For Faculty

If you are a faculty member at University Park, you may want to consider inviting undergraduates who work for Penn State Learning into your first-year seminars and other courses to talk about the resources Penn State Learning provides. We also offer writing workshops by our trained peer writing tutors; resources for writing-intensive courses; information about guided study groups; and teamwork spaces for small-group collaboration. 

Note: We believe that students learn the most from tutoring when they seek it voluntarily. Sometimes faculty may want to require students to visit Penn State Learning; while we appreciate this confidence in our services, we ask that you consider the following: 

  • If required to visit Penn State Learning for a specific assignment, many students choose to come the day before the assignment is due. This puts great stress on our resources.
  • We typically have 2-3 tutors on duty at once, and we like to guarantee 30 minutes of tutoring to each student.  
  • If students get frustrated by the wait times, they may decide not to return. 

Some alternatives:

  • Contact us ahead of time if you plan to require students to visit. We may be able to recruit additional tutors for that time.
  • Require your students to visit a tutor once or twice a semester rather than for one particular test or assignment.
  • Request that two or three tutors come to your class for a study or peer-review day. 

In closing, the staff and scholars-in-residence at Penn State Learning appreciate your support and promotion of on-campus academic assistance and tutoring opportunities for interested students. Please consider putting relevant links to our website on your undergraduate course syllabi, and please feel free to contact us with any special requests or concerns. Thank you.