First-Year Experience Course Brings Tech Tutoring to UA Little Rock’s Learning Commons

A collaboration between students in a first-year experience course for computer science majors and the Learning Commons has brought technology tutors to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Brandon Sollars, director of the Learning Commons, had been looking for a way to recruit tech tutors that could assist students when he saw an email looking for service-learning projects for computer science students.

“It seemed serendipitous to me, and it has been smooth sailing ever since Ahmet Yaman and Will Moore reached out to me about working in the Learning Commons for their project,” Sollars said.

Yaman, a double major in computer science and cybersecurity from Turkey, and Moore, a web design and development major from North Little Rock, are both freshmen who took the first-year experience (FYE) course for students in the Department of Computer Science during the fall semester. Students in the course complete a service-learning project at UA Little Rock.

“I work as a part-time tutor teaching reading and math at Gideon Math and Reading Center, so when my FYE wanted me to prepare a project, my first thought was finding ways to tutor computer technology,” Yaman said. “I saw the Learning Commons on the list of project sponsors, and I immediately thought that would be the best place to tutor people.”

Yaman and Moore hosted technology tutoring hours on Mondays and Wednesdays during the fall semester as well as worked with the Disability Resource Center to host a technology workshop in October in honor of Disability Awareness Month.

During the Basics of Technology: Accessibility Edition Workshop, Moore and Yaman introduced and demonstrated Texthelp, an accessibility tool that is offered through the Disability Resource Center. Texthelp tools provide literacy and translation support.

“I have gained so much from this experience,” Moore said. “I had gotten familiar with Texthelp earlier in the semester, and I particularly like the narration feature where it reads text to you so you can listen to text on the go. We got to help so many people this semester, from students who weren’t familiar with Blackboard to students in web design class to those that just needed general technology tutoring sessions.”

“I enjoyed everything about the service-learning project,” Yaman agreed. “I loved working on the workshop with Will and working with the Communications Skills Center to practice our presentation. It was a collaborative experience that I enjoyed. As a tutor, I got to help many students, including a lot of my friends, with any computer question they had. It was generally a very fun experience.”

The Learning Commons has continued the project with tech tutoring hours and Basics of Technology workshops during the spring semester. The tech tutors assist students with basic computer skills, internet and web browsing, email use, mobile device assistance, digital communication tools like videoconferencing and message apps, basic file management, and basic troubleshooting.

“Will Moore has come on board as our primary tech tutor and will take other tutors and students from the FYE course under his wing,” Sollars said. “We’d like to keep this momentum going by continuing to collaborate with on-campus partners like the Department of Computer Science and continue to have technology workshops in collaboration with partners like the Disability Resource Center.”