The Academic Success Centre (ASC) is partnering with Career Services to provide a comprehensive, interactive workshop series on the development of employment documents and skills for students.   

The series will be a combination of presentations by the Career Services team supported by ASC workshops on complementary topics including: Job Search Strategies and Networking, LinkedIn Profile Development, Resumes and Cover letters, and Interview Strategies. By attending all workshop, students will gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed with their job search. The series complements Math, Science, and Communication’s (COMM-2172) Communication for the Workplace course.

These workshops will be designed for students in business related programs. All students are welcome to attend and adapt the information to their field. 

Register Now: To register for the workshops, click here to visit the Get Job Search Ready website. 

Access the LEARN Shell: Click here to self-enroll into the Get Job Search Ready Career Services & ASC LEARN shell.

Workshop Overview

Planning for Fall? It’s a Great Time to Incorporate Our Supports

Spring is often the time to update course content and plan for fall, and it’s also a great time to incorporate supports offered by Library and Academic Services. In this article, we highlight popular ways we can help you and your students succeed at RRC Polytech. For future reference, we encourage you to bookmark our Faculty Support page which contains links to the complete range of services and supports we offer. 

In-Class Workshops

The Academic Success Centre and Library offer online in-class workshops for student cohorts at the request of faculty. Our suite of workshops includes Academic Skills, Writing Skills, Technology Literacy Skills, Library Instruction, and Copyright.

To request an in-class workshop, please click the links below:

• Academic Skills Workshops
• Writing Workshops
• Technology Literacy Workshops
• Library Instruction Workshops
• Copyright Workshops
• Hybrid LEARNing Modules – Facilitated Sessions

Hybrid LEARNing Modules

The Academic Success Centre and Library have developed a suite of Hybrid LEARNing Modules. The purpose of these modules is to offer learning strategies and resources that faculty can share with their students to further develop foundational skills for success in their studies. The modules feature self-directed tutorials in LEARN and facilitated live sessions via Webex (or MS Teams).

To request a Hybrid LEARNing Module or book a facilitated live session, please fill out this Request Form.

Academic Success Centre

While the ASC is primarily a student service unit, our staff have found that partnerships with faculty are the best way to support students. Partnerships can take many forms, including customized and embedded academic supports in programs, in-class workshops, diagnostic assessments, and the sharing of our learning resources.

To learn more, visit the Academic Success Centre’s Supports for Faculty and Staff page.

Library Collections and Related Services

Suggest a Purchase

The primary purpose of the Library’s collections is to support learning, instruction and research at RRC Polytech. If you have suggestions for a new title or resource to add to our collection, you may fill out the Suggest a Purchase form. Our subject specialists are available to discuss subject area gaps in the collection as well as Open Educational Resources (OER) options with you.  

Guides

The Library’s Guides are curated lists of resources on specialized topics. We can help you find which guides are most relevant for your students or work with you to develop a new Guide to meet your needs. The benefits of Guides are far-reaching for both students and instructors. Below are a few success stories resulting from instructors utilizing Guides.

Guide Success Stories

• Library staff member works with instructors to create a “robust resource” for Engineering Technology students
• Oncology Nursing Guide: A Collaboration
• Nursing Instructors Discuss Benefits of Library Guides

Research and Reference Services

Also, you may be looking for information, either for your own research needs, course development, or course readings. Library staff are skilled at locating and referencing information, and it would be a pleasure to assist with that. To connect with a Library staff member, visit us in person or through our Ask Us chat during regular Library hours.

Copyright

Copyright plays an important role when instructors are building content and creating course materials. Our P7 Policy provides guidance around copying but there is also a suite of library-directed copyright services to support and assist faculty in navigating copyright.

The Library’s Copyright Officer supports faculty with the following services:

You can:

• Check your copying decisions against our policy using our self-serve Fair Dealing Tool.
• Learn more about Copyright by Visiting our Copyright Resource Page.
• Find Images that you can use for teaching and instruction in our Open Image Collections & Image Use Guide.
• Book Copyright instruction for your department or students
• Contact the Copyright Officer with questions, or to request services and support.

Connect with Us!

More information about our services and supports is available on our website. You may also connect with us through Ask Us chat, our Ask a Question form, or visit one of our service desks during regular Library hours.

