July 24, 2013

Graduating seniors move to preserve tutoring initiative

Story summary:  Mechanical engineering seniors Joshua Sidin and Andrew Maddox search for new talent to continue the MavSTEM Tutor Program which recruits UTA students from the science, technology, engineering and math fields to tutor younger students making it understandable and fun earlier in their education.

Originally published 5/10/13 by Johnathan Silver in the Shorthorn

Though mechanical engineering seniors Joshua Sidin and Andrew Maddox are graduating Sunday, the two have unfinished business. The two need successors to continue their tutorial program at Lamar High School in Arlington. They created the initiative, MavSTEM Tutor Program, to recruit UTA students from the science, technology, engineering and math fields to tutor younger students. The goal is to elicit the students’ interest in the fields by making it understandable and fun earlier in their education, they said. “We’re explaining the why behind everything as well as showing them the operations, and they absolutely love that,” Maddox said. “It’s almost like a totally alien concept to them – being taught the why behind the math and science they’re learning.”

It’s also a foreign concept for many of these students, who also are considered at-risk youth, to think of life beyond high school, Sidin said. So tutors sit with the students to learn more about their interests, and by addressing it, the students return more eager to learn, he added. “What makes this child interested? What gets them going?” Sidin said. “For us, it’s clearly engineering. That’s why we’re here. But it’s not engineering for everybody. So, finding out what that is and then molding a direction – they completely come up with on their own, but we guide them. They had no prior exposure to anything like that.”

Such is an experience the two hope draws other UTA students in the science, technology, engineering and math fields to want to tutor. Currently, they are looking for tutors going into the next academic year.

To read more click here.

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Community

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