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Bridging the COVID-19 Study-Gap: CMU’s volunteer tutoring collective goes online to help students finish strong

Bridging the COVID-19 Study-Gap: CMU’s volunteer tutoring collective goes online to help students finish strong

PAL, or Peer Assisted Learning, is a peer-tutoring program run each year at CMU by a collective of student volunteers. Normally, PAL holds drop-in hours on campus throughout the week, offering fellow students help with homework, essay writing, test prep, study skills, and more. This year, with courses moved suddenly online, students are grappling with new challenges, and PAL is offering new solutions.

Claire Hanson is a fourth-year English major minoring in Music and Psychology, set to graduate in April. She is currently serving her second and final year as CMU's PAL Coordinator. Most years, the person in her position inherits a working system with only publicity and group-scheduling to worry about. Thanks to COVID-19, this year has been different:

"When the switch to online classes hit, we wanted students to know that PAL still exists, even amidst the changes. Three of our tutors volunteered to make the switch to an online model: Naomi Van Bentham and Dagem Chernet both concentrate in Math and Science, and Jack Tyrrell is one of our best guys for helping with essay work. I've taken on a lot of paper editing as well, being that I have a lighter courseload now in my final semester," she says.

March is the toughest and tired-est time of the year for undergraduate students. Final essays are coming due, exams are swiftly approaching, Reading Week is a distant memory, and the cumulative fatigue of a year's intensive study—not to mention the added stress this year of a global pandemic wreaking havoc on routine—runs bone deep. Students are under enormous pressure to cope, and to perform. Hanson says PAL's move online has won encouraging feedback.

"We've had steady traffic and lots of positive feedback from students on social media. In some ways its even easier now, because students don't have to be on campus to show up to PAL hours if they want help. They can just email me and say 'hey I'm looking for help with this or that,' and then I pair them up with whichever tutor is available for that task. Even scheduling a Zoom call with one of the tutors to talk through a problem, that's something that we can do."

Claire HansonDespite the COVID-19 pandemic, Claire Hanson is dedicated to helping fellow students through their exams and essays as CMU's PAL Coordinator

For editing papers, a common request this time of year, Hanson uses track-changes in Microsoft Word, adding comments to explain her corrections or recommended revisions. She then sends the paper back to the student with guidance on how to get rid of the track changes and inviting further discussion on comments by email or phone.

"We want to create as much as possible an experience similar to what students get when they sit down in person with one of our tutors and work out a problem or edit a paper together. We explain why we're making or recommending the changes that we do, because that's part of