September 3, 2025 • 16 mins
Vicki Dominick from Learning Services joins your host, Dr. Rachel Yoho, to discuss the resources and opportunities available through the efforts of the Learning Services office.
Resources: Learning Services at George Mason University: https://learningservices.gmu.edu Learning Services workshop announcements: https://learningservices.gmu.edu/workshops/ Tutoring resources: https://learningservices.gmu.edu/tutoring-resources2/
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Episode Transcript
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Rachel (00:08):
Hello and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching
podcast.
I'm your host Rachel Yoho, andI'm very excited in this episode
to be joined by Vicki Dominic,who is the Associate Director
for Learning Services here atGeorge Mason University.
So in this episode we're goingto be talking about all of the
interesting resources, the cooltopics, and all the things that
(00:31):
the Office of Learning Servicesdoes.
So basically to get us started,could you tell us a little bit
about learning services and someof your work, Vicki?
Vicki (00:40):
Yes, hi.
Thank you so much for having me,Rachel.
I really appreciate theinvitation.
So Learning Services is here tohelp students achieve whatever
their academic goals are and weprovide some support to students
around their metacognition andself-regulation, which is just a
fancy way of saying we helpstudents with their study
strategies and their timemanagement.
Rachel (01:03):
Yeah, that's great.
I mean, that's, that's obviouslyvery timely always, but
especially now, especially aswe're coming out of, you know,
changes to education postpandemic if you will.
So when faculty are thinkingabout this, so whether our
listeners are Mason faculty orif they are elsewhere, for Mason
faculty, what might you tellthem about what they could know,
(01:25):
what they should know aboutlearning services, or for those
who might be looking forsomething similar on their own
campus, what might they want toknow or that they might not
already?
Vicki (01:36):
So we provide several services to students.
We provide individual academiccoaching where we help students
develop study plans and teachthem study strategies.
We offer academic successworkshops on a variety of topics
related to study strategies andself-regulation.
We also maintain a list oftutoring resources for students.
(01:57):
Since we don't have a centraltutoring center, we have taken
on that responsibility to puteverything in one place on our
website.
We offer KNACK tutoring out ofour office.
And we have several partnershipsand collaborations that we do
with different colleges andacademic departments across the
university.
Rachel (02:17):
Great.
And can you tell us about whatKNACK is for those who might not
be familiar with that?
Vicki (02:23):
So KNACK is a tutor matching platform and we have
contracted with them.
So they recruit, hire, and trainmason students to provide
tutoring just to other Masonstudents.
And so student wants to have totutoring, and it's a class that
we cover.
They submit a request throughthe KNACK platform.
(02:44):
Then any tutors who areavailable will respond through
the platform and they make allthe arrangements on KNACK, so
they don't have to exchange anypersonal information, email or
phone number.
If they wanna have a tutoringsession that's virtual, they
have a virtual classroom.
If they wanna have a session oncampus or in person, it would
have to happen on campus.
(03:04):
So all that's arranged throughthe KNACK platform.
It was launched in August of2024 and has been very
successful.
This is the end of our firstyear.
Rachel (03:16):
Yeah, that's great.
And so if we're thinking aboutfaculty, especially about some
of the resources that you werejust talking about, maybe to
follow up on that, you know, ifI'm a faculty member who's
teaching, one of the things thatI certainly recommend to faculty
is linking some of the, youknow, short videos, the
resources into their course.
But what if they have a studentwho might be in additional need
(03:39):
of assistance?
Could they maybe suggest thatthey visit learning services?
Or how might you go abouttelling a faculty member what
they might consider there?
Vicki (03:50):
So faculty are encouraged to refer students to our office,
and that can be done formallythrough Patriot Connect.
There is a referral referoption.
More informally by simplysending an email to me or to the
learning services to email.
Either way, it works for us.
We'll try to reach out to thestudent and get them connected
(04:13):
and help them make anappointment so they can come in
for academic coaching.
Rachel (04:18):
Yeah.
That's great.
Yeah.
Great ways to connect studentswith resources.
