Students expand free online math tutoring

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Online Learning Academy (OLA)—in its third year of having UH Mānoa students provide free, live online math tutoring to Hawai‘i public school students—is currently piloting a program offering the same services to students attending UH Maui College, and Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i and Kapi‘olani community colleges. Beginning in Fall 2011, the program will be available to students at all UH community colleges throughout Hawai‘i.

 

Currently, all 32 OLA tutors are UH Mānoa students majoring in mathematics or sciences. They are available from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday in the program’s “online tutoring room,” which is virtual and does not exist in an actual building. Instead, UH Mānoa tutors sign on from their own computers, wherever they are and when they are able to tutor.

 

There are currently two afterschool programs in which computer lab monitors are available to public school students who want to log onto OLA’s online tutoring room to get help from UH Mānoa tutors. One program is at Konawaena High and Middle School on the Big Island, and the other is at Kalama Intermediate on Maui.

 

OLA operates year-round and will continue through the summer for students taking summer school math classes. 

 

“Working for OLA has been incredibly rewarding, because you can help students achieve understanding and success in math in a new and innovative way,” said Elena Moser, an OLA tutor and UH Mānoa senior double majoring in Zoology and German. “It’s really convenient for students to log on and ask a tutor for help whenever they’re stuck on a problem without having to go through the hassle of meeting somewhere.”

 

Moser has been a tutor with OLA since August 2009, and now supervises tutors in the online tutoring room.  On average, most tutors work with a handful of students on a typical day, although much of the online traffic depends on the time of semester and hour of the day.

 

For more information, visit: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/ola/.