FAQ Category: Tutoring Center

SFCC’s Tutoring Center provides free individual tutoring on an appointment and walk-in basis for current Santa Fe Community College students. Tutors are available for a variety of subject areas, including reading, writing, speech, mathematics, science, liberal arts, computer science, accounting, media arts, and select computer applications. Tutors can also assist students with general study skills, organization, critical thinking, research, analysis, and assignment comprehension in any area of study, including specialty trade skills, nursing, and the arts. Students can only receive tutoring for credit courses in which they are currently enrolled at SFCC for up to two pre-scheduled appointment hours per week. Students may receive tutoring for the same course for a maximum of two semesters.

Tutoring is now available online through Zoom and in-person at the Tutoring Center. Whether meeting online or in-person, it is important that you arrive at your session with your assignment and the questions you have about it. Prior to an online session, your tutor might reach out to you via email and request additional information in order to prepare for your meeting.

You can expect to guide your session through your questions and statement of needs. Your tutor will look over your assignment and any work you bring to the session. You and your tutor may not get to everything within the 50-minute session and might just focus on a single section or area that represents the whole assignment or task. Your tutor will not do your work for you, give you the answers, or edit your paper. Instead, your tutor will help you find your own answers to move forward outside of the session by asking questions, suggesting strategies, providing resources, and facilitating critical and analytical thinking through active discussion. Your tutor’s goal is to help you learn skills that make you a better student and life-long learner.

One thing to remember about tutors is that although they can help you succeed, they are not required to know the answers to all your questions. Sometimes they will send you back to your instructor for clarification.

All kinds of students use tutoring services. Many students who come to the Center are already doing well in their classes and want to do better. Instructors and tutors respect the students who come for tutoring, and some of the tutors even receive tutoring themselves, in subjects other than the ones they tutor, of course!

The Tutoring Center offers in-person tutoring on an appointment and walk-in basis. Our center is located in the West Wing lower level, next to the Atrium, in room 326LL. Our hours are Monday – Thursday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and Friday, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm.

Additionally, the Tutoring Center offers two forms of tutoring online: synchronously by appointment through SFCC Tutoring, and asynchronously through Brainfuse tutoring. Each Canvas course homepage includes a link to “Brainfuse Online Tutoring” where students can access online tutoring on a 24/7 basis. To schedule a synchronous online appointment through the Tutoring Center, click on the schedule an appointment page (found on SFCC Tutoring Center webpage) to connect to our booking page. At your appointment time, you will then meet with your tutor online through Zoom.

Tutoring appointments are limited to two hours per week per course. Additional hours may be available depending on demand. The tutors recognize the unusual challenges facing our students and are committed to helping you succeed. To get the most out of tutoring services, be flexible, schedule your appointments early, respond promptly to emails, and attend Zoom sessions on time. Remember: You can only receive tutoring for courses in which you are currently enrolled at SFCC, and you cannot receive tutoring for the same course for more than two semesters.

Tutoring is supplemental to online classroom instruction. Tutoring will not be provided to help students learn prerequisite skills if they have not completed appropriate prerequisite courses.

The tutors are students, writers, professionals and teachers; they are a varied group of folks, united by a desire to help you succeed.

If you are interested in becoming a tutor, click on the link below to send an email to the Tutoring Center Director. If you are selected, you can earn credit, honors credit, or a small wage for your service. You will receive training to prepare you for your role as a tutor, and you will build and deepen your knowledge of your subject as you tutor. For more information about tutoring, contact the Tutoring Center Coordinator, Selah Winston, at 505-428-1055 or selah.winston@sfcc.edu.

If your tutoring session was not helpful, you are having trouble getting tutoring, or you have any problems with or questions about tutoring services, contact the Tutoring Center Director, Robert Gutierrez, at 428-1365 or email him at robert.gutierrez@sfcc.edu.