Welcome to the Academic Skills Center (01.17.2018)

Presented Wednesday January 17, 2018

View the recording

Last updated 1/30/2018

 

Visual: Welcome to the Academic Skills Center title slide

Audio: Instrumental Music.

Visual: Slide includes images of the presenters, Shawn Picht and Kim Palermo-Kielb

Shawn: Thank you for joining us. this is fantastic this is the annual welcome to the ASC webinar and we do this twice a year and it is wonderful to have all of you here interested to know more about the academic skills Center And how we can help you.

Visual: Slide changes to “Overview & Objectives”

Audio: Shawn: The way this webinar is organized is really -- we are doing an introduction here. Instead of flying information at you it is important that we answer probably the most frequently asked question. Where is the Academic Skills Center? How can you interact with the Academic Skills Center? Last, we have to leave you with who do you need to contact. This was a great way to end with because that is information you need to follow-up questions or get in touch with us. That is an overview of the objectives

Visual: Slide changes to “Where is the ASC Situated” and includes a small graphic of the Office of Academic Support.

Audio: Shawn: So let's start with what do I mean with where is the Academic Skills Center.

The Academic Skills Center is situated within the center for academic excellence. Any of you who have been here for a while but used to be called the Center for student success and now it is a Center for academic success. You're probably familiar with the writing center and academic skills Center and the library, all three are the Center for academic excellence.

Visual: Slide changes to “ASC Breakdown” and includes a graphic of what the services the ASC offers.

Audio: Shawn: I can break that down further and talk about the academic skills Center does. We have three main services that we offer, the doctoral peer mentors program, tutoring and the SKIL Courses and workshops. Today we will discuss tutoring and SKIL workshops.

The Center for academic excellence is generally housed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We have staff and graduate assistant that are all over the world. We have one in Puerto Rico, we have a graduate assistant in Puerto Rico, a staff member in Doha, Qatar New York, Washington state, Texas, people from all over the world. And that is important not just for helping Walden University student but also representing Walden University students. And that is why we want to highlight where the academic center is situated.

Visual: Slide changes to “The Academic Skills Center” title slide to introduce the SKIL Courses, Workshops and Tutoring Services.

Audio: Shawn: Now we will talk about what support is available, and one student resources are available from the Academic Skills Center. Some of your hearing about the Academic Skills Center for the first time. This is a great way to understand what we do here and the different support services we can offer for you.

Visual: Slide changes to “SKIL Courses & Workshops”

Audio: Shawn: The reason I want to talk about these is you will hear about this during your time at Walden University the writing courses or the doctoral workshops. I want to hand it over to Kim to talk about our tutoring services.

Visual: Slide changes to “SKIL Courses & Workshops Info”

Audio: Shawn:  Let's go ahead and talk about what those are, what SKIL Courses are.

First off, it means Center for academic excellence. The program director is Emily Dahlen. There are seven courses and they are adding more, six workshops, one seminar and over 40 faculty members. Some of the faculty who teach are also writing center instructors and editors who serve in both roles. Many of the courses were rebuilt last year or two and some are in the process of currently being rebuilt. During the last month we had two courses previewed.

We also have course preview video interviews and I will give you examples in a moment.

Visual: Slide changes to “Just give me the facts”

SKIL Courses-

  • $195
  • 4-12 weeks long
  • Available on quarter and semester schedules
  • 1-3 credits (depending on course)
  • Contact Student Success Advisor to register.

Audio: Shawn: Let's get to the facts. What does this cost? How long do they last?

The SKIL Courses are $195, 4-16 weeks long, available in quarter or semester schedules and 1-4 academic credit depending on the course. Anytime you see a blue link in the PowerPoint or in the PDF that you downloaded in the lower left-hand side that is an active link that you can click and will take you to the active website or the Student Success Advisors to help you out.

Whenever you see a blue link in the PDF that you download or the PowerPoint that is an active point.

Visual: Slide changes to “Range of Courses”

·       SKIL 6200/6201- Basic APA Style: Citations and References

·       SKIL 6050/6051- Graduate Writing I: Basic Composition Skills

·       SKIL 6060/6061- Graduate Writing II: Intermediate Compostion Skills

·       SKIL 8350/8351- Writing a Literature Review

·       And many more ASC Courses Website (https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/ASCcourses

Audio: Shawn: So now that we have the facts about those courses, let’s talk about what those courses are.