So can you tell us a little bitabout some of the challenges
that we have at Mason that, youknow, obviously many other
institutions share and some ofthe ways that you and others,
you know, other colleagues thatyou're working with on some of
these challenges?
Vicki (04:37):
So, one of the things that we've noticed is, you know,
we don't have a central advisingmodel.
Every college or department doestheir advising a little bit
differently.
So that's been a bit of achallenge.
It's also a challenge, it's ahuge challenge that we don't
have a centralized tutoringcenter.
And our tutors go by differentnames.
So we have some that are calledpeer mentors and some that are
(05:00):
called coaches and some that arecalled consultants.
So that is why we started thewebpage with all the tutoring
resources.
But more recently I've beeninvolved in the learning
supports task force that wasimplemented last spring.
So spring 2024, where we werelooking at what are all of the
learning supports that areavailable on campus for
(05:22):
students, and what can we do tobe more efficient and effective
in supporting our students.
And this spring, we're nowworking on the implementation
committee.
So this learning supports taskforce was sponsored by Keith
Renshaw and Sally Laurenson.
And so we've been looking atways we can coordinate between
our centers a little bit better.
(05:43):
How can we have some consistenttraining to support our
students, and just make thingsmore efficient, make it easier
for them to find the supportthat they need, help reduce the
stigma of looking for help andassistance?
And making things more efficientand more cost effective for the
university overall.
Rachel (06:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and centralizing thingscertainly helps our students
quite a bit as well.
Or even like you said earlier,you know, having all the
resources listed in one place,but, you know, with so many
different names, especially.
That's great.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout what you mentioned
earlier.
You know, we were talking aboutskills, whether we're calling
them metacognition or if we'regonna call them study skills,
(06:26):
whatever you prefer whatever ourlisteners are most comfortable
with, what are some of the broadskills that your office is
helping with and morespecifically, how are you
helping them with that?
What can faculty know and learnand be able to connect with from
these resources also?
Vicki (06:44):
So some of the things that we help with in terms of
study strategies or study skillsare things like reading and note
taking, memory strategies, examstrategies.
That is all offered throughone-on-one academic coaching
which is then customized to thestudent's needs.
And we'll work very closely withthe student on like, all right,
(07:06):
let's see your course materials.
Let's get your syllabus, show meyour textbook, show me your
notes.
I do a lot of think aloud whereI'll demonstrate to students how
to approach reading with theirtextbook or ways that they can
more effectively take notes.
Or we'll spend time during thesession creating flashcards to
(07:26):
get them ready for a test.
So those are things that we doin coaching.
We have full academic successworkshops on each of those
topics that I just mentioned.
Most of them are virtual.
We do have either in person andwe spend some time in the
workshop and we try to have somehands on time.
The other half of that is theself-regulation piece.
So that's things like timemanagement.
(07:49):
Managing your focus andconcentration, overcoming
procrastination, which is by farour most popular workshop in the
center in in Learning Services.
Rachel (08:00):
Yeah, that makes sense..
Vicki (08:01):
Um,
Rachel (08:02):
Totally fair.
Vicki (08:04):
motivation, goal setting.
So again, we can cover all ofthose things in one-on-one
coaching, but we also haveworkshops on all of those.
And I forgot to mention.
Professors can invite us to cometo their class and present a
custom workshop to theirstudents, whether it's a study
strategy that I've mentioned orwhen some of these
(08:25):
self-regulation things we'rehappy to come and visit their
class if they would like toinvite us.
Rachel (08:30):
Yeah, that's great.
So if I'm a faculty member, youknow.
Listening and perhaps I don'thave a whole class session that
I have, you know, time in myschedule for that.
Certainly there are some videoson your website.
I've recommended those in one ofthe workshops that I do with
faculty.
But what else might I consider?
You know, are there other waysthat I can think about, you
(08:53):
know, obviously, certainlyindividual students I could
refer, but maybe would I belooking at integrating some of
the videos in different modules?
Or how might you recommend that?
