Accessing Learn@UW

Accessing Learn@UW - How to contact professors

In addition to checking out a textbook, contacting a professor about getting access to their learn@uw site can be an incredibly helpful tool to stay on top of your students material. Having access to learn@uw allows you to follow along with lectures and prepare relevant and helpful sessions for your students. It can make your life easier when preparing for sessions! Professors are usually quite open to the idea of granting learn@uw access to tutors.

Below, we have drafted a sample email that can help you figure out the best way to contact your student's professor. We encourage you to use it if you think getting in touch with the professor is something you are interested in!

Dear Professor     ,

My name is             , and I am a tutor for the Center for Academic Excellence, a program that supports first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students of color on campus. The Center for Academic Excellence provides free tutoring to our students, a program we have termed Academic Mentoring. The Academic Mentoring program aims at creating a safe, supportive environment that encourages active learning.
I am currently tutoring          , and my student is enrolled in your section of the course. I was wondering if it would be possible to obtain access to the learn@uw page for your course. This would allow me to follow along with my student and support them more thoroughly throughout the semester. In the past, professors have granted tutors from the CAE visitor/auditor access. If this would be possible, please let me know and I will pass along any necessary information. Additionally, if you have any other resources that you think would be helpful, I would be very interested in knowing about these.

Thank you for your time,

Ten Basic Rules of Intercultural Effectiveness:

• Give people the benefit of the doubt. Assume goodwill. This rule assumes that most individuals seek psychological comfort and congeniality.
• Minimize confrontations by asking questions such as, "How's that?" and "How so?" Or say, "Please help me understand why you see A or B the way you do." Here the emphasis is on giving the "other" and opportunity to explain his or her point of view.
• Ask for clarification. "Would you give me an example of A or B?" or "I'm not sure I understand what you mean, would you elaborate further?"
• Use "I" instead of "you" to deflect blame. Say "I'm having some difficulty understanding A or B" rather than, "You are not explaining the origins of chopsticks very well."
• Try to look at people as individuals rather than as members of ethnic groups.  Some stereotyping will occur, of course, since we generally do not start each encounter with a clean slate of impressions.
• Seek common ground.  Learn about things that you share in common with others – for example, “My friend Yoshiko and I both love the singer Brittany Spears.
• Be flexible in selecting words and actions.  Learn how to respond positively to conditions, people, and situations as they arise.
• Learn how to distinguish between things that happen to you because you are White, Latino, Chinese, male or female, and things that happen to you in spite of your sex or ethnicity.
• Recognize the fact that people communicate differently – for example, some people smile a lot, others do not.
•  Develop empathy.  Try to infer the feelings and actions of others.

Study Skills - Use your memory effectively!

We have all felt overwhelmed by school at some point. That there was no way we could learn all of the material we needed in such an impossibly short period of time. Maybe it was your Intro Bio class when you learned the entirety of the human body in 6 weeks, or Gen Chem when Organic Chemistry was taught in four weeks. Or maybe when you had a cumulative final in a Math class that just finished going through a 400 page text book. We all know that in large, introductory courses, hundreds of pages of material are crammed into a few weeks, and every student can begin to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. Because there is so much to know, many go about studying the wrong way. Below is a little advice on how to use your memory that might help your students study more effectively in their courses.

John is a pretty typical student taking a large introductory course. He really wants to do well, and is spending a lot of time studying. What is wrong with John’s study strategy?

Although there are some good things about John’s study habits, this is a very passive way of studying. It is also boring! John is going to get distracted easily. Studying ACTIVELY is much more effective.

Keys to using your memory effectively:

• ·        Structure
• ·        Repetition
• ·        Different Memory Types
• ·        Studying Actively

Structure:

Take 20 seconds to memorize the words on each list.

Repetition:

Retention improves with repetition. The things that are most difficult to remember need the most repetition.

**Indicate in your notes what you find difficult to remember so you can spend more time on it when you are reviewing for your exam.

Types of Memory:

•      Kinesthetic Memory – memory from movement (ie writing)

•      Auditory memory – listening (ie commercial jingles)

•      Visual memory – images, color, etc (ie remembering pictures on a page)

**We usually have a preference for one type of memory, but for best results try using a variety of strategies!

Study Actively!!

Reading and listening are PASSIVE activities (Passive à low concentration à less retention)

Study Actively with your books closed!

 If we study with our books open we tend to trick ourselves into thinking we know more than we do.

Always read through the text but then CLOSE THE BOOK when talking, writing, etc.

BEST WAYS TO STUDY ACTIVELY:

·        WRITE – be efficient because writing is slower than talking, so use abbreviations and shorthand

·        MAKE MIND MAPS – Visually connect different concepts

·        TALK – Teach an imaginary audience. Recitation is a very powerful study technique – it involves hearing, speaking and thinking and provides immediate feedback as to whether or not you know the material

Notes from Lead Academic Mentor Training

We would like to share some notes from the Lead Academic Mentor Training discussions. We talked about important concepts like Growth Mindset, stereotype threat and test anxiety and brainstormed ways to address these concepts in our mentoring sessions.

        

  How can you apply the Growth Mindset Approach in conversations with students?

• Remove focus from innate ability, shift it to hard work
• Compliment effort, not talent
• Focus on effort, not grades
• Relate personal experiences as examples of struggle
• Emphasize ability to change
• View failure as a learning opportunity
• Note personal progress
• Make learning enjoyable

Questions for First Sessions

These are the open-ended and probing questions our returners came up with during the returner meetings. Please feel free to use these and other questions as you plan for your first sessions!

• What goals do you have for yourself academically this semester?
• What are your long term goals?
• What has been your favorite course here and why?
• Why are you taking this course?
• What do you do to relax and de-stress?
• Why are you interested in your major? Why did you choose it?
• Give an example of a learning experience you benefited from.
• What has been your best learning experience?
• What activities on campus are you involved in?
• What other courses are you taking this semester?
• Describe yourself in X amount of words.
• What are you passionate about?
• What would you do if time and money were unlimited?
• Why do you enjoy Madison?
• What colleges did you consider attending besides UW?
• What are your favorite breakfast items?
• What would your best friend say is your best trait and why?
• Who is someone you admire and why?
• What was your favorite hobby or game as a kid?
• What is your family like?
• What has your biggest accomplishment been so far in college and what makes it special?
• If you were a city, which one would you be and why?
• Are Badger Saturdays meant for football games, farmers’ markets, or something else? Why?
• What movie/tv character can you most relate to and why?
• What do you really like to do outside of school and why does it interest you?
• What is your favorite part of being a UW student?
• How was your summer? What did you do for fun?
• What is your career goal?/What are your post-graduation plans?
• What do you want to take away from this class aside from a letter grade?
• How do you feel about BLANK class?
• What is the most successful thing, in terms of your study habits, that you did last year?