快活视频

By Rebecca Kirkman on July 6, 2020

At the start of the spring 2020 term, nearly 50 Towson University students enrolled in service-learning courses were volunteering at six Baltimore City community schools.

Community schools serve as neighborhood hubs that connect families with additional support and services, including healthcare, food access and after-school programs.

Undergraduate students enrolled in 鈥淗istorical and Contemporary Perspectives: America鈥檚 Urban Schools,鈥� a Core Curriculum course taught by associate professor Jessica Shiller, were just weeks into their work with several local schools when the coronavirus forced classes to move to distance learning.

快活视频student work in community schools is supported through a priority investment from BTU鈥擯artnerships at Work for Greater Baltimore.

After three or four visits to a kindergarten class at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore鈥檚 Mondawmin neighborhood, psychology major and Honors student Grace Hehir 鈥�22 was beginning to make connections with individual students. Hehir and other 快活视频students would join classroom time, helping students read and sound out words, or would sit with students while they ate breakfast. They also helped unload deliveries of supplies for the school food pantry.

鈥淲e were so disappointed,鈥� Hehir recalls of learning they couldn鈥檛 return to the schools in person due to the coronavirus pandemic. 鈥淲e were just starting to form relationships with students and families.鈥�

But 快活视频students continued to find creative ways to engage with school partners from a distance.

After consulting with the community school coordinators about where they needed assistance, 快活视频students continued to engage by supporting instructors during live online teaching sessions and by offering virtual 鈥渙ffice hours鈥� for help with homework and other assignments. 快活视频students working with middle and high schools made videos about the college experience to share with students.

鈥淒oing an online class with 30 first graders is not the same as teaching in person,鈥� says Shiller, who teaches in the College of Education鈥檚 Department of Instructional Leadership & Professional Development. 鈥淪o our students are helping to do breakout groups and to live tutor in real time at the elementary level where kids need support with reading or phonics or math鈥攂asic stuff like adding 2 plus 3 or reading picture books to them, things that can really support their basic skills.鈥�

快活视频student Ronnell Bates stepped up to help Reginald F. Lewis High School Spanish teacher Maria Quintana during the transition to online learning. 鈥淗e has helped me immensely with setting up my Google Classroom, as well as helping me maintain the classroom,鈥� Quintana says. 鈥淢r. Bates has been very knowledgeable, professional and patient with me in mainstreaming and digitizing my material for my students.鈥�

Hehir, who enjoys music, created a short video lesson for the kindergarten class where she had been volunteering in which she teaches students how to sing the octave scale and use hand signs for each note, going on to sing 鈥淒o-Re-Mi鈥� from 鈥淭he Sound of Music.鈥�

While the spring term didn鈥檛 end how anyone envisioned, Hehir says it offered an important learning opportunity. 鈥淲e learned the importance of flexibility, resilience and being adaptive,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the end of the world, but it is the end of something. Being able to hang onto the pieces that still feel normal is really important.鈥�

Shiller says her students value helping others during an uncertain time.

鈥淭he biggest lesson is that you don鈥檛 give up when things get hard. And when there鈥檚 a major crisis, you don鈥檛 just sit back and do nothing. Our job is to lean into that, step in and figure out what we can do,鈥� she says. 鈥淓ven online there鈥檚 a lot of assistance that we can provide, and in some ways it might be better than we could have done before, because my students are able to connect individually to students in Baltimore City that they might not have before.鈥