White Paper Research Briefs
March 2021 Release
INSPIRING STUDENTS, DEVELOPING TEACHERS:
How a Corps of College Students Closes Opportunity Gaps & Diversifies the Teacher Pipeline
TRAINING FUTURE EDUCATORS TO CONNECT, IN CLASSROOMS, ONLINE AND BEYOND THE PANDEMIC
This report, the second in a series, shares the Teaching Fellow Training Framework used to prepare young adults to teach Breakthrough’s middle and high school students. The report also reveals how Breakthrough successfully translated the training model to a completely virtual environment during
the summer of 2020.
Drawing from decades of experience training college-age students (called “teaching fellows”) to teach rigorous summer courses, we describe the research that grounds the training model, share examples of the training content, and present evidence for how the Breakthrough program benefits teaching fellows. Based on survey, interview, and focus group data, we found that the Breakthrough teaching fellow training model is as effective in a virtual setting as when it is offered in-person. As such, we share both online and in-person examples of our framework implemented on the ground.
October 2020 Release
Breaking Through the Distance:
How Relationships Foster Online Learning
Insights from Breakthrough Collaborative’s Nationwide 2020 Virtual Summer Program
With more than four decades of success in closing the opportunity gap for under-resourced students, Breakthrough is a National leader in educational equity. In the spring of 2020, in response to COVID-19, Breakthrough’s 24 affiliates embarked on an unprecedented, network–wide mobilization to develop a digital ecosystem that could provide meaningful academic and social-emotional support for thousands of students across the country. Given widely held conventional wisdom about the limitations of virtual learning, there was little certainty that Breakthrough’s high-energy, fun-filled, relationship-based summer program could be effectively translated to a remote environment. However, once underway, it became clear that community building, teaching, and learning can be successful online with the right resources and planning.
This report, the first in a series that will share findings from Breakthrough’s summer experiences, focuses on SIX STRATEGIES TO BEST ENGAGE STUDENTS DURING VIRTUAL LEARNING. Data from this paper are primarily sourced from interviews, focus groups, and surveys from students, teachers, and affiliate leaders conducted in August and September 2020. We hope the learnings chronicled in this paper provide useful examples that can be employed by schools and other programs.
