Meet with QUSA – Quest University Students' Association

Schedule a Meeting with QUSA Board Members

The Learning Guide Program

The Learning Guides are a group of Quest students trained to work with other students to guide their academic learning. Peer-to-peer learning is a great way to foster an academic community that we strive for at Quest by allowing students to get academic advice and assistance from people like them. In sharing a similar experience at Quest, Learning Guides offer a student perspective on academic work and life. We offer assistance in all disciplines and can help students with essays, math/science work, keystones, and any other academic projects. We can also assist with more general academic skills such as brainstorming, dissecting assignment descriptions, creating a plan to tackle an assignment, understanding feedback from tutors, reading comprehension, mathematical/scientific thinking, and other organizational skills.

Please note that while we promise to help with your learning, our services do not include proof-reading or providing answers to homework questions. Instead, we are here as a part of your academic journey to guide your learning so you can improve your thinking through dialogue with peers. Furthermore, this program is new as of late October, 2020. As such, the system we have designed may experience some problems and will evolve over time. Nevertheless, we look forward to working with you and working through the challenges that we come across together.

How We Operate?

We have a group of six Learning Guides who specialize in certain disciplines. Please see their bios and their related subject fields below to get a sense of who might assist you best with your academic needs. We hold hours Sunday through Thursday with times both in the morning and evening. Generally, morning times should be reserved for international students calling in from different time zones; evening times are intended for students calling from the time zones nearest to Squamish.

If you would like to meet with a Learning Guide, please sign-up in advance for a 30-minute slot on Calendly, or for two 30 minute slots if you need more help. There are only two slots a day— except on Monday where there are four—so please ensure you show up to your meeting, or cancel in advance if you can no longer make it by referring to the cancellation link in your confirmation email. If you are signing up as a group (with the intention of talking about a shared project or working on the same problem), please select “Add Guests” below the other Calendly details, and add the emails of all attendees. Finally, please send any documents that you want your Learning Guide to look over to their personal Quest emails, which can be found on the Calendly sign-up.

Meetings will be conducted over Zoom. There will be no "drop-in" option; calls will only be for those that signed up for a time slot. You can find more details regarding Zoom once signing up for a slot on Calendly.

Starting January 2021, we will be providing more support to certain foundation courses and we will begin hosting two workshops per block that focus on academic skills building. Examples of workshop topics include: how to use Quest's rhetoric lexicon, Zotero, Portal, or Microsoft Excel.

How to Prepare for your Session

Because a 30 minute meeting is very short, and will include the Learning Guide handling technical challenges, quickly familiarizing themselves with the content of an essay or project, and helping the student with their work, we ask that all students come prepared. This means two things: first, when signing up for a meeting, include a specific description of what you hope to discuss with the Learning Guide (eg. I am writing my essay for Culture: Cities, Makers of Modernity and want help finding sources, and creating a thesis); second, on joining the zoom call, please be ready to share the document(s) required for the Learning Guide to quickly understand how to best address your questions. In other words, prepare to participate and learn!

The Learning Guides

Emi Kingan

Social Science/Physical Science/Humanities

Hey there, I’m Emi! I am a fourth year student excited to help out as a virtual Learning Guide this year. I can look through your papers, brainstorm essay and report ideas, as well as assist with some quantitative work. My interests centre on cities, where my Keystone focuses on the economic, political, and military history (and future) of a specific pier in Hong Kong, which is also my hometown. I look forward to meeting and supporting you this year on this online format!

Emma Hirsch

Social Sciences/Humanities

Hi! I’m Emma and I‘m a third year student from Portland, Oregon. My Question is "How do we respond to our emotions?" I approach this question from a social anthropology, psychology, and creative writing lens. More rhetoric related, I love playing Bananagrams, thesis statements, and the Oxford comma. I also have lots of experience supporting students manage academic stress and anxiety, as well as organization. I can’t wait to talk about writing and supporting my fellow students with their work, especially with these challenging remote learning environments.

Laura Schmidt-Schweda

Math/Life Science/Physical Science

Hi! My name is Laura, and I'm a fourth year from Denman Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island. My focus at Quest is in the physical sciences, and my question is “How is science effective?”. Thus, I mostly take courses in the areas of chemistry, physics, and math, as well as in science communication and history. In my free time I like to explore the outdoors, and play ultimate frisbee. I’m excited to work with you as a learning guide!

Ngonidzashe Mandiveyi

Math/Physical Sciences

Hello! I go by Ngonidzashe (Harare, Zimbabwe), but Ngoni is fine. I am a third-year student here at Quest exploring the question, "How do we bring technology to underprivileged communities?" My interest change over time; currently, I'm exploring data science and designing circuits. Generally, I'm a math, physics, and computer science guy. I'm excited to work with you.

Zach DeWitt

Social Science/Physical Science/Humanities

Hi friends! I’m a fourth year student here at Quest. My academic interested generally lie in philosophy, literature and educational theory, which has manifested recently in my writing about how we can speak -- and maybe even learn -- from ghosts. I also love watching films. I'm excited to help out where I can with papers and various other academic projects!

Bea Chemtov

Math/Life Science/Social Science/Physical Science/Humanities

Hello! I’m a fourth year, with a question about using stories to teach math. I’m originally from Montreal, but have no idea where I’m going after this year. I have a deep love of children’s picture books, know the importance of playing, and am try very hard to be artistic. I miss in-person Quest, and am excited to be able to connect with others this way! Please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Resources

Here are some video workshops created by your Learning Guides. Press on the images below to watch these videos.

Feel free to download this excel document to follow along with the workshop.

Excel Document

Contact Information

If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback, please email learning.guides@questu.ca. The Learning Guide checking this email will do their best to get back to you. If you would like to talk to the QUSA Academic Director, please email samuel.hollon@questu.ca

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Quest University Students’ Association (QUSA) for funding and supporting the Learning Guides Program. We would also like to specifically thank Sam Hollon, the QUSA Academic Director, as well as Surya Sundar, the QUSA Communications Officer, for supporting the program and designing this webpage.