HLC/NCA Accreditation at Phoenix College

Introduction

Newsletter

Resources

Committee Portal

Accreditation Timeline

Criterion Committees:
Criterion 1
Criterion 2
Criterion 3
Criterion 4
Criterion 5

Dear Professor:

On behalf of the education team at SMARTHINKING, I would like to thank you and your institution for choosing us as an academic support option for your students. As Vice President of SMARTHINKING’s Education Department, I would like to introduce our team and provide some information about how students and professors typically have used our services. Please view this letter as the beginning of a dialogue with us—we welcome your feedback and encourage you to contact us with any questions or comments.

My department consists of the academic directors of our mathematics, writing, and business studies programs—as well as our online tutors who work from various locations. Our academic directors have extensive training in their given fields as well as university-level teaching experience. Dr. Kirk Benningfield is our Mathematics and Statistics Director. He has taught at University of Houston and McNeese State University in Louisiana. Dr. Amy Stuber is our Writing Director. Amy has taught at the University of Kansas, Haskell University (Kansas), and Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Dr. Yesim Yilmaz directs the Economics and Accounting programs. Yesim has taught Economics at George Mason University in Virginia. Finally, I received my Ph.D. in Education from the University of Oxford, England. My research explores teaching and learning in higher education at American and British universities.

Each academic director oversees the training, evaluation and monitoring of the online tutors in his or her program. Over 80% of our online tutors have a Masters degree or Ph.D. in their discipline and an average of eight years of teaching experience. Given the differences between face-to-face and online support, we take the training of our online tutors very seriously. All online tutors complete a one-on-one real-time online training program that focuses on online instructional practices. In addition, all online tutors engage in ongoing evaluation and professional development exercises.

To date, more than 73,000 students from over 300 client colleges and universities across the nation have participated in over 316,000 individual tutorial sessions with SMARTHINKING. In addition to viewing our programs as supplemental student support services, many professors have incorporated online tutoring directly into their courses. For example, some require students to submit drafts to our Online Writing Lab prior to turning in final copies of their assignments. Other professors have required that students work through practice problems with our online tutors. Further, with institutional permission, faculty have accessed SMARTHINKING’s administrative interface to analyze student usage of our programs as well as the actual tutoring interactions that their students have had.

Should you have questions about the training or evaluation of our instructors or any discipline-specific issues, please do not hesitate to contact me or one of our academic directors. Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Additionally, please contact me if you would like to arrange a demonstration of the service with a member of the SMARTHINKING staff.

Warm Regards,