Tutoring Guidelines

Many departments on campus provide tutor assistance and extra lab sessions for help with the classes they offer.  Please check with your professors to see if their department sponsors any tutors, labs or study groups.  Also, most professors are willing to meet individually with students.  If these services have been used and students still need additional help, they may apply for tutoring through Student Academic Services (SAS).  The Tutorial Assistance provided through SAS is available to all undergraduate students at Skidmore College.
 
Tutors are provided based upon availability of qualified students. When qualified students are unavailable, no tutoring may be provided.
 
Our tutoring is provided to help with content assistance related to the classroom material.  Normally, students are allowed a maximum of five hours tutoring per week, per class.  Additional hours are considered on an individual basis.  Students with writing weaknesses are encouraged to seek assistance in the Writing Center.  Students seeking additional help with foreign language classes should first contact the appropriate language department and the foreign language resource center.
 
Student Academic Services finds qualified tutors in the following ways: When a request comes in, our tutor coordinator contacts the professor of the class for recommendations or by student-driven and faculty-supported applications.
 
Obligations of a Student being Tutored

1. Students must request tutoring services through SAS by either coming into the office and requesting a tutor with the student worker or submitting the online peer tutor request form.  
2. Students receiving tutoring should bring lecture notes, assignments, textbooks and any necessary tools to the tutoring session.  If the homework is turned in for a grade, tutors are to provide similar problems as examples but should not assist in solving the homework problems.
3. Students receiving tutoring should utilize tutoring time to review assignments, clarify concepts that are confusing, coordinate when assignments are due and develop timelines to complete objectives.
4. When possible, students should provide 24-hour notice of cancellation of a tutoring appointment.   Call or email the tutor if you will be late.
5. If a student misses and fails to cancel three sessions, the service will be cancelled.

Tutor Obligations

1. Tutors must be qualified to tutor courses they are applying for.  This is determined by the grade earned in the class (B+ or better and a 3.0 GPA or better) and professor’s recommendation.  Preference is given to tutors who are juniors or seniors and majoring in the area of study.
2. The tutor will be given the email address of the student to be tutored and will be instructed to contact them.  If the tutor is unable to make contact, he or she is to notify the tutor coordinator.
3. Tutors must be punctual at sessions and should wait for a period of 15 minutes for the tutee to show up.
4. Tutors will provide content assistance that focuses on the learning process and is related to the classroom material.  This will include strategies that will assist the student in improving skills and becoming independent.  The tutor will contact the SAS and the course professor to explore additional ways of assisting the student if there is difficulty with tutoring the student.
5. The tutor will notify the tutor coordinator immediately if he or she feels the material is beyond his/her level of expertise.
6. Tutors should try to limit per student tutoring hours to a maximum of 5 hours per week.  SAS may limit the number of students a tutor has been assigned.  Exceptions can be made for special circumstances.
7. Generally, the tutor will work one-on-one with a student.  Exceptions can be made with prior permission from the Dean’s Office where two students in the same course can be tutored at the same time.  (When tutoring two students at the same time the tutor may only charge the dept. at the regular hourly.)
8. Tutors may not solicit their own students.  Student Academic Services will accept tutor requests and decide whom the most qualified tutor is to pair them with.
9. Timesheets are due electronically every other Friday (please review the back-side of your pink paper time sheets.  Additionally, the pink paper time sheets are physically due into SAS on the given Friday.