The Student Union Society (SUS) is implementing a new technology-driven peer tutoring service that will be soft-launched in the Winter 2020 semester.
The service is being created to give students UFV-specific tutoring services that are available off-campus and outside the hours of UFV’s existing tutoring services. Tutors will be UFV students hired through SUS.
The implementation of the service was in part due to student interest. In August, SUS sent out a poll to determine if there was student interest in a technology-driven peer tutoring service. Of the approximately 200 students who responded to the poll, 83 per cent were in favour of the program.
SUS’s peer tutoring will be run through Nimbus Tutoring, a free-to-download phone app.
The cost of the service for students is dependent on the length of the tutoring session and the tutor’s individual rate. Students and tutors will choose the time and location for tutoring, making the program flexible and able to accommodate busy schedules, and ensuring commuters can access tutoring services without having to travel to campus.
“The app is similar to an Uber service, where after you’re done your service, or however you’ve arranged with your tutor, you’ll be able to pay through your phone, and you’ll also be able to rate the tutor based on your experience,” Kimberly Hunter, vice president students, said.
Once students have selected their university on the app, they are able to search by course to find a tutor to teach them in a given subject. A tutor’s profile will show all the courses they are tutoring in, the rate they charge, the languages they teach in, and can also list specific times they are available.
Tutors are rated using a five-star system. Those with a lower-than-average score, or one that is two stars or less, will be contacted by SUS for a review to see if there are any issues and to determine if they need to be let go. A tutor’s average rating is displayed on their profile.
Students can also report issues through the app if there are problems with the tutor.
The app comes with the Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission campuses as built-in locations, but there is also a “determine location” option, so students can put in the address of a location they would like to meet at.
“If they’re more comfortable at home, they can actually contact the tutor and be like ‘Hey, I feel more comfortable studying at home. I can’t focus in a public setting just because there’s too much distraction if not noise; is it okay if you come by my home?’… It’s more or less between the student and the tutor to decide on that,” Hunter said.
The tutors will be students who have a minimum grade of A- in courses they would like to teach. Applicants who can speak and/or read multiple languages are able to indicate their level of proficiency in these languages at the interview. There is no minimum CGPA required for prospective peer tutors.
“We’re not counting the CGPA because that can be super misleading,” Tripat Sandhu, SUS president, said. “Especially, like, for example, a business student may be really good at accounting, has a high GPA in accounting courses, but in finance or marketing, it’s Bs. So they wouldn’t be teaching in those courses, so it’s course-specific grades we’re looking at.”
Currently, SUS is in the process of marketing and setting up the interview process for prospective tutors. The starting wage for tutors is $15 an hour, but tutors are able to raise their wage.
“They’ll start at the average rate, and then they can change their wage from there, after a certain amount of time and after a certain amount of ratings as well,” Hunter said.
If a tutor, for example, had a five-star rating from 10 students, SUS could approach them to consider raising their charge.
