STEAM Center

The STEAM Center located in the Academic Support Center provides tutoring in science, technology, engineering, and math to HCC students. The subject areas tutored at the STEAM Center also include Accounting and ESL. COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown raised many challenges and impacted the STEAM Center’s services; therefore, the 2020/2021 STEAM tutoring data reflects a decline in numbers compared to previous years. The STEAM Center followed the CDC and CSCU guidelines of social distancing and cautionary measures to ensure the safety of all our students and staff. That included limiting the number of students and staff present at a given time, reducing the number of tables and chairs, and putting up plexiglass dividers. In addition, the STEAM center discontinued some services such as drop-in math, group tutoring, study groups, and computer use. Even though the academic year 2020/2021 proved to be challenging, the STEAM Center tutors and staff continued to provide academic support services. In both fall and spring semesters, STEAM Center offered online live tutoring (via MS Teams & WebEx) and on-campus tutoring to accommodate the different needs of HCC students.The STEAM Center organized and hosted final exam review sessions in Mat137, Mat167, & Mat172 in both fall and spring semesters. In addition, in mid spring 2021 semester, STEAM Center created workshops in Mat137. All workshops and final exam review sessions were online using MS Teams. The Center advertised for these drop-in online sessions via social media and mass email to all math students and faculty. Consequently, the workshops started on March 8th, and resulted in 55 sessions. Final review sessions began April 24th, and 43 sessions were recorded. Since these activities proved to be successful and helpful to our students, the STEAM Center is considering recreating similar workshops and review sessions and adding tutoring groups in different subject areas in fall 2021 semester.

Usage

Faculty utilization has been minimal during the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and related closures and limitations.

Over the past year, a total of 921 tutoring sessions were conducted, serving 230 unique students.

In the fall semester of 2020, online live tutoring and on-campus tutoring was offered in all STEAM subject areas. 48 unique visitors utilized the online live tutoring service, accounting to a total of 213 tutoring sessions. On-campus tutoring accommodated 57 unique visitors where 200 tutoring sessions were recorded.

In the spring semester of 2021, STEAM Center continued to offer both online live tutoring alongside on-campus tutoring. Online live tutoring was employed by 109 unique students, who received 379 tutoring sessions. Whereas on-campus tutoring was offered with limited availability and only in math. First, because of COVID restrictions, on-campus tutoring started two weeks late in the semester. Second, there was a shortage of tutors who were willing to work on campus because of the pandemic. As a result, only 15 unique students visited the center, and 129 tutoring sessions were logged.

Online Tutoring provided the greatest benefit to students this past year. Due to the closure and limited access to campus, online tutoring allowed students to meet live with a tutor and conduct a session. Not only did this provide beneficial in keeping the community safe, students were able to receive tutoring without having to worry about childcare or transportation to campus.

Workshops and review sessions for math courses provided students a convenient way to drop in and get answers to questions. Group sessions like this are also beneficial in that students can both ask their own questions as well as hear the answers to other students’ questions and assist each other.

Hours of Operation

The center is open along with the overall ASC hours of 9:00am-7:00pm during the academic year, 5:00pm during the summer. Staffing varies based on tutor availability. On-campus tutoring in the center has been available for the entire academic year along with online options.

Aliss Obeid is a Tutoring Coordinator working 17 hours per week, contracted under HCC. Aliss conducts outreach and some training for the whole ASC and coordinates hiring, scheduling, training, programs, reporting and data for the STEAM center. Currently Aliss’ hours are: Monday 11:00a-4:00p; Tuesday 11:00a-3:30p, Wednesday 11:00a-4:00p; Thursday 11:00a-3:30p

Equipment Availability

• Drawing Tablets – 15 Intuos Drawing tablets for online tutoring; purchased this year; heavy usage by math and science faculty and tutors for online tutoring and programming
• Model case – A case containing anatomical models was completed this year; minimal usage expected to increase with return to campus in fall
• Laptops – 4 Dell Precision 3550 15” laptop computers; purchased this year; not yet deployed for usage, awaiting setup from IT