I actually think aboutstrategically connecting
students with some of theexisting resources.
Vicki (09:10):
Yeah.
And in addition to the videosthat we have on our website, we
also have our own YouTubechannel.
And some, they range in length,but some of them are very short.
Literally they're YouTubeshorts.
And then there's there's like a,a longer like 20 minute video on
concentration.
So faculty are welcome toutilize any of our videos and
integrate it into their course.
(09:31):
It might be a short module thatthey have students participate
in.
I'm happy to consult if there'ssomething custom somebody wanted
to have, as long as it's notelaborate and fancy.
I would be happy to consult andput something together for
faculty.
But yeah, we just wanna supportfaculty in supporting the
students in any way that we'reable to within our abilities.
Rachel (09:56):
Absolutely.
And certainly your office doesreally cool things.
And so one of the other thingsthat I do kind of think of when
we're talking about, forinstance, reading or, you know,
not everything's the same acrossevery discipline.
So one of the things that I hearin the back of my head is, you
know, certain disciplines thatare like, well that might work
for everyone, but not for me,not for my area.
(10:16):
And so I was wondering, youknow, what does that look like?
Certainly when you haveone-on-one consultations that
would be discipline specific orcourse specific, you know,
student specific if you will.
But when we're thinking about,you know, some of the videos,
some of the other resources, youknow, obviously your office
isn't making individual thingsfor every single discipline or
something, but can you tell mewhat your response might be to
(10:37):
that?
But, well, but that's not whatreading's like in my area, type
of comment?
Vicki (10:43):
So ideally one-on-one coaching is best to address some
of those differences becauseeven within a same course, you
can have vastly different, youknow, reading secondary sources
or primary sources, translatedsources, research, you know,
reading and research.
So one-on-one coaching makereally helps us to address
(11:06):
specific kind of reading or thespecific issue the student is
having.
But generally when we're tryingto do these things, we give a
variety.
So we have a strategy that'sabout reading textbooks.
We have a different strategythat we talk about when you're
reading poetry or literature orphilosophy.
We do directly talk about how toread, you know, research
(11:27):
articles.
That's all in that collegereading strategies session.
And we have a series ofworkshops that are for grad
students as well.
And there's one on graduatereading strategies where we talk
about.
How do you deal with the pace ofreading?
How do you skim effectively?
We always tell students to skim,but nobody ever explains how to
do that.
We, we actually can do that inour train, in our workshops to
(11:50):
explain how, here's how youskim.
Rachel (11:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so that's great.
So we're not just talking aboutundergraduate students here
either, and how reading evenvaries across, you know,
different types of graduatecourses, different disciplines.
'Cause that often happens ingraduate courses of, you know.
How do I actually read aresearch paper?
You know, when studentsencounter a research paper for
the first time and, you know,reading from the very first word
(12:14):
to the very last word may not betheir best strategy.
That's great.
So I think this is a great waywhen we're looking at different
resources available for faculty.
So some of the things that we'llinclude in the show notes,
certainly, we'll link to thelearning services website and
all that, but also the links tosome of the videos that we were
mentioning, and some of thecontact points as well.
(12:35):
But as we maybe start to wrap upour conversation a little bit, I
think where I wanna take this isreally looking at our keystone
concept being that connectionwith resources.
Because here often we have a lotof concerns for faculty.
You know, not all of ourstudents are coming in with the
same skills, the samebackground, the same academic
(12:57):
experiences.
And I think learning servicescan be a great resource to help
different students who might beneeding some assistance in some
of these different areas, andespecially when we're thinking
about faculty, they may bedisciplinary experts we may be
disciplinary experts but we'renot always skilled in or have
(13:17):
the time to equip to whateveryou wanna call it, to help with
the learning strategy side.
And I think, you know, reallylooking at this, the excellent
resources that your officeprovides, Vicki is really
helping to, to bridge that gap alittle bit.
But to do that, I think we'relooking at making sure people
are aware of the office and theservices that can be provided to
students.
(13:38):
So I really appreciate that.