Some of the most popular courses are the basic APA style course, 6200/6201, everybody can brush up on how to write citations and references. The other two most popular courses are graduate writing I basic writing skills and writing II, intermediate composition skills. What happened with those courses is that they were more associated with a doctoral assessment, but we rebuilt them, so they could be something that could be added on to the courses they were already taking.

Also, there is the writing a literature review course which is currently under revision as well. You can click on the below link and you can see there are many more courses, SPSS and seminar statistics that came up last month.

Visual: Slide changes to “WCSS Doctoral Writing Workshops”

Audio: Shawn: Finally, I do want to talk about the SKIL, doctoral writing workshops, started with four workshops: proposal, introduction, lit review and methods. They are working on the proposal or premise or whatever they are working on, and taking these workshops, ungraded, --

Visual: Slide changes to “Doctoral Writing Facts” including-

  • $195
  • 6 weeks long
  • Weeks 1 & 6 are assessment/reflection
  • Weeks 2-5 are revision
  • 0 credit
  • 10 students
  • Requires 2-3 page writing excerpt
  • Contact Student Success Advisor to register

Audio: Shawn: They are 0 credits, capped at 10 students, 6 weeks long, $195.

Let me talk about how those are broken down. The first and sixth weeks are assessment and reflection of what you will be writing. If you take a doctoral writing workshop that focuses on literature review you will bring a draft of your review that you're currently working on and the faculty members in that workshop help you work on the writing. They don't help you on the content, but they help you understand the writing issues, maybe the writing block holding you back. They are designed to create a community for writers working on the doctoral proposals for introductions or literature introduction section.

Weeks 2-5 are specifically about revision. Every week you submit a 3-4 -page draft that goes to the faculty at it specifically for writing so you have the bulk of  the workshop being a time when you can review and talk about what is going on in your writing that is maybe stopping you from going forward and writing the doctoral proposal

Visual: Slide changes to “WCSS Doctoral Writing Workshops”

Audio: Shawn: so the two that were added recently are the post proposal and the pre proposal those are a little bit different in the sense that the proposal helps get you started and get you motivated to start writing and the post proposals for putting everything together at the end one

Visual: Slide changes to “Some more factual facts”

Audio: Shawn:  One last thing before I turn this over to Kim, we wanted to know how effective the workshops were for Walden University students. In 2014-16, there was a student survey by the office of institutional research assessment and they found that out of the 524 students enrolled in the Academic Skills Center workshops, 71% received approval for the proposal compared to 27% approval rating for those who did not take the SKIL workshop. This is significant. The workshops are capped to 10, and this is important, trying to generate a community of students trying to get past the writing stage.

Visual: Slide changes to “Tutoring Services” title slide.

Audio:  Shawn: I will turn this over to Kim now to talk about tutoring and if you have questions please take them over and chat.

Visual: Slide changes to “1-on-1 Tutoring Services” breakdown.

Audio: Kim: (laughing) That was my headset the problem there.

We offer support in two ways into the ring, through e-mail, if the student has a quick question but if the student requires more personal questions we have an online scheduling that form. To make it easier for students to make appointments we have students’ specializations broken down on schedules on the platform. We have statistics, SPSS, those are grouped in one specific schedule, therefore non-dissertation courses like 200 or public health courses so those are all the stats on the course level basis.

We also have statistics support for students working on the capstone data and that is supported by Dr. Zin Htway Who used to work with us, now under ORDS, the center for research quality but he helps us with dissertation students and he is on a separate schedule. When you are working in chapter 4, you can book an appointment with Zin, or email Zin, we have an account for that.

We also have the tutoring in accounting and finance and assist students with topic associated with accounting and finance which is obvious but also business administration and management and healthcare administration. A tutor who works with word and PowerPoint and something we missed on the screen sheet also works with undergraduate math. We have those math courses like math 1010, 1020, 1030. Those are college-level courses also broken down under a separate schedule.

Last but not least we have a schedule for students associated with NVivo support. Anyone who wants to learn more about NVivo software if they are using qualitative data or if they are, or in research courses we also help with those course concept topics.

I see that there were some questions coming in. Later on I will put the e-mail contacts in the chat for you guys.

Visual: Slide changes to “Some 1-on-1 facts”

Audio: Kim: I don't want to hold up our presentation. We don't have that much time.

Some one-on-one facts about tutoring. These are more guidelines I guess for tutoring. Tutoring sessions can be booked for up to one hour per week. The schedule works on a first-come, first serve basis but we do have a waiting list option for students. So, if you need an appointment with a specific time with a tutor and you don't see a slot open you can click on the schedule. There is the clock icon there that will take you to a waiting list and all that you can put your name and you can add a time if you like for specific tutor and what happens is that when that slot opens up -- when someone cancels or a tutor changes in our -- the online system will trigger an e-mail and then we'll go out to the tendons on the waitlist. So, if you're looking for an apartment you have to look for an appointment you have to be diligent and you get an e-mail try to get the appointment right away.

You can schedule with the tutor on the same day up to 30 minutes prior to the session, students working on homework or having a rough time you can go in there and see if you can get an appointment. And you can also cancel the appointment of two 30 minutes prior If you cannot make the session. That is another option. The center is open Monday through Sunday, since we are a virtual school and our tutors are really much all over the country and all over the world -- we have a tutor in the Middle East for instance -- the schedules are set based on their time zone so check frequently for a tutoring time that works for you.

Want to add that the tutoring happens in Eastern Standard Time, that is that time schedules are based on so if you schedule an appointment at noon it’s noon Eastern no matter where you are in the world. Students are allowed to book up to two sessions per week per schedule and there is a link here on the screen for you to learn more about our guidelines and our information and also if you need to or have any questions you want to email me, you can reach me at asctutoring@mail.waldenu.edu. I will put that in chat and we're finished.

Visual: Slide changes to “Group Drop-in Sessions”

Audio:  Kim: Now, another thing that we have which is really really nice for students is this supplement one-on-one tutoring. We realize decisions a week is not enough, so we provide these extra sessions, group drop-ins, developed for students who need a little extra support. So, if you did your two sessions per week one-on-one and you are still struggling, we know most assignments are due on Sunday, so we try to fit this up on the weekends, the times are 10 a.m. Eastern and 2 p.m. on Sundays, for course level related statistics. They are with our instructional support specialist Dr. Sarah Inkpen, who is incredibly knowledgeable very very good, she taught stats outside of Walden and she got her doctoral at Walden. Sarah, you can see her there in the middle of two of our directions Melanie Brown and Terren Rey. So, the drop-in sessions are not individual, they are in a group format and they run consistently like I said on the weekends. You can e-mail me again about the sessions and I will put the e-mail in in a minute. Let me see if I missed anything.

I actually moderated those sessions. It's really nice because we have had students come in there and chat and get their questions answered and leave. You don't have to stay your full hour, or you can hang around. A lot of students find out that other students are struggling along with them so it's nice that they get to learn together, and they build a little bit of community with each other and some of them also find out that they are in the same courses but in a different like time or schedule. Oh, okay, they get to know each other which is nice.

Visual: Slide changes to “Tutoring Facts”

Audio: Kim:  This is the last screen for you. these are facts to let you know how we are doing with tutoring. We surveyed students to get the stats for you. This comes from our tutoring services. Tutors and instructional support specialists are also Walden students were graduated. I am a dissertation student working on chapter 3, I get what you're going through and tutors understand this experience and the struggles because we have been to the courses. Your feedback is great because it helps us tailor our program. We try to run the student center program to help you gain in independence with working your skills your academic success but at the same time ease that anxiety that you have with harder courses.

We have an average of 40 students join the webinar. 79% are first time and some of them come back. We do have recordings of the webinars online and I think that helps students because they can go in and rewatch the webinars at their leisure so they don’t need to like watch every time. And again, look, at there is a lot of success rate here with the one on one tutoring. You don't need to watch every time and there is a lot of success with a one-on-one tutoring. And we are happy to have that information.

Visual: Slide changes to “How to Interact with the ASC” title slide.

Audio: Kim:  I think that is it for me. I will stick those e-mails in there for everybody. I will take a look at the chat. Thank you, Shawn, thank you everyone.

Audio: Shawn: Thank you Kim. What I'm saying a lot in the chat box is who do I contact and how do I do so? That is last portion here. Kim, there's a question regarding NVivo tutoring. I was not able to answer that.

We want to get to how can all of you if you need to contact the various sections of the academic skill center.

Visual: Slide changes to “Website” and includes links to different areas of the Academic Skills Center Website.

Audio: Shawn: Let's start with how you can interact with us.

The websites, called vanity plate as they call it, that'll work if you type that into a browser. We have the webinar archive, e-Guide, tutoring and courses and workshops on this page.

Visual: Slide changes to “Monthly Webinars” including- Skill-Builders, Webinars, and a link to registration- https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/ASC/skillbuilder 

Audio: Shawn: We also have webinars and math, the ASC overview, Stats, SPSS, MS Office, and next month we will have a webinar on NVivo, beginning concepts on Feb. 6. If you go to the registration page on the blue link or to go to the Academic Skills Center homepage you can register for that on Feb. 6. We will get advertising for that very soon.

Visual: Slide changes to “YouTube” which includes playlists available on the Academic Skills Center's YouTube Channel

Audio: Shawn: We have a YouTube page available for students to look through. We are designing a YouTube page now, but we have all of the conference is now, we hosted three conferences in 2015, 2016, and 2016. We have all of those conferences along with skill-builder series, statistical testing, SPSS. We have course workshop previews and we have difference academic success strategies such as reading or overcoming imposter syndrome and things like that.

Visual: Slide changes to “Savvy Student Newsletter” information. 

Audio: Shawn: Next, the Academic Skills does have a Savvy Student newsletter. The newsletter comes out first Friday of every month, it is an e-mail in PDF form, it is only one page, and it is an opt-in newsletter. You have to come to us to sign up. That way it works a lot easier that we get your information we can send you up this as it is an opt-in version.

Visual: Slide changes to “Social Media” include Twitter (@WaldenASC) and Facebook.

Audio: Shawn:  On social media we are busy on twitter. You can follow us at #WaldenASC. We do up to the minute support an dkill information.

Visual: Slide changes to “Savvy Student Blog”–

·       Blog- http://waldenacademicskills.wordpress.com

Audio: Shawn: We also have a blog which we have had only for about a year and is becoming popular. You can go to it at waldenacademicskills.wordpress.com . We have tips and best practices and skill centered learning. And two of the most popular blogs are adjusting to life as a doctoral student by Val Craig and 10 best practices and tips for Microsoft Word, these are two of the most popular blogs, well written, a great way access our information and to have more resources.

Visual: Slide changes to “Savvy Podcast

·       Podcast- http://soundcloud.com/waldenacademicskillscenter

Audio: Shawn:  We also have the savvy student podcast. Which we have been doing as well for about a year now. You can subscribe via iTunes. You can go to SoundCloud. They feature one-on-one interviews with staff and faculty many who are Walden University graduates. About 10-15 minutes long, and we just find out what is going on behind the scenes with the faculty and how they got to where they are.

Visual: Slide changes to “Who to contact at the ASC” title slide.

Audio: Shawn: Oh boy, I know the ending is coming up because we're going to talk about who to contact at the Academic Skills Center. The right contact can save you a lot of time and effort. I'm sure all of you know this and I know Kim and Shawna know this, because they're posting all the contact information.

If you are looking for NVivo or send us a message to ASCtutoring, it may take a little bit longer.

Visual: Slide changes to “Tutoring Services”-

Audio: Shawn: so let's make sure you have the correct e-mail address. If you download the PowerPoint all of these are on there and you can use them at any point in time. They are also on the contact us page. If you have specific questions with them in the chat and we will do our best to get enough out to make sure you have those. Interesting about the e-mails is that it's not about where do I go and where do I start. We have real life people who are answering e-mails; if you're stuck in something in Word, or in Math or a finance question send us an e-mail. These are not just for general inquiries and they aren’t just for figuring out tutoring schedules. These are ways that we offer you support.

There is a general e-mail, but the very specific ones are there for your support as well. So, I'm going to leave that up for another second or two.

Visual: Slide changes to “SKIL Courses & Workshops”

Audio: Shawn:  The general e-mail for the SKIL Courses is SKILcourses@mail.walden.edu. It covers registration and costs and everything like that. You can e-mail this as well as you have any questions.

Visual: Slide changes to “General Inquires”

Audio: Shawn:  general inquiries that are maybe above tutoring their courses can go to academicskills@mail.waldenu.edu And I appreciate all of you listening for the through that because there was a lot of contact information but we really want to make sure that everything is divided up so that you your particular questions about PowerPoints get answers your particular questions about Finance gets answered we want to make sure that these services are available and that we have the right people in the right place and getting the right emails as well.

Visual: Slide changes to “Any Questions”

Audio: Shawn:  I want to thank everybody for showing up today. It is a great turnout and I'm glad that you are here, and I am hoping that this was really helpful in understanding your Academic Skills Center, and the best we can help you going forward.

I will stop talking Kim, you want to say something.

Audio: Kim: I was just thinking everybody in chat. I'm sorry about the audio.

Audio: Shawn: Thank you Shawna for running things in the background and thank you Kim for presenting with me today.