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Emily Winiecki has witnessed many “aha moments” since she helped start a virtual tutoring program after the coronavirus pandemic first hit. 

One of her favorite moments came when she had the opportunity to watch a retired algebra teacher help a student with his math homework.

“He just needed somebody to walk him through the process, and he just felt so much better,” said Winiecki, the community engagement coordinator for Syracuse University’s Office of Community Engagement. “You could see that he felt more confident, and he had a huge smile on his face.”

Winiecki connected with Brice Nordquist, an associate professor of writing studies, rhetoric and composition, shortly after the pandemic began in March. They were both looking for ways to help the local community, and since then, they have brought together a network of tutors to pair with existing organizations to virtually connect with students across the city.

“We found that there is definitely this need for ongoing support because, with the virtual classrooms, there’s not as much one-on-one attention for students,” Winiecki said. “We’re working toward a common goal of helping students through this really difficult time and hopefully get out the other side where they can go to class in person.”

The tutors include several members of the local and SU communities. Many of the organizations they work with already have tutoring programs in place and longstanding relationships with students and their families. The goal of Winiecki and Nordquist’s initiative is to help the organizations expand their resources as the pandemic continues to limit them.

When schools transitioned to online learning in the spring, Nordquist wondered how students would get the one-on-one support that they’re used to. Wendy Wang | Staff Photographer

“We’re not swooping in to save the day,” Nordquist said. “The partnering organizations that we’ve been working with put in decades of work building up relationships of trust with students and their families. We’re really just entering the scene to help shoulder some of the weight that’s especially intense in this moment.”

When schools transitioned to online learning in the spring, Nordquist wondered how students who study at the North Side Learning Center, which provides tutoring and academic support for refugee and immigrant families in the city, would get the one-on-one support that they’re used to. 

He also worried about students who had limited internet access and technology. He began working with Kofi Addai, the associate director at the learning center, to find ways that they could adjust their tutoring around this new mode of learning.

“We started brainstorming about different options, and we reached out to our students to find out their needs,” Addai said.

SU provided extra computers to the center to ensure they had all the resources they needed to launch the tutoring. The tutoring network put out a call for tutors in the spring, and the response was overwhelming, Nordquist said. Since around April, the volunteer pool has grown from about 50 to 300 and consists of current and former professors, as well as adults and college students from across central New York.

Addai said the program has received excellent feedback from students and families, who said the tutoring is helping them get through the school year. Students range in age from elementary to high school, including seniors who would have to complete their graduation requirements virtually.

“(For many students) it was going to be the difference between graduating high school or not,” said Mark Cass, executive director of the North Side Learning Center. “The tutoring that they received certainly made that possible for them.”

In the fall, the program expanded beyond just the North Side Learning Center to include a total of 14 partner organizations across the city. Nordquist and Winiecki also began working with La Casita, a cultural center for the Latino community at SU and the surrounding area.

While the center already had a free tutoring program in place and was working to adapt to the virtual format, Nordquist and Winiecki helped it expand its resources and offerings, said Dragana Drobnjak, the children’s program coordinator, librarian and archivist at La Casita.

Throughout the fall and winter, the center added 14 mainly bilingual tutors and expanded its program to offer services six days a week, Drobnjak said. Many of the tutors worked with elementary and high school-aged students who were struggling to make connections with their teachers online, said Tere Paniagua, the executive director of the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community at SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. 

Virtual learning has been especially difficult for students who only speak Spanish or are learning English as a second language, Paniagua said. Giving the students an opportunity to work with tutors who speak the same language as them has allowed students to make stronger connections with instructors and has prevented them from falling too far behind at school, she said.

“That one-on-one session, where the child is getting to know someone who speaks their same language, that understands where they come from, they understand each other,” Paniagua said. “To be able to develop that connection is a beautiful thing.”

Volunteer tutors have also said they learn from their students. Many of them have developed a “bidirectional” relationship with their students, Winiecki said.

“Our culture is on this idea of mutual learning, that we do learn from each other,” Cass said. “As much as the academics and the homework assignments are important, we always are encouraging some of the time together to be more of a mentoring or a learning exercise, which is mutual.”

Olivia Conte, a senior at SU who tutors for La Casita, said the program has allowed her to connect with students in the greater community, despite the virtual environment.

“I love being able to talk with the kids, even if it’s virtual, and see how energetic they are,” Conte said. “It gives me a little boost for the rest of my day.”

But these connections can be difficult to create, especially with young students, Nordquist said. While the tutors try to be consistent in scheduling sessions, the students’ lives are sometimes more unpredictable. Students aren’t always in control of their own schedules, he said. 

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More stories about mental health at SU during the pandemic:

• Syracuse parents, students lack tech and training for remote classes
• Syracuse city schools struggle to provide students access to daily meals
• Syracuse learning centers provide support to families throughout pandemic

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As the program expanded, some tutors were able to include in-person sessions and began setting up teams across different subject areas so students could drop in at any time and join a group to find the tutor they need.

“We’re still trying to constantly problem-solve around these things,” Nordquist said.

Tutors also provide a chance for students to engage in activities outside of regular school work, Winiecki said. As the program has grown, they have offered robotics classes, art therapy sessions and college admissions workshops.

Although the program began to help students with virtual learning, the goal is to eventually transition them back into a physical classroom when it’s safe, Winiecki said. For now, Winiecki and Nordquist plan to continue helping wherever possible.

“The Syracuse area community really cares and is looking to help in any way we can,” Winiecki said. “We’re seeing this through right now and doing our best to do what we can to help out.”

Published on February 8, 2021 at 10:10 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan