Learning Center promotes new hours

The Learning Center located in A&S 256 is now open Fridays from 10a.m. to 2p.m. and Sundays from 1p.m. to 5p.m. and starting Feb. 13, it will stay open until 10 p.m. on Sundays.

“Every semester, since I’ve been here, the Learning Center has been growing and growing so we’ve seen more student visits every successive semester,” Coordinator of the Learning Center, Lori Robinson said. “And I have always tried to hire enough people in order to cover the continuing but the amount of money really never followed that.”Within the past two and a half years, Robinson has written for grant money. With this additional money, the Learning Center has been able to hire more tutors in order to support all students who come to the center.

“This past semester we received an additional grant and some additional funds from the Provost and those funds are really to expand the Learning Center to provide more tutors and to provide more hours,” Robinson said.

It has been proven in the Learning Center’s research that when students come to the center and work with a tutor consistently, they do better in classes, according to Robinson.

ConnorJohnson | gcsunade.com

From left, sophomore marketing major Thomas Freeman and sophomore early child education major Brittany Cahill study statistics in the Learning Center. The Learning Center is now open Fridays and Sundays for convenience.

“One of the large missions of the university is to support students in their success and to increase retention. So we want students to feel like this is a place where they want to start their academic career and they want to finish their academic career here,” Robinson said. “These types of supportive services tie in with the university’s mission.”

For the last three years, the coordinator of the Learning center has applied for STEM grants. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Every year the Learning Center has received that money.

“Expanding the hours on Fridays and Sundays was really the result of having so many more students come to the Learning Center and finally having the money in order to extend those hours,” Robinson said.

Math modeling, pre-calculus, calculus 1, probability and statistics, and physics are some of the subjects offered during days because these are highly demand courses.

Over the last couple of semesters more and more students are saying that they will be staying in school on Fridays because they have Friday morning classes and that led to opening on Fridays. Opening on Sunday evenings came up out of consideration for commuting students who have a job or live in Macon and need support. Also, other students who go home for the weekend, come back Sundays and are ready to get back to their studies on Sunday evenings, Robinson said.Sophomore accounting major Akwai Agoons has been working as a tutor in the Learning Center since Fall 2010. Agoons helps students with pre-calculus, probability and statistics, business statistics, accounting one and accounting two. She will be working on Sundays. Agoons hopes to see more students during the weekends as the semester progresses. Agoons said the Learning Center is giving students the opportunity to get help on Sundays for Monday classes and that students like the idea.

“Students have classes on Fridays, but then they couldn’t come in here to get help because we were not open and we thought it would be a good idea if we actually open on Fridays to help students more,” Agoons said.

Sophomore special education major, Allison Tidwell is happy about the weekend hours.

“I think it’s great because I always study on the weekends rather that the weekdays,” Tidwell said.

The Learning Center will be open all upcoming Fridays and Sundays in the semester, except the Sunday before and after Spring Break.

“We have already seen more students than what we had anticipated (on Fridays) because we have been talking to so many people who come to the Learning Center,” Robinson said.

Posted by Jessica Ramirez on Feb 10 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.