Two NDSU tutoring programs, Academic Collegiate Enhancement and TRiO Student Support Services, recently earned International Tutor Training Certification. Using a peer review process, the certification recognizes and reinforces successful tutoring and sets an internationally accepted standard of skills and training for programs preparing and supervising tutors.
Academic Collegiate Enhancement, an Office of Orientation and Student Success program, provides free drop-in group tutoring to students in a variety of courses. Student Support Services provides first-generation college students, students with disabilities and low income students with a range of services including support and encouragement, academic guidance, mentoring, individual tutoring services, math and science instruction, reading and writing instruction, accessible tutoring rooms and scholarship opportunities.
Each level of International Tutor Training Certification requires a minimum of 10 hours of training including some required topics and 25 hours of tutoring experience for each tutor. Both Academic Collegiate Enhancement and Student Support Services exceed the minimum requirement. Both programs have long adhered to the training standards set by the certification but only recently renewed or applied for it.
Angela Seewald-Marquardt, learning services coordinator for Orientation and Student Success, said the certification “ensures the training tutors receive is comprehensive and appropriate for college-level tutoring. There are numerous skills required for successful tutoring. The certification is a wonderful way to recognize tutors who have completed a training program that helps them develop those skills.”
“Receiving the certification highlights the quality and rigor of our tutor training programs as well as formally recognizing our NDSU tutors for their commitment to academic excellence,” said Aida Martinez-Freeman, Student Support Services director.
Both programs are part of the Division of Student Affairs. In 2011-12, Academic Collegiate Enhancement had more than 3,000 students use its services and roughly 11,000 tutoring contacts. With a student membership of 350, Student Support Services tutored more than 200 students and had approximately 1,300 tutoring visits in 2012.
International Tutor Training Certification is earned through the College Reading and Learning Association, a professional organization in the fields of reading, learning assistance, developmental education, tutoring and mentoring at the college level.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.
