This course has service, intellectual, and personal goals. Its service goal is to provide effective tutors, mentors, and role models to local public school children. Students meet for class once/week and tutor 2 hours per week, in a time slot of your choosing, usually through the East End Tutoring Program (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~eastend/). To promote your effectiveness, the course covers topics of tutoring (making tutoring interesting and creative, focusing on meta-learning strategies and study skills); mentoring (exploring multiple mentoring models and the mutual benefits of a mentoring relationship); and informed citizenship (gaining a broader understanding of the issues that urban kids face, exploring how public policies affect the disparities between urban and suburban school student performance). Tutors learn that they can be effective in helping younger students, and that it is personally rewarding to do so. Tutors also often express that it is refreshing to step outside the grind of Carnegie Mellon life and do something worthwhile in the community.