Vicki (13:40):
Yes, I agree with you and often I'm working with students
in other disciplines and it'salways surprising how it's like,
well, how can you help me withfinance?
Or how can you help me withhistory?
Or How can you help me withengineering?
And I've worked with students inall of those backgrounds because
I'm teaching them how to learnand that cuts across the content
(14:03):
areas.
And sometimes not being acontent expert is an advantage
'cause I can ask questions andguide the student on good
problem solving, like what do Ido when I don't know how to do
something?
And I can role model that.
And I say I, but I have a wholestaff of learning specialists
and, and peer academic coaches.
(14:23):
But for all of us to be able tomodel help seeking and, you
know, problem solving, I thinkis really impactful for students
to see.
It's okay to ask for help.
It's okay not to know how to dosomething.
I think that's important for allof our students at Mason to
know.
Rachel (14:40):
Absolutely.
And that's really one of thehardest barriers that, you know,
we've talked about, I think inother episodes of like, I don't
know, being really powerful, buthelp seeking, like, can you help
me with this?
Is such a hurdle, but can be areally valuable, really
beneficial thing.
And that goes for both studentsand faculty.
You know, Hey, can you help meconnect this student with
(15:01):
resources?
Hey, can I, you know, link someresources into my course to help
the students with this specifictopic?
All of those help seeking andsupport giving things are so
important.
I think that really wellreflects our keystone concept
today.
So with that, Vicki, anythingelse you'd like to share?
Anything else that you thinklisteners might benefit from?
Vicki (15:20):
I did wanna share that something that people may not
think of is that if you've got astudent with an incomplete, we
are able to provide themacademic coaching even if they
are not enrolled in classes.
We're happy to see students forthat.
We also have an academicrecovery program that we run,
and folks wanna learn more aboutthat, they are welcome to reach
out to me and I'm happy to sharethat information.
Rachel (15:44):
All right.
Well, that sounds great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Thank you for telling us aboutthe powerhouse office that is
learning services and all ofyour impactful work with
students.
So thank you.
Vicki (15:57):
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure to talkabout our office.
Rachel (16:01):
All right, well, please catch our next episode.
We post every two weeks and welook forward to bringing more
information about teaching andthe keystone concepts in
teaching to you soon.
Hello and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in Teaching
podcast.
I'm your host Rachel Yoho, andI'm very excited in this episode
to be joined by Vicki Dominic,who is the Associate Director
for Learning Services here atGeorge Mason University.
So in this episode we're goingto be talking about all of the
interesting resources, the cooltopics, and all the things that
(00:31):
the Office of Learning Servicesdoes.
So basically to get us started,could you tell us a little bit
about learning services and someof your work, Vicki?
Vicki (00:40):
Yes, hi.
Thank you so much for having me,Rachel.
I really appreciate theinvitation.
So Learning Services is here tohelp students achieve whatever
their academic goals are and weprovide some support to students
around their metacognition andself-regulation, which is just a
fancy way of saying we helpstudents with their study
strategies and their timemanagement.
Rachel (01:03):
Yeah, that's great.
I mean, that's, that's obviouslyvery timely always, but
especially now, especially aswe're coming out of, you know,
changes to education postpandemic if you will.
So when faculty are thinkingabout this, so whether our
listeners are Mason faculty orif they are elsewhere, for Mason
faculty, what might you tellthem about what they could know,
(01:25):
what they should know aboutlearning services, or for those
who might be looking forsomething similar on their own
campus, what might they want toknow or that they might not
already?
Vicki (01:36):
So we provide several services to students.
We provide individual academiccoaching where we help students
develop study plans and teachthem study strategies.
We offer academic successworkshops on a variety of topics
related to study strategies andself-regulation.
We also maintain a list oftutoring resources for students.
(01:57):
Since we don't have a centraltutoring center, we have taken
on that responsibility to puteverything in one place on our
website.
We offer KNACK tutoring out ofour office.
And we have several partnershipsand collaborations that we do
with different colleges andacademic departments across the
university.
Rachel (02:17):
Great.