Written by Ebony Novakowski, Linda Fox, and Melissa Coyle – Library and Academic Services

Students from a range of college programs were asked to share their thoughts on the tutoring and coaching supports they’ve received from the Academic Success Centre since making the move to online bookings.

Watch this short video to hear what they had to say:

The Academic Success Centre will continue to offer online tutoring and academic coaching via Webex and MS Teams this term to help students with course content, study skills, writing assignments, and English as an Additional Language support.

For more information or to book an appointment with a tutor or academic coach, visit our webpage or contact tutoring@rrc.ca.

The Library re-launched two guides early this year. In partnership with the Academic Success Center, we have enhanced and expanded these guides with new content and updated resources.

The new Academic Writing and Citation (https://library.rrc.ca/academic_writing) guide expands on the previous Getting Started with Academic Writing guide. It now incorporates original content from the ASC Writing Centre (https://library.rrc.ca/writing_students) as well as content from the Citation and the Moving from APA6 to APA7 guides (now retired).

This guide can assist you in understanding how to write your papers better, increase your fluency with APA 7 and other citation styles, and learn about plagiarism and how to avoid it.

The updated Academic Study Skills (https://library.rrc.ca/academic_skills) guide builds on our original Study Skills guide with original content from the ASC’s Academic Coaching and Study Skills pages.

Here you will find strategies for time management, reading and note-taking, study skills, and test-taking. This guide can help to increase your understanding of course material, improve your marks, and make learning a little less stressful.

Both of these guides are located in the Student Success folder of the Guides page (https://library.rrc.ca/StudentSuccess)

Each guide contains tons of helpful advice along with links to books, ebooks, videos, streaming videos, websites, self-directed tutorials and much more.

A big thank you to Nora Sobel, Nick Schroeder, and Dayna Graham for working with myself and Fatima DeMelo to update, release, and promote these fantastic resources.

For more information, please contact Rosemary Woodby or Fatima DeMelo, Reference Technicians

Students from a range of college programs were asked to share their thoughts on the tutoring and coaching supports they’ve received from the Academic Success Centre since making the move to online bookings.

Watch this short video to hear what they had to say:

The Academic Success Centre will continue to offer online tutoring and academic coaching via Webex and MS Teams this term to help students with course content, study skills, writing assignments, and English as an Additional Language support.

For more information or to book an appointment with a tutor or academic coach, visit our webpage or contact tutoring@rrc.ca.

The Academic Success Centre (Library and Academic Services) will be delivering a series of “Motivation Mondays” online workshops throughout the month of January. Starting January 10th – bright and early – we’ve scheduled four 30-minute workshops to support students during their first month of Winter term. 

Our facilitators will provide students with active learning strategies and tools to enhance their academic success and pose discussion questions to encourage self-reflection and goal setting for the term.  

If you would like to encourage your students to attend these sessions, please instruct them to pre-register using the links below:

• Join the Quest to be an Effective Learner (January 10, 8:30-9am) 
• What CAN Studying Look Like? (January 17, 8:30-9am) 
• Less Procrastination, More Focus! (January 24, 8:30-9am) 
• Tips for Managing Test Anxiety (January 31, 8:30am-9am) 

Questions? Please connect with us at tutoring@rrc.ca.  

Our new Anti-Racism Training aims to support students in acknowledging how racism has shaped their thinking and actions, enhancing their knowledge, and speaking out against racism and systemic barriers.  

Students can register for this training here. 

The online training on December 17 via Webex will consist of the following schedule and content: 

Morning session (9am-12noon) 

• Module 1 – Understanding Race and Racialization: Students will gain a foundational understanding about the connection between socio-cultural identities and the concept of race, and the effects of the process of racialization in creating privilege and different forms of racism. 
• Module 2 – Understanding Systemic Racism: Students will identify uncover different myths related to race and racism, and gain a foundation understanding about the three levels of systemic racism. 

Afternoon session (1pm-3pm) 

• Module 3 – Acknowledging Systemic Racism in Canadian History: Students will learn about the effect of Canadian narratives about racism, and the profound trauma on stories of racism in Canada related to colonialism, assimilation, segregation, and discrimination. 

• Module 4 – Identifying Systemic Racism in Canada Today: Students will enhance their understanding of the three levels of systemic racism, applied to current situations in Canada. 

