In response to new pressure on K-12 schools due to the pandemic, the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has partnered with Mesa Public Schools to provide educational lessons for students in small groups, such as on-demand videos and home schooling resources.
The program, Sun Devil Learning Labs: After School Huddles, serves as the mode of giving small-group lessons to students from kindergarten to sixth grade by students in the Teachers College.
Student interns help run the labs to give after school lessons to elementary and middle school students on subjects such as math, english and writing through real time video sessions.
Paul Gediman, executive director of marketing and advancement at the Teachers College, said this collaboration helps make up for the learning gaps created in the transition between in-person and virtual learning.
“Parents of school-aged children are coping with huge disruptions to their lives right now," Gediman said. “We hope that Sun Devil Learning Labs offer some support and, frankly, some relief.”
Gediman said the students from the Teachers College serve as interns for the learning labs to help tutor the children.
“Our students are taking advantage of an opportunity to grow fully in the craft of remote technologically aided teaching,” Gediman said.
Because of the transition to online and hybrid learning modalities, there have been learning gaps among students.
“This is one way to try to make up for the loss of the relationships between learners and educators that are the foundations of a good line of support,” Gediman said.
Tot Wallace, director of community education at Mesa Public Schools, said the district wanted to provide help for the ASU students — many of whom had their internships and residencies suspended due to the pandemic — and educational support for K-12 students.
“We wanted to provide a platform for the ASU interns to have experiences guiding and facilitating student learning in an informal setting,” Wallace said.
Wallace said the small group setting has allowed learners to focus and connect with their peers, something "that is often lost in a big virtual classroom."
Gediman said both ASU and Mesa Public School, the largest school district in Arizona with roughly 80,000 students, were able to adapt and get exposure to the new changes in teaching and learning because of the partnership.
“After this pandemic passes, the future of teaching will inevitably involve some degree of remote teaching and tech enabled instruction,” Gediman said.
William Butler, senior program strategist manager and clinical assistant professor at the Teachers College, said the abrupt onset of the pandemic left many teachers without the proper resources to transition to online learning.
“Knowing that this may come around eventually again in the future, having some experience in teaching online is actually a positive consequence,” Butler said.
Wallace said the pandemic and its constraints on learning modalities have helped teachers and students to be flexible.
“You have to realize that if your lesson doesn’t share correctly or if your Internet is running slow, that as a teacher, you have to be fluid,” Wallace said.
Butler said he hopes the program will expand to other school districts in the Valley in the future.
“We do know that there is a greater need out there,” Butler said.
Reach the reporter at anatar12@asu.edu or follow @AnushaNat1 on Twitter.
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