Academic Help at Your Fingertips: Learning and Writing Centers Expand Digital Offerings

This video, featuring Brandon Dove ’14, coordinator of virtual campus and online services for the Learning Center and Writing Center, is one example of the self-produced, personalized video messages the centers offer.

The move to online classes and studying from home can be challenging for many students. If you need help with your writing or in a specific academic subject, the Learning Center and the Writing Center are here for you—now more than ever.

According to Brandon Dove ’14, coordinator of virtual campus and online services for both centers, in response to the COVID-19 crisis and Adelphi’s move to a fully remote learning environment, the centers have expanded their digital offerings and student support. “We want students to know that a strong set of personalized academic support, delivered via their peers and accessible at virtually any time, is available to students during these trying times.”

He explained that while Adelphi’s Learning Center and Writing Center have already been offering services such as remote tutoring appointments, the Writing Center Digital Dropbox service, live-streamed workshops and free-standing digital resources on their Virtual Campus Moodle page, “These services have been expanded and optimized.”

Here’s how:

• More features on the WCOnline scheduling page. The site (available through eCampus) has been restructured to act more as an interactive website, complete with:
  • Interactive digital resources for transitioning to remote learning
  • Video tutorials
  • Self-produced personalized video messages

• Tutors when you need them. It’s easier than ever to schedule an appointment. You can set up a one-to-one or digital group study session or workshop with one of the Learning and Writing Centers’ approximately 70 student tutors from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight, seven days a week. These tutors can help you gain proficiency in writing or in specific academic subjects.

• Fast feedback via the Writing Center Digital Dropbox. Email your paper to the Writing Center Digital Dropbox and a tutor will review and then respond with helpful feedback. “The center has prioritized this service for even quicker turnaround,” said Dove.

Dove added, “Finally, not only do we continue to provide openly accessible digital resources via our Virtual Campus Moodle page, we’ve also created and curated a set of support material geared toward remote academic success for the University’s Remote Learning Resource Guide, available to all students on Moodle, including a self-produced Panopto workshop on Communication in Remote Learning Environments.”

Students clearly appreciate the online help they receive. Sarah Edgecombe, a rising senior who is majoring in English and minoring in political science, said she has gotten great support in her literature and French classes. “The tutors have a way of making you understand that, even though you may not grasp the material now, you will understand it,” she said. “They were just as helpful online as they are in person; they would stay on video chat maybe a little longer than usual to make sure I grasped the material.”

Junyi Zhou, who arrived at Adelphi from Guangzhou, China, in the fall of 2019 to begin work on her master’s degree in mental health counseling, often went to the Writing Center over first semester for help expressing herself in English. She continued working with the tutors once campus closed, using the online writing platform to revise one of her papers. “The online tutoring was excellent,” she said. “I’m surprised the Writing Center was able to move to remote learning so rapidly.”

For more information, you can reach out directly via email at learningcenter@adelphi.edu and writingcenter@adelphi.edu. If you’d like, follow @au_lwc on Instagram and Twitter.