And can you tell us about whatKNACK is for those who might not
be familiar with that?
Vicki (02:23):
So KNACK is a tutor matching platform and we have
contracted with them.
So they recruit, hire, and trainmason students to provide
tutoring just to other Masonstudents.
And so student wants to have totutoring, and it's a class that
we cover.
They submit a request throughthe KNACK platform.
(02:44):
Then any tutors who areavailable will respond through
the platform and they make allthe arrangements on KNACK, so
they don't have to exchange anypersonal information, email or
phone number.
If they wanna have a tutoringsession that's virtual, they
have a virtual classroom.
If they wanna have a session oncampus or in person, it would
have to happen on campus.
(03:04):
So all that's arranged throughthe KNACK platform.
It was launched in August of2024 and has been very
successful.
This is the end of our firstyear.
Rachel (03:16):
Yeah, that's great.
And so if we're thinking aboutfaculty, especially about some
of the resources that you werejust talking about, maybe to
follow up on that, you know, ifI'm a faculty member who's
teaching, one of the things thatI certainly recommend to faculty
is linking some of the, youknow, short videos, the
resources into their course.
But what if they have a studentwho might be in additional need
(03:39):
of assistance?
Could they maybe suggest thatthey visit learning services?
Or how might you go abouttelling a faculty member what
they might consider there?
Vicki (03:50):
So faculty are encouraged to refer students to our office,
and that can be done formallythrough Patriot Connect.
There is a referral referoption.
More informally by simplysending an email to me or to the
learning services to email.
Either way, it works for us.
We'll try to reach out to thestudent and get them connected
(04:13):
and help them make anappointment so they can come in
for academic coaching.
Rachel (04:18):
Yeah.
That's great.
Yeah.
Great ways to connect studentswith resources.
So can you tell us a little bitabout some of the challenges
that we have at Mason that, youknow, obviously many other
institutions share and some ofthe ways that you and others,
you know, other colleagues thatyou're working with on some of
these challenges?
Vicki (04:37):
So, one of the things that we've noticed is, you know,
we don't have a central advisingmodel.
Every college or department doestheir advising a little bit
differently.
So that's been a bit of achallenge.
It's also a challenge, it's ahuge challenge that we don't
have a centralized tutoringcenter.
And our tutors go by differentnames.
So we have some that are calledpeer mentors and some that are
(05:00):
called coaches and some that arecalled consultants.
So that is why we started thewebpage with all the tutoring
resources.
But more recently I've beeninvolved in the learning
supports task force that wasimplemented last spring.
So spring 2024, where we werelooking at what are all of the
learning supports that areavailable on campus for
(05:22):
students, and what can we do tobe more efficient and effective
in supporting our students.
And this spring, we're nowworking on the implementation
committee.
So this learning supports taskforce was sponsored by Keith
Renshaw and Sally Laurenson.
And so we've been looking atways we can coordinate between
our centers a little bit better.
(05:43):
How can we have some consistenttraining to support our
students, and just make thingsmore efficient, make it easier
for them to find the supportthat they need, help reduce the
stigma of looking for help andassistance?
And making things more efficientand more cost effective for the
university overall.
Rachel (06:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and centralizing thingscertainly helps our students
quite a bit as well.
Or even like you said earlier,you know, having all the
resources listed in one place,but, you know, with so many
different names, especially.
That's great.
So let's talk a little bit moreabout what you mentioned
earlier.
You know, we were talking aboutskills, whether we're calling
them metacognition or if we'regonna call them study skills,
(06:26):
whatever you prefer whatever ourlisteners are most comfortable
with, what are some of the broadskills that your office is
helping with and morespecifically, how are you
helping them with that?
What can faculty know and learnand be able to connect with from
these resources also?
Vicki (06:44):
So some of the things that we help with in terms of
study strategies or study skillsare things like reading and note
taking, memory strategies, examstrategies.
That is all offered throughone-on-one academic coaching
which is then customized to thestudent's needs.
And we'll work very closely withthe student on like, all right,
(07:06):
let's see your course materials.
