for any other course.  However, study groups for Math and Stats courses can only start once two students are in the group, and can only continue to exist with at least two students belonging to the group.  What this means is that when a student requests a study group for one of these courses (for example, MATH 1280), their request will need to wait until one of their classmates also requests a study group for that class.  Then, if there is a common time that they both can meet, the group will be created.  If at any point one or more of the group members is removed from the group (by student request or initiated by us) and the group falls to just one student, the group will fold since technically it is no longer a group. 

Students in the group must be in the same class (course and section) since different sections often run at different speeds.  Math and Stats study groups are limited to one hour per week, as additional tutoring can occur in the drop-in lab as usual.  The process for finding a tutor for these study groups will be the same as for finding a tutor for any other study group, where an email will be sent to the current staff looking for interest.  Study group tutors for these courses will not be limited to the current Math and Stats tutoring staff, however those tutors are the most likely to respond to such requests.

An advertising campaign will be initiated throughout the first two weeks of the semester regarding study groups for these courses.  It is unclear what type of response we will get, but be prepared for a rush of requests.

For your information, the following courses are covered through drop-in.  These are the courses that will now fall under the study group description given above.  Any other course outside of these will continue to fall under the traditional one-on-one and study group rules governing all other campus courses.