Office of Student Success

Data Intern

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To learn more about this position and how to apply, click here!

Social Media/Marketing Student Assistant

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To learn more about this position and how to apply, click here!

First Year Programs

First Year Program Student Intern

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To learn more about this position and how to apply, click here!

Peer Coach

The role of a Peer Coach is to help students develop into independent learners by supporting them in their transition to college, developing time management, study skills, introducing new shockers to campus events, and connecting students with campus resources. Peer Coaches will be placed in a First-Year Seminar course to serve as the class Peer Coach for the full 16 week semester.

To learn more about job responsibilities, qualifications, and how to apply, click here

Transition Mentor

Students in these positions play a key role in the persistence and completion efforts of the university by assisting with the transition of new students to 麻豆破解版 State University. Transition Mentors will have the opportunity to build relationships, interact with university staff and faculty and work with a team of peers during these unique leadership experiences. Individuals selected as TMs serve as mentors and role models and are responsible for making new students' transition during their first semester successful.

To learn more about job qualifications and how to apply, click here!

Shocker Learning Center

Front Desk Staff

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To learn more about this position and how to apply, click here!

Peer Tutor

CRLA certified peer tutors assist students in strengthening their understanding of class materials, understanding the textbook, organizing assignments, and improving general learning and study skills.

To learn more about job qualifications and how to apply, click here!

SI Leader

SI Leaders are prepared to share with students how to effectively study for the course. Leaders attend the same class and take notes. At SI sessions, the Leader guides students through the course concepts and shares the strategies they used to be successful. Leaders will not re-lecture, give out notes, help students with assigned homework, or encourage last minute test cramming.

To learn more about job requirements and how to apply, click here!

Social Media/Marketing Student Assistant

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

To learn more about this position and how to apply, click here!

Shocker Learning Center Student Positions

The Shocker Learning Center offers many student positions in tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, and front desk workers. We are currently accepting applications for the positions below. Please read the description and requirements for the position you are applying for before completing the application below. If you have any questions regarding this application, please contact the Shocker Learning Center at 316-978-3023 or email Caitlin Jordan at caitlin.jordan@wichita.edu.

Front Desk Staff

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Peer Tutor

CRLA certified peer tutors assist students in strengthening their understanding of class materials, understanding the textbook, organizing assignments, and improving general learning and study skills.

Are you interested in becoming a tutor for the Office of Student Success? We welcome applications anytime throughout the semester and will keep them on file. If the need arises for a new or additional tutor and your application meets the qualifications, you will be contacted for an interview. We are always accepting new applications but are NOT always actively hiring.


To begin - there is more to being a successful tutor than having achieved academic success. While you must be knowledgeable in the subject you are tutoring, competence in the content of a course alone will not guarantee your success as a tutor. Below are a list of qualifications and interpersonal/professional skills that we look for in our peer tutors.

Required Qualifications

To apply for a tutoring position with the Office of Student Success, you must meet the following criteria:

  • Current enrollment at WSU or Senior Audit
  • An earned grade of B+ or better in the course you are applying to tutor
  • In good academic and judicial standing with the University
  • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
  • Ability to work with a diverse group of people
  • Ability to provide guidance, support and motivation for others
  • Perform tasks in an ethical and professional manner
  • Must have an interest in helping students succeed academically at 麻豆破解版 State University
  • Have the ability to successfully complete tutor training*

*The training date will be selected and shared in advance. All tutors are required to attend training.

Other Preferred Interpersonal Skills

  • Dependability 鈥 Be reliable by keeping appointments, being on time, and being prepared
  • Patience - Explaining a concept once or twice may simply not be enough; it may take a long time before any improvement is noticeable
  • Positivity - Especially toward learning Be a good role model. If your attitude about school, teachers, etc., is good, your influence may reach beyond the subject matter you are teaching
  • Enthusiasm
  • Listening skills - Listening is the most important aspect of good communication
  • Empathy - The ability to see and feel things as others see and feel them
  • Sensitivity - Students might come to you with more stress than just their course work, be sensative to those concerns as well as other needs and problems that might arise
  • Good hygiene - Personal cleanliness is important for positive interactions with others
  • Initiative - The ability to see what needs doing and do it
  • Flexibility - A subject may be taught in many different ways. As a tutor, you need to discover new and interesting ways of presenting the material, keeping in mind the individuality of each student with whom you work and trying to adopt methods and techniques that will be most helpful for that student
  • Adaptability 鈥 the ability to improvise if tutoring conditions are not the best, or if materials or equipment are inappropriate or insufficient
SI Leader

SI Leaders are prepared to share with students how to effectively study for the course. Leaders attend the same class and take notes. At SI sessions, the Leader guides students through the course concepts and shares the strategies they used to be successful. Leaders will not re-lecture, give out notes, help students with assigned homework, or encourage last minute test cramming.

