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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:04:14 GMTServer: NCSA/1.4.2Content-type: text/htmlLast-modified: Sun, 07 Jan 1996 22:28:16 GMTContent-length: 7108<html><head><title>Tutoring and Mentoring Program</title></head><body><h1>Tutoring and Mentoring Program for Women and Minority Students</h1><a href="http://www.cs.washington.edu">Department of Computer Science and Engineering</a> <br><a href="http://www.washington.edu">University of Washington</a><P>This note is an informal description of our tutoring and mentoring programfor women and minority students. We hope this information is useful, andwould be grateful for any suggestions or recommendations based on theexperience of other departments. Please send correspondence to AlanBorning, borning@cs.washington.edu<P>Women and minority students are generally underrepresented in computerscience and computer engineering programs, and our program is no exception.We have two separate degrees, Computer Science through the College of Artsand Science, and Computer Engineering through the College of Engineering.There is a very competitive admission process for both. Grades don't tellthe whole story of course, but just for calibration, the average GPA ofstudents admitted to Computer Engineering is about 3.8 and about 3.6 forComputer Science. Once students are admitted to the major, there is nofurther weeding out -- our intent is that all students who are admitted tothe major should be able to complete it -- but it is nevertheless adifficult and demanding course of study.<P>In 1993, looking for ways to increase the retention and success ofunderrepresented minority students in our undergraduate majors, weinstituted a tutoring program. The tutoring program has since expanded toinclude women who aren't minorities as well. In setting up and operatingthe program we've received help from several other programs in the Collegeof Engineering, namely the <ahref="http://hanhet.loew.washington.edu">Minority Science and EngineeringProgram</a> (MSEP), <a href="http://www.engr.washington.edu/~wieweb">Womenin Engineering</a> (WIE), and the <ahref="http://ecsel.engr.washington.edu">Engineering Coalition of Schoolsfor Excellence in Education and Leadership</a> (ECSEL).<P>The tutor is a graduate student in our department, paid as a 20/hour weekteaching assistant (the same as course TA's). We inform students who areeligible for tutoring about the program by e-mail, and sometimes by writtenletter when they first enter the program (since not all students areregular e-mail users when they begin the major). Participation iscompletely voluntary.<P>The first tutor, Derrick Weathersby, did most of the tutoring personally.(Tutoring was available for any CS majors course, which meant that Derrickhad to know a <em>lot</em> of different material.) Derrick also paid muchattention to the social and cultural aspects, as well as the pure academicones, succeeding in creating a supportive environment for the students hetutored -- a sort of a coach role. For his work on the program, Derrickwon the College of Engineering Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award inSpring 1995.<P>Ruth Anderson has been the tutor since Autumn 1994, and has carried on thisstrong tradition. (Prior to accepting the tutor position, Ruth won theDepartment's Bob Bandes Memorial Award for outstanding work as a teachingassistant.) During this time, as noted above we expanded the program toinclude other undergraduate women in addition to minorities. To accomodatemore students, Ruth changed her role to include both tutoring andcoordinating a considerable number of volunteer tutors (who are othergraduate students).<h2>Problems</h2>One problem with a single tutor for many courses is that the tutor needs avery broad knowledge of many computer science topics -- having volunteersavailable as well helps with this problem.<P>Another possible problem is that the program would cause resentments amongstudents not receiving tutoring as being unfair. One of the undergraduatewomen (who didn't use the tutoring program) expressed this concern to me --while we haven't heard complaints from other students, it is possible thereare such feelings.<P>Finally, resources have been a recurring difficulty. Funding has beenscrounged from various sources -- MSEP, ECSEL, money from an endowmentwithin the department to fund scholarships and fellowships for women andminorities, and sometimes from our regular TA budget -- but we've managed.(The cost of the program is that for a TA for the academic year --currently about $17,000.)A more difficult problem is that our department has a severe shortage ofqualified TAs, and the program may remove a TA (often one of our best TAs)from the pool.<h2>Evaluation</h2>At the end of the first year, we asked Neetha Ravjee from the ECSELevaluation group, with help from Gerry Gillmore of the Office ofEducational Assessment, to design and carry out an evaluation of theprogram. The purpose of this evaluation was to help us decide whether theprogram has been useful, whether it is worth continuing, and if so whatchanges should be made. In addition, we hoped the the evaluation might behelpful when seeking longer-term funding for the program. The bottom linewas that the program was very successful, as substantiated by both numericdata and the comments. A <a href="evaluation.html"> copy of theevaluation</a> is available in a separate web page.<P>We haven't requested a formal evaluation since the first one, but thefeedback from the students, volunteers, and advisors indicates that theprogram is continuing to be successful. For example, one student recentlywrote:<blockquote> I've been having a graduate student as my tutor for one of the cs courses i take ever since last winter. The tutoring program works perfectly for me. I not only get questions answered from those courses, but also general questions about graduate studies in this field. I got to know more in general the life being a grad CS student and my tutors have been giving me really good advice on what I could do in order to get myself better prepared for grad school. <P> My tutors have been really helpful in my coursework. They know a lot about the specific field and they explain things well. Maybe it's just me, but this kind of one-to-one tutoring works very good for me. <P> Just a little thoughts about the tutoring program. I am really glad that we have this program here in the department.</blockquote>Another student writes:<blockquote> I like it, I think it is very useful to talk to somebody one-on-one on a regular basis (more than at most 10 minutes in office hours). It helps me also to see a different way of looking at a problem, and I also like to have somebody knowledgeable I can talk to about a class. Verbalizing a problem often half solves a problem for me.</blockquote>Finally, many of the graduate student volunteer tutors said they had foundbeing a tutor a rewarding experience.<P><address>borning@cs.washington.edu (Last Update: 12/17/95)</address></body></html>⌨️ 快捷键说明
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