Alissa Ramczyk takes time out from her own online academic work to help four second-graders with their class work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives me a break from my schoolwork, and it\u2019s really great to be able to see the students I was working with before and help them through this pandemic,\u201d said the 51ÁÔÆæ junior.<\/p>\n
Ramczyk is one of more than 35 students from 51ÁÔÆæ who are part of an online tutoring project through the university\u2019s Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research, according to Benjamin Trager, the center\u2019s director of community-based learning. Ramczyk is an intern in the center\u2019s community leaders internship program.<\/p>\n
The 51ÁÔÆæ students are part of a statewide tutoring effort developed by Bola Delano-Oriaran, associate professor of education at St. Norbert College, and Marguerite Penick-Parks, professor of educational leadership and policy at UW-Oshkosh.<\/p>\n
The goal is to help families across the country get the support they need to help their children transition to online learning, while also giving college students, especially those in education, field experience. More than 900 requests for tutors have come in to the group, which now includes a number of schools and colleges across the state, according to Trager.<\/p>\n
The 51ÁÔÆæ students are connected with families both locally and nationally, helping tutor in a variety of subjects for students from kindergarten through high school, Trager said.<\/p>\n
Currently the 51ÁÔÆæ tutors are students from the Teaching and Learning Department in the School of Education and the center\u2019s Community Leaders Internship Program. The tutors have committed to taking on at least two students and to meeting with each student twice a week, according to Trager.<\/p>\n
Many are education students, but others, like Ramczyk, come from other areas. She\u2019s an occupational studies major who started tutoring the second-graders at Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary in Milwaukee during the fall semester as a work-study student.<\/p>\n
Ramczyk\u2019s career goal is to work with children with disabilities in a school-based setting, she said, so working with second-graders is giving her some experience with young children. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time since I was a second-grader,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Like many Milwaukee public schools, Oliver Wendell Holmes has faced some challenges in moving students to online learning. \u00a0Many students didn\u2019t have computers or tablets at home, and others didn\u2019t have internet access. Ramczyk has worked closely with the classroom teacher, Sara Gitzlaff, to start tutoring, working with four students who had the technology to do online learning right away.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a struggle to get the online learning going for all 31 of her students, Gitzlaff said. The school distributed Chromebooks to families who responded to a survey, but it\u2019s been difficult reaching other families. \u201cA lot of them are worried about having basic necessities like food,\u201d said Gitzlaff. Having Ramczyk to continue tutoring helps a lot.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re at different levels for our kids, and we don’t have everybody on the same page yet, but I think the support she\u2019s giving to the kids she\u2019s tutoring is perfect,\u201d Gitzlaff said.<\/p>\n
Gitzlaff and Ramczyk communicate regularly about the students and the transition to virtual learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of bounce ideas off each other, and we\u2019re trying to figure out the whole technology thing together,\u201d Gitzlaff said. \u201cIt\u2019s trial and error situation. If she figures out something or I figure out, we share what we\u2019ve learned.\u201d Ramczyk has found some online games and activities that they incorporate into the virtual learning.<\/p>\n
Before the transition to online learning, Ramczyk was tutoring at the school two half days and one full day a week, working with an advanced reading group to challenge them with more complex lessons, helping out with the numerous classroom chores as needed and partnering with students who were struggling to stay focused.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did a lot of work with kids who had trouble concentrating or kids with social-emotional needs that just need a break or to have someone to sit with them and keep them on track,\u201d said Gitzlaff.\u00a0 \u201cShe would never ask, \u2018What do you need me to do?\u2019 She was already doing it. She\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramczyk originally chose to do her leaders internship at the school because it was close to campus, but she\u2019s grown to love the work and is glad she\u2019s able to tutor to keep in touch with the students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely miss all the students that I worked with at the school face to face,\u201d she said. \u201cI just enjoy being able to work with just a few of them even a few hours a week. It\u2019s challenging, but it\u2019s also rewarding \u2013 I absolutely love it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even as they are working on their own online classes, Alissa Ramczyk and some three dozen other 51ÁÔÆæ students are helping kindergarten through 12th grade students with theirs, part of a statewide tutoring effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":835,"featured_media":82966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"section":[246,259],"display_categories":[115,116],"related-coverage":[323,207],"uwmnews-feed":[347,154,148],"class_list":["post-82963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","section-business-world-affairs","section-education","display_categories-top-story-secondary","display_categories-top-story-section","related-coverage-coronavirus","related-coverage-teaching","uwmnews-feed-community-engagement-professions","uwmnews-feed-health-sciences","uwmnews-feed-education"],"yoast_head":"\n