Gabriella Pinos/Assistant Entertainment Director
From intermediate algebra to physics with calculus I and II, the Assistance for Academic Achievement Tutorial Program has offered its services to students who need help with their courses.
As part of the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services, the program provides math and science tutoring to all FIU students through walk-ins, appointments and individual or group sessions.
While AAA provides tutoring for classes like Spanish, the center specializes in math and science subjects, ranging in courses such as calculus III and analytical chemistry.
“We mostly focus on math and science because those are the ones that are mostly requested,” said Daniel Pino, graduate assistant for AAA Tutoring.
Currently, five tutors offer their services at AAA Tutoring, all of whom are undergraduate and graduate students. Tutoring appointments are made around their own class schedule, and a tutor is hired only if they receive a B+ or higher, or if they received a test credit for the course, in the subject they are teaching.
About 23 to 24 people visit the center every week for help, according to Pino; however, that number rises to about 30 or 40 around finals week.
“It gets more intense,” said Pino. “People start coming in groups and stuff instead of individually, so that’s the biggest difference.”
To prepare for the influx of students during finals week, tutoring appointments opened in the beginning of November. They have since then been filled up.
Many tutors will not work during finals week because of preparations for their own exams, said Pino. This semester, the only AAA tutor that will be working during finals is Shaneka Lewis, who will be tutoring students in courses ranging from precalculus to calculus III.
Lewis, a junior and computer engineering major, normally sees seven or eight people every week and prefers to show her students step-by-step how to solve a problem.
“For the most part, I like to go through a problem over and over with them just so they understand the steps more instead of cranking out so many problems at once,” said Lewis.
During finals, she is expecting to brush up on broader topics and last-minute details with her students. As for tips on surviving the impending week, Lewis recommends that students rewrite and annotate their notes, write out the steps they took to arrive at a solution, and to remember that “[they] got this.”
The AAA Tutorial Lab is located in the Graham Center Room 267 and closes on Friday, Nov. 30, at 5 p.m. For more information, contact AAA Tutoring at aaatutoring@fiu.edu or (305) 348-6425.
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash.
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