In February of 2020, only weeks before stay-at-home orders came down, I attended a Notre Dame Honors Program event in Chicago, where I had the chance to meet a number of current Honors Program students. I was blown away not only by their intelligence, but also their thoughtfulness, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity. In the back of my mind, I had the fleeting thought that they would make great instructors.
Around the same time, we were having conversations with the South Bend Schools about working with some of their students, but since we had a small core team, we weren’t sure how we would be able to accomplish that.
Then COVID struck, and the South Bend Schools, like so many other school districts, transitioned to virtual instruction. At the same time, most Notre Dame students had their volunteer opportunities curtailed because of the pandemic. So early in the fall we reached out to Professor Chris Kolda, one of the directors of the Glynn Family Honors Program, and proposed training Honors students in the programs we use, with the goal of deploying them as virtual tutors with small groups of students in the South Bend schools.
Because local school students were working virtually, with less chance for remediation, the South Bend schools were glad to partner with us, and after identifying about a dozen 3rd graders at Marshall Traditional School who were good candidates for our program, we began working with them while simultaneously training about 20 Notre Dame student volunteers. In January, after spending more than 40 hours training, the Notre Dame volunteers began working as virtual tutors with the Marshall students.
Our first Marshall students just finished the program, and we’re so proud of the progress they’ve made. One student jumped between 1 and 3 grade levels in the reading metrics we use! We’ve learned a lot over the course of the year, but this experience has taught us that the programs we use can be successfully implemented with virtual small group instruction and well-trained volunteer instructors. We’re looking forward to deepening our partnership with the South Bend Community Schools in the coming years!
This post was written by Michael Busk.