SI Leader Requirements:

  • You have taken the course and earned an A.
  • You are able to attend the course.
  • You can work up to ten hours/week on campus.
  • You should have a valid SSN.

Shocker Learning Center Student Positions

The Shocker Learning Center offers many student positions in tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, and front desk workers. We are currently accepting applications for the positions below. Please read the description and requirements for the position you are applying for before completing the application below. If you have any questions regarding this application, please contact the Shocker Learning Center at 316-978-3023 or email Caitlin Jordan at caitlin.jordan@wichita.edu.

Front Desk Worker

Peer Tutor

Are you interested in becoming a tutor for the Office of Student Success? We welcome applications anytime throughout the semester and will keep them on file. If the need arises for a new or additional tutor and your application meets the qualifications, you will be contacted for an interview. We are always accepting new applications but are NOT always actively hiring.


To begin - there is more to being a successful tutor than having achieved academic success. While you must be knowledgeable in the subject you are tutoring, competence in the content of a course alone will not guarantee your success as a tutor. Below are a list of qualifications and interpersonal/professional skills that we look for in our peer tutors.

Required Qualifications

To apply for a tutoring position with the Office of Student Success, you must meet the following criteria:

  • Current enrollment at WSU or Senior Audit
  • An earned grade of B+ or better in the course you are applying to tutor
  • In good academic and judicial standing with the University
  • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
  • Ability to work with a diverse group of people
  • Ability to provide guidance, support and motivation for others
  • Perform tasks in an ethical and professional manner
  • Must have an interest in helping students succeed academically at 麻豆破解版 State University
  • Have the ability to successfully complete tutor training*

*The training date will be selected and shared in advance. All tutors are required to attend training.

Other Preferred Interpersonal Skills

  • Dependability 鈥 Be reliable by keeping appointments, being on time, and being prepared
  • Patience - Explaining a concept once or twice may simply not be enough; it may take a long time before any improvement is noticeable
  • Positivity - Especially toward learning Be a good role model. If your attitude about school, teachers, etc., is good, your influence may reach beyond the subject matter you are teaching
  • Enthusiasm
  • Listening skills - Listening is the most important aspect of good communication
  • Empathy - The ability to see and feel things as others see and feel them
  • Sensitivity - Students might come to you with more stress than just their course work, be sensative to those concerns as well as other needs and problems that might arise
  • Good hygiene - Personal cleanliness is important for positive interactions with others
  • Initiative - The ability to see what needs doing and do it
  • Flexibility - A subject may be taught in many different ways. As a tutor, you need to discover new and interesting ways of presenting the material, keeping in mind the individuality of each student with whom you work and trying to adopt methods and techniques that will be most helpful for that student
  • Adaptability 鈥 the ability to improvise if tutoring conditions are not the best, or if materials or equipment are inappropriate or insufficient

SI Leader

SI Leaders are prepared to share with students how to effectively study for the course. Leaders attend the same class and take notes. At SI sessions, the Leader guides students through the course concepts and shares the strategies they used to be successful. Leaders will not re-lecture, give out notes, help students with assigned homework, or encourage last minute test cramming.

SI Leader Requirements:

  • You have taken the course and earned an A.
  • You are able to attend the course.
  • You can work up to ten hours/week on campus.
  • You should have a valid SSN.

Social Media/Marketing Student Assistant

 

Professional Staff

Photo of Heidi Rodrick.

Dr. Heidi Rodrick

Assistant Director, Academic Success Programs
heidi.rodrick@wichita.edu

Photo of Caitlin Jordan

Caitlin Jordan, she/her

Coordinator, Academic Success Programs
caitlin.jordan@wichita.edu

I'm Caitlin, the Program Coordinator of the SLC! I help with lots of different things in our space but my main focus is working with the SLC's peer tutors and conducting tutor training for many of the tutoring areas on campus. :) I moved to Kansas from Massachusetts in 2021 with my two cats and have really enjoyed discovering a new city. In my spare time I like to cook, take walks, and game. 

Dos and Don'ts

Do
  • Seek help early in the semester and at the first signs that a class or concept may be difficult
  • Come to any tutoring session prepared
  • Attend all classes and keep up to date on assignments
  • Read assigned texts
  • Attempt assigned problems and assignments before any tutoring session
  • Use other resources such as the instructor's office hours and TA office hours
  • Bring all course materials to any tutoring session
    • Textbook(s), syllabus, notes, handouts, previous tests and/or test results, and a calculator, if needed
  • Work toward mastering concepts and skills rather than focusing on obtaining the answers to specific questions.
  • Maintain a good attitude about the subject and the potential to succeed.
    • A positive attitude, combined with willingness to seek appropriate help and exercising solid work habits, will do much to determine success in a course.
Don't
  • Wait until the day before an assignment is due or when you're already severely struggling in the course to seek help
  • Don't get frustrated! Virtually every student will be challenged at some point with course work.

