 |
 |
Home > About Us > News and Events |
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
SMARTHINKING™ Forges Partnerships with New Jersey State Consortia to Support Students Immediate Contact: Dr. Mark Kassop WASHINGTON, D.C. - August 9, 2001 - Beginning this fall, The New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium will offer its students around-the-clock tutoring and academic support services provided by SMARTHINKING, the nation's leading provider of online tutoring and academic assistance for college students. "New Jersey's consortia uses the Internet to offer more, better and more efficient educational services and courses. Aggregating student support services in core subjects and skills across the state makes economic and educational sense for educational consortia," says Burck Smith, CEO of SMARTHINKING. The New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium (NJVCCC) offers online courses from all of New Jersey's 19 community colleges. NJVCCC is obligated to offer its online students all of the support and services it provides on-campus students. Students in the NJVCCC take courses from anywhere from one to five schools each semester. Typical New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium students are adults with family and career responsibilities that make it difficult for them to take courses on-campus or to avail themselves of on-campus support services. Students have difficulty getting to campus to access support and need those services during non-traditional hours - late at night, early in the morning, on weekends, and on holidays. NJVCCC needed an online tutoring company that could provide not only extensive hours of support, but a comprehensive system that would allow students from different schools in the consortium to receive their support from one central virtual learning assistance center. Through the SMARTHINKING service, students may ask questions of E-structor® Certified tutors in synchronous, asynchronous, and pre-scheduled, online tutoring sessions. In addition, SMARTHINKING records and archives all interactions permitting access and sorting for future review and analysis by the student or institution. SMARTHINKING currently offers assistance in core courses including math, statistics, economics, accounting, grammar, chemistry and Spanish and a paper upload and critiquing service. According to Mark Kassop, Chair of the New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium, NJVCCC chose SMARTHINKING "based on the training of the tutors, the ability of students to set appointments to meet with a tutor of their choice, the extensive hours of available tutoring, the sophisticated math software that was developed by SMARTHINKING, and the competent, personable, and flexible staff with whom we worked as we developed a complex consortium-SMARTHINKING contract." SMARTHINKING has made it possible for the New Jersey Virtual Community College schools to offer online tutoring services to different constituencies on their individual campuses. Some institutions have chosen to offer SMARTHINKING to consortium students only, while others are offering SMARTHINKING to all of their online students, or all of their students - be they on campus or online. The NJVCCC agreement with SMARTHINKING is flexible and it enables schools to increase usage on their campus when the demand develops. About SMARTHINKING (www.SMARTHINKING.com) SMARTHINKING, the leading provider of online tutoring to colleges and high schools, provides live, online, easy-access tutoring to students. SMARTHINKING works with schools, colleges, universities, textbook publishers and other institutions to help educators offer students outstanding academic support. SMARTHINKING’s custom solutions improve faculty support and raise student performance by connecting students to qualified assistance anytime, from any Internet connection. SMARTHINKING clients include schools, colleges, libraries, education companies, individuals, and anyone seeking to increase student achievement. SMARTHINKING currently works with over 500 school clients and businesses. To learn more, please visit www.smarthinking.com or call 888.430.7429 ext 224. About New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium Distance learning through NJ's Colleges and Universities provides flexibility
and increased opportunity to meet individual and workforce needs. The
courses and programs offered by New Jersey higher education institutions
respond to the needs of a diverse population of learners requiring flexible
timeframes and convenient ways to access education. The NJVCCC institutions
offer hundreds of online courses and numerous degree programs that may
be taken completely online. For further information, please go to the
consortium's web site at: http://www.njvccc.cc.nj.us |
|
|
|
|
|
|