Since the transition to online classes, faculty and student workers have had to change from their normal working environments to remote ones. The mathematics department is still trying to assist students with any problems through the Mathematics Tutoring Lab.
Student workers of the Math Lab have had to change their everyday routines and find new ways to accommodate students at home.
Kalendra Khadka, a junior double majoring in mathematics and finance, explained the new changes that were made for this semester.
“Since our face-to-face classes have canceled, tutors are making videos and putting them on YouTube accounts, which are specially made for Math Lab tutors,” said Khadka. “Math Lab tutors are divided into seven groups with two tutors each. Each group is assigned certain questions from the students’ curriculum. Tutors again can work individually or collaborate with group partners to make videos.”
Khadka shared that she thought this transition was going to be helpful for students.
“I believe this is going to be an effective project, the videos that tutors make are checked for quality purposes. The resources can be used by multiple students and can be viewed as many times as they want,” said Khadka. “The resources will be available at students’ convenience as well. To make this more interactive, I believe the Math Lab coordinator is positive about making some videos at students’ request as well.”
Bibek Bastola, a junior computer science major, described how he has started to work from home.
“I am using my access to Pearson math courses for Math 105 and College Algebra to make YouTube videos explaining and solving different problems,” stated Bastola. “I assess which problems require me to make videos and use technologies like Microsoft, Whiteboard and Camtasia, to record myself solving problems and explaining issues requiring major attention.”
According to Bastola, the experience has been positive so far.
“The experience of virtual tutoring has been great for me,” said Bastola. “I like using different technologies and techniques to help students learn and the experience of using them has improved my skill set.”
Khadka agreed that the switch to online tutoring has been positive.
“This was a new experience for me. I never made any educational videos before so it was also a learning opportunity,” shared Khadka. “I had to learn some new technology features for this. I now understand making videos is not as easy as it might look sometimes.”
Even though students cannot directly go into the tutoring lab, Bastola believes this transition can be feasible.
“I think this whole idea of virtual tutoring by making YouTube videos is going to be really helpful for students, because those videos provide a different approach to problems that they have seen in class,” said Bastola. “This can be really helpful for most people to understand the problem and be able to deal with those problems easily.”
For more information about the Mathematics Tutoring Lab, contact [email protected].