Watch the recording of the launch presentation of the Anti-Racism Training for Students during Truth and Reconciliation Week. For more information or any questions, please contact Nora Sobel (Academic Success Centre) at nsobel@rrc.ca.  

Update on the naming campaign

Last week, the Academic Success Centre (ASC) invited the RRC Polytech community to help name their new tutoring space. This modernized room, located within the Library at the Notre Dame Campus, is equipped to support tutoring and staff work areas.

So far, staff and students have submitted nearly 50 creative and diverse name ideas!

How will the final name be chosen?

After the campaign closes, managers will review the list of names. Then, staff in Library and Academic Services (Academic Success Centre, Library, Assessment Services), will be given an opportunity to vote for their favourite. When the results of the vote are in, it will be finalized by our leadership team, and we will make a public announcement in early January.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to submit an idea. If yours is selected, you will have the honour of knowing this name will be referenced a million times over and will become an integral part of the ASC and its services for years to come!

To learn more and view photos of the space, visit New Space, New Name.

The Academic Success Centre (ASC) is excited to announce the opening of its newly renovated space at the Notre Dame Campus (NDC). This space has been modernized and equipped to support tutoring and staff work areas. Now that the space is ready to use, it needs a new name to reflect the incredible teaching and learning that takes place in tutoring spaces.

We want your input to come up with a name that reflects the active and collaborative learning and review that happens here. If your idea is selected, you will have the honour of knowing this name will be referenced a million times over and will become an integral part of the ASC and its services for years to come!

Learn more and suggest a name >> New Space, New Name 

You may recall a story featured in Student and Staff News this past April titled Lunch (and Language) is served: EAL Support for Jane’s Restaurant Practical Students.   The story described how a small group of Hospitality and Tourism Management students taking Restaurant Service Practical (HOSP-1019) attended a communication workshop series led by Emilie Jackson of the Academic Success Centre (LAS).  With the goal of preparing students to provide professional tableside service in Jane’s fine dining restaurant, workshop students poured over the language of menu items and role-played server scripts with classmates to get ready for their first day serving tables in the restaurant.   

Fast-forward to the start of a new fall term with a new group of first-year HTM students.   ASC’s Emilie Jackson again delivered a communication workshop series for students preparing to serve tables at Jane’s.  Throughout September students met three times weekly for three weeks completing their training series with a virtual lunch event where they served guests via Webex breakout rooms and received feedback on their tableside communication.  With the pronunciation of menu items mastered and scripts memorized, students were set to serve their first tables at Jane’s.  And a few days later, they did.  

After pressing pause on a long-standing tradition of regular lunch dates at Jane’s with colleagues, I recently found myself again enjoying one of the unique restaurant experiences in Winnipeg. I walked into western Canada’s oldest skyscraper, flashed my vaccine QR code, joined my colleagues at a table for four, and ordered the Pan seared chicken breast with du puy lentils, glazed carrots, grilled fennel, caper olive tapenade and crème fraiche.  It was wonderful to meet with colleagues outside of their video call boxes (‘I don’t remember you being so tall, Carleigh’), but the real stars of the show were the HTM students working the room.   Looking sharp and confident seating guests, tending bar and serving tables, students were three weeks into a six-week dining room practical experience, and it was fantastic to see (and hear) these students in action, an experience even sweeter than the White Chocolate Pumkin, Lemon Matcha and Dark chocolate Espresso Pot de Crème Trio we all had for dessert.  From start to finish, the students provided a warm welcome and excellent service.   They even agreed to smile through their masks for a photo.  Don’t they look great!   

Through workshops, small group tutoring, and 1:1 tutoring, the Academic Success Centre provides integrated communication support for many college programs including Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ace Project Space, Science Laboratory Technology, Pharmaceutical and Food Manufacturing, Nursing, Creative Communications, Early Childhood Education, Technology Management, International Business, Civil Engineering Technology, and more.  For faculty looking for information on ASC program integrated communication supports and for students looking for EAL tutoring, contact Kaleigh Quinn or Stephen Sawchyn at EALsupport@rrc.ca.   

To check the menu and book your lunch or dinner table at Jane’s, look no further: https://www.rrc.ca/janes/. 

Written by Stephen Sawchyn, EAL Specialist (Academic Success Centre)