When meeting with a tutor please keep in mind:

Tutors Can
  • Review notes
  • Clarify concepts
  • Answer questions
  • Explain / demonstrate problems
  • Interpret tests
  • Provide study skills help
  • Give suggestions for test and note taking
Tutors Cannot
  • Do students鈥 homework
  • Introduce new concepts
  • Help students鈥 with take home tests

Communication Tips

Student Email Guide

Emails are not like text messages or instant messages, as they are more formal and require more thoughtful consideration of what is to be said. A proper email should always contain an appropriately titled subject, a greeting, and introductory statement, the actual content of the email, a respectful close, and a salutation. Signatures which come after the salutation are optional, your name is not. This link contains examples of how to properly write an email. 

Speaking With Your Professor

Successful students will tell you that it is important to get to know your professor. Professors will decide your grade and have the potential to be a valuable reference later on in your college and professional career. This link contains advice on how to talk with your professor. 

Study Tips

There Is No Multi-tasking
You can鈥檛 divide your attention without your performance suffering; more-accurately you are task-switching (rapidly alternating tasks); Task-switching makes you less effective (even if you don鈥檛 think so)different tasks require different resources and have a different history of events related to each task, so your brain must re-adjust each time you switch back.
Go to Class

Class attendance is highly correlated with success in class.

Obtain Slides Before Class

Research shows that providing slides to students before class does not decrease attendance; student learning is increased likely because you are able to focus on what the professor is saying and write down important questions, rather than trying to copy slides.

Leave the Laptop at Home

Using a laptop in class makes you easily prone to distractions such as Facebook or funny cat videos; not only is it distracting for you, but also for those around you; as use of social technology in class goes up, GPA goes down.

Ask Questions, Answer Questions, Ask More Questions

Questions force you to think about the material and remember answers from memory rather than simply recognizing them; remembering strengthens the connections in your brain making the information easier to recall in the future; like creating a path through a field, the more you walk it, the easier it is to find and walk down again.

Catch Some Z's

Sleep allows your brain to combine new knowledge and incorporate new information into existing memory networks; studies have shown a direct relationship between lack of sleep and a decrease in alertness and mental performance even though you don鈥檛 feel like it.

Write Notes Rather Than Typing Them

Typing is faster than writing which allows you to take down more notes; however, the quality of the notes is worse because of the speed-comprehension trade-off; writing out notes (or better yet questions) forces you to spend more time thinking about what you want to write and to be more selective about what exactly you write.

Put Your Cell Phone in Another Room

Studies show the closer your phone is to you, the worse you perform on thinking tasks, even if your phone is on airplane mode or completely turned off.

Use Flashcards Better

Flash cards are a great way to study many types of information because they can combine the generation effect, distributed practice, and free-recall. 

  • Create don't copy:
    • Making your own flashcards with definitions in your own words will help you remember the information better than if you simply copy definitions out of the book or use someone else鈥檚 flash cards, this is called the generation effect.
  • Bigger is better:
    • Using a larger rather than smaller deck of cards puts increased time between when you see each card, this is a great way to get the benefits of distributed practice within a single study session, increasing long-term learning.
  • No peaking:
    • Studies show that recalling information from memory, rather than simply re-looking at the answer, is an important part of long-term learning.
Study at Least One More Time

Even when you feel that you aren鈥檛 learning any new information. Students often quit studying too soon due to poor judgement on how much they have learned. Don鈥檛 fall victim to these biases: 

  • Hindsight Bias (the "I knew that" bias)
    • Can't remember the answer when tested, but think you know it because you recognize it after it has been revealed.
  • Foresight Bias (the "I'll know it when I see it" bias)
    • Believing that because you know an answer while you鈥檙e studying, you鈥檒l remember it on the test. However, on the test there will be other answers to distract you.
  • Stability Bias (the "forgot that I forgot" bias)
    • Not accounting for how much information you forget over time; also, the assumption that further studying will not provide any benefits for you.
Match Studying to Testing

Conditions during studying should match those during testing as close as possible; meaning, if you drink caffeine while studying, drink a little caffeine before the test 鈥 or 鈥 listen to a particular song before and after each study session while thinking about the material, then listen to that song before you take the test 鈥 or 鈥 eat a particular flavor of mint while studying, and eat that same flavor of mint while taking the test.