Allergic to algebra? Tortured logic tangling your term paper?

If you need help with your homework assignments, log on to the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Online Learning Academy and you’ll find a crew of bright, inspiring university students ready to provide you with some helpful hints. The academy offers tutoring services free to Hawaii students, targeting those in kindergarten through 12th grade but also serves college students.

"The idea was to provide free academic support to students who were in areas of the state where they would not have face-to-face access to academic resources," said Francisco Hernandez, who initiated the program eight years ago in his former role as vice chancellor for students at UH. "The idea was to get students more college-ready by providing them academic support and using the latest technology and combining that with the expertise of UH-Manoa undergraduates."

The program started with math tutoring and has since expanded to included the sciences — physics, chemistry and biology — and more recently writing. Through the academy’s website, students download a virtual classroom program that connects them to UH students who have expertise in the subject and have been trained in tutoring. The program includes an online whiteboard with drawing tools and both audio and keyboard chat functions for communication.

Students seeking help go to manoa.hawaii.edu/ola. For math and science problems, they are directed to a tutor and sent to a "breakout room" — an area where they can work and communicate privately.

For problems that require visual reference, like an algebraic equation, the student and tutor draw up the problem on the virtual whiteboard, and they can manipulate numbers and symbols to demonstrate the steps to solving the problem.

Cherie Guillermo, a graduate student in public health and a math tutor for three years, demonstrated how one might solve an algebraic equation requiring a student to "solve for x." A problem involving negative numbers might best be explained by using symbols. All work is saved automatically until the session is ended, allowing students to go back over the process and improve their understanding of it.

"If the student says, ‘Can we go back to the first problem? I forgot to write it down,’ we can easily just go there and they can follow along with us," Guillermo said.

The program includes typical techie communication devices, like emoticons, so if they "get it, they put on happy faces," or a frown if they’re still confused.

Guillermo is paid about $15 an hour and can work from home, a coffee shop or wherever she has Internet access (students can do the same). She finds the work rewarding.

"One of the things I wanted was that if I could make a difference in a student’s life where I can help them build that foundation, that would be good," she said.

For assistance with writing, some planning is needed before the tutoring session, since tutors need time to read the assignment and prepare comments and suggestions.

"(Students) make an appointment with one of our tutors, they submit their paper, and that gives the tutor time to review the paper … and then they’ll meet with that tutor (online) for them to give them feedback on the writing," said program manager Davilla Gose, a former middle school teacher. Term papers, magazine or newspaper articles, or other writing assignments are welcome at the academy, she said.

And no problem is too small. Students can work with a tutor for up to an hour at a time.

"Students can come in with one question; they can come in with 20 questions," Gose said. "They can get help for five minutes, or they can get help for an hour. Usually, we try to cut it off at an hour just to make sure that we’re helping a lot of students, especially in the evening times when it gets busy."

Students who need help beyond that can stay online and work in a private work space, virtually "raising their hand" to get help on a specific issue. Guillermo said one student routinely logs on while doing his homework, raising his hand only when he has questions.

The academy held about 4,000 tutoring sessions in the last school year, but Gose feels its services are "underutilized" and that many more students could be using it. She said the academy is especially helpful because its services are available at off hours. "I know students need help, and often they need help outside of the classroom in those evening hours, and that’s when we’re available," she said.

With all that help available, students should not expect the tutor to do their homework for them. Tutors are trained to "guide the students through working through the problems, not just giving them the answers," Gose said. "We’re really hoping to help the students become more independent and help themselves."