Monday, June 25, 2012

Need a Hall P.A.S.S?

It was English 101 and I needed to make sure I passed this class. I remember trying to crank out a paper and I couldn't figure out what the assignment was asking.  After being a Resident Assistant, I have realized all students face that moment where they just need a little help.  One of the ways we have worked to make sure our students are getting the help they need University Housing has partnered with the Panther Academic Support Services or PASS to have tutoring held within our residence halls.

First let me tell you a little bit about what PASS is. It is a program at UWM that allows students to get that extra help they need to make sure they succeed in their classes. PASS offers a wide variety of subjects like Math and English  to more specific subjects such as American Sign Language or Business. With the large amount of classes that they offer tutoring for their is usually always someone there to help you out to make sure you pass your class.



Not only do they offer one on one tutoring but they also offer supplemental instruction review sessions. This gives additional information on the class subject matter to help the students better understand what is being taught in the classroom. The tutoring programs uses the course syllabus and usually the schedule to also provide additional review sessions before test or exams.

As the majority of our students are first year students needing to meet their Math and English requirements, PASS has worked to make sure our students are provided with the most resources possible to succeed in their classes.  That is where our partnership with them comes into play, providing tutoring within our residence halls at night to work around the busy days of a students schedule. 

This past spring semester Sandburg offered walk-in tutoring 5 nights a week from 7-9. Where as RiverView and Cambridge offered 2 nights a week opposite of each other from 7-9 as well. This allowed students on both North and South campus to stop in figure out that math problem they were stuck on or to have someone proof read their papers.

It is a great opportunity for students to take advantage of. After all,  you can't get much better than free help than right where you live! Looking back at my first year here at UWM it would have been really nice to have tutoring right down stairs... I wouldn't have had any excuse not to go get help when I needed it.

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