Let's get your syllabus, show meyour textbook, show me your
notes.
I do a lot of think aloud whereI'll demonstrate to students how
to approach reading with theirtextbook or ways that they can
more effectively take notes.
Or we'll spend time during thesession creating flashcards to
(07:26):
get them ready for a test.
So those are things that we doin coaching.
We have full academic successworkshops on each of those
topics that I just mentioned.
Most of them are virtual.
We do have either in person andwe spend some time in the
workshop and we try to have somehands on time.
The other half of that is theself-regulation piece.
So that's things like timemanagement.
(07:49):
Managing your focus andconcentration, overcoming
procrastination, which is by farour most popular workshop in the
center in in Learning Services.
Rachel (08:00):
Yeah, that makes sense..
Vicki (08:01):
Um,
Rachel (08:02):
Totally fair.
Vicki (08:04):
motivation, goal setting.
So again, we can cover all ofthose things in one-on-one
coaching, but we also haveworkshops on all of those.
And I forgot to mention.
Professors can invite us to cometo their class and present a
custom workshop to theirstudents, whether it's a study
strategy that I've mentioned orwhen some of these
(08:25):
self-regulation things we'rehappy to come and visit their
class if they would like toinvite us.
Rachel (08:30):
Yeah, that's great.
So if I'm a faculty member, youknow.
Listening and perhaps I don'thave a whole class session that
I have, you know, time in myschedule for that.
Certainly there are some videoson your website.
I've recommended those in one ofthe workshops that I do with
faculty.
But what else might I consider?
You know, are there other waysthat I can think about, you
(08:53):
know, obviously, certainlyindividual students I could
refer, but maybe would I belooking at integrating some of
the videos in different modules?
Or how might you recommend that?
I actually think aboutstrategically connecting
students with some of theexisting resources.
Vicki (09:10):
Yeah.
And in addition to the videosthat we have on our website, we
also have our own YouTubechannel.
And some, they range in length,but some of them are very short.
Literally they're YouTubeshorts.
And then there's there's like a,a longer like 20 minute video on
concentration.
So faculty are welcome toutilize any of our videos and
integrate it into their course.
(09:31):
It might be a short module thatthey have students participate
in.
I'm happy to consult if there'ssomething custom somebody wanted
to have, as long as it's notelaborate and fancy.
I would be happy to consult andput something together for
faculty.
But yeah, we just wanna supportfaculty in supporting the
students in any way that we'reable to within our abilities.
Rachel (09:56):
Absolutely.
And certainly your office doesreally cool things.
And so one of the other thingsthat I do kind of think of when
we're talking about, forinstance, reading or, you know,
not everything's the same acrossevery discipline.
So one of the things that I hearin the back of my head is, you
know, certain disciplines thatare like, well that might work
for everyone, but not for me,not for my area.
(10:16):
And so I was wondering, youknow, what does that look like?
Certainly when you haveone-on-one consultations that
would be discipline specific orcourse specific, you know,
student specific if you will.
But when we're thinking about,you know, some of the videos,
some of the other resources, youknow, obviously your office
isn't making individual thingsfor every single discipline or
something, but can you tell mewhat your response might be to
(10:37):
that?
But, well, but that's not whatreading's like in my area, type
of comment?
Vicki (10:43):
So ideally one-on-one coaching is best to address some
of those differences becauseeven within a same course, you
can have vastly different, youknow, reading secondary sources
or primary sources, translatedsources, research, you know,
reading and research.
So one-on-one coaching makereally helps us to address
(11:06):
specific kind of reading or thespecific issue the student is
having.
But generally when we're tryingto do these things, we give a
variety.
So we have a strategy that'sabout reading textbooks.
We have a different strategythat we talk about when you're
reading poetry or literature orphilosophy.
We do directly talk about how toread, you know, research
(11:27):
articles.
That's all in that collegereading strategies session.
And we have a series ofworkshops that are for grad
students as well.
And there's one on graduatereading strategies where we talk
about.
