GTP Tutors Kick Off School Year with Visits to Participating Schools

Each August, teams of Global Teaching Project Teaching Assistants–current STEM majors at, and recent graduates of, leading universities around the country–visit schools throughout rural Mississippi to work in-person with students and teachers to help GTP’s Advanced Placement STEM courses get off to a strong start.

The August visits are a key component of a sequence of instructional initiatives throughout the year that help GTP students succeed in rigorous AP science classes.

GTP’s students are selected by their schools based on their aptitude and work ethic, but they often have significant gaps in their substantive foundations.  GTP works to help students close those gaps–beginning with an immersive residential instructional program at Mississippi State held each June, followed by the August in-person sessions, and a January residential instructional program at Jackson State.  Most importantly, TAs work with the students by videoconference, typically twice each week, as part of their regularly scheduled AP classes.

GTP has learned that providing a personal connection to the TAs at the start of the academic year through in-person school visits creates enduring bonds with students, which enhance the effectiveness of subsequent virtual tutoring sessions.

This August, three remarkable Teaching Assistants–Ian Espy (Harvard, Biology), Oso Ifesinachukwu (Yale, Biomedical Engineering), and Travis Montgomery (Virginia, Computer Science)–crisscrossed rural Mississippi for in-person instructional sessions at schools participating in GTP’s AP STEM Access Program.

Ian, Oso, and Travis—at times accompanied by GTP staff—spent much of their time in Mississippi’s Delta region, where GTP has a particularly prominent presence, visiting Clarksdale, Cleveland, Elzy, Greenville, Greenwood, Holmes, Humphreys, Leflore, Leland, McAdams, Northside, O’Bannon, Palmer, Riverside, and Yazoo City High Schools.  From there, they headed east and south to visit a total of 21 participating schools.

The TAs spoke to students about the academic and financial benefits that AP classes offer.  The TAs also provided an overview of the Program, including a review of course content, available resources, how tutoring sessions work, and how AP exams are administered and scored.

Most importantly, Oso, Ian, and Travis engaged students on a personal level, making connections with the students and helping them to engage with the subject matter in new and different ways.

For example, Travis led a demonstration with Riverside High School’s AP Computer Science Principles class, in which students had to “program” Oso to do a push-up, to show students how to communicate instructions with precision and understand conceptually how computers “think”.  The TAs also used logic puzzles to encourage students to think outside their comfort zone, an important skill for AP classes.

The Global Teaching Project extends its deep gratitude to Ian, Oso, and Travis.  We will all continue to support our students throughout the coming academic year.