Peer Tutors Share Tutorial Center’s Programs at Major Conference

Ten peer tutors from the University Tutorial Center (UTC) attended and presented at the 2017 Mountains to Coast Peer Leader Conference in April at Clemson University.  The one-day regional conference hosted peer leaders who serve as Supplemental Instruction (SI) leaders, academic tutors and peer mentors from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  NC State was well represented by undergraduate students Estefania Castro-Vazquez, Nicholas Errico, Luke Hader, Sophia McNatton, Claudia Mesa, Zachary Shea, Kayla
Swaringen, Casey Williams, and Dingkun Yang and graduate student Sarah Stokely.  Their presentations shared best practices from the UTC’s training programs including using peers as supervisors, adapting tutoring sessions based on students’ preferred learning styles, analyzing tests to develop richer study strategies, incorporating a variety of positive reinforcement and questioning techniques, and engaging quiet students in a group tutoring environment.

By the end of the day, multiple participants from other institutions were excited to return home to incorporate ideas learned from the UTC’s presentations.  It was a rewarding and unique experience for so many undergraduate students to interact with others who all have the common goal of helping their fellow students be academically successful.