How do you deal with the pace ofreading?
How do you skim effectively?
We always tell students to skim,but nobody ever explains how to
do that.
We, we actually can do that inour train, in our workshops to
(11:50):
explain how, here's how youskim.
Rachel (11:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so that's great.
So we're not just talking aboutundergraduate students here
either, and how reading evenvaries across, you know,
different types of graduatecourses, different disciplines.
'Cause that often happens ingraduate courses of, you know.
How do I actually read aresearch paper?
You know, when studentsencounter a research paper for
the first time and, you know,reading from the very first word
(12:14):
to the very last word may not betheir best strategy.
That's great.
So I think this is a great waywhen we're looking at different
resources available for faculty.
So some of the things that we'llinclude in the show notes,
certainly, we'll link to thelearning services website and
all that, but also the links tosome of the videos that we were
mentioning, and some of thecontact points as well.
(12:35):
But as we maybe start to wrap upour conversation a little bit, I
think where I wanna take this isreally looking at our keystone
concept being that connectionwith resources.
Because here often we have a lotof concerns for faculty.
You know, not all of ourstudents are coming in with the
same skills, the samebackground, the same academic
(12:57):
experiences.
And I think learning servicescan be a great resource to help
different students who might beneeding some assistance in some
of these different areas, andespecially when we're thinking
about faculty, they may bedisciplinary experts we may be
disciplinary experts but we'renot always skilled in or have
(13:17):
the time to equip to whateveryou wanna call it, to help with
the learning strategy side.
And I think, you know, reallylooking at this, the excellent
resources that your officeprovides, Vicki is really
helping to, to bridge that gap alittle bit.
But to do that, I think we'relooking at making sure people
are aware of the office and theservices that can be provided to
students.
(13:38):
So I really appreciate that.
Vicki (13:40):
Yes, I agree with you and often I'm working with students
in other disciplines and it'salways surprising how it's like,
well, how can you help me withfinance?
Or how can you help me withhistory?
Or How can you help me withengineering?
And I've worked with students inall of those backgrounds because
I'm teaching them how to learnand that cuts across the content
(14:03):
areas.
And sometimes not being acontent expert is an advantage
'cause I can ask questions andguide the student on good
problem solving, like what do Ido when I don't know how to do
something?
And I can role model that.
And I say I, but I have a wholestaff of learning specialists
and, and peer academic coaches.
(14:23):
But for all of us to be able tomodel help seeking and, you
know, problem solving, I thinkis really impactful for students
to see.
It's okay to ask for help.
It's okay not to know how to dosomething.
I think that's important for allof our students at Mason to
know.
Rachel (14:40):
Absolutely.
And that's really one of thehardest barriers that, you know,
we've talked about, I think inother episodes of like, I don't
know, being really powerful, buthelp seeking, like, can you help
me with this?
Is such a hurdle, but can be areally valuable, really
beneficial thing.
And that goes for both studentsand faculty.
You know, Hey, can you help meconnect this student with
(15:01):
resources?
Hey, can I, you know, link someresources into my course to help
the students with this specifictopic?
All of those help seeking andsupport giving things are so
important.
I think that really wellreflects our keystone concept
today.
So with that, Vicki, anythingelse you'd like to share?
Anything else that you thinklisteners might benefit from?
Vicki (15:20):
I did wanna share that something that people may not
think of is that if you've got astudent with an incomplete, we
are able to provide themacademic coaching even if they
are not enrolled in classes.
We're happy to see students forthat.
We also have an academicrecovery program that we run,
and folks wanna learn more aboutthat, they are welcome to reach
out to me and I'm happy to sharethat information.
Rachel (15:44):
All right.
Well, that sounds great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Thank you for telling us aboutthe powerhouse office that is
learning services and all ofyour impactful work with
students.
So thank you.
Vicki (15:57):
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure to talkabout our office.
Rachel (16:01):
All right, well, please catch our next episode.
We post every two weeks and welook forward to bringing more
information about teaching andthe keystone concepts in
teaching to you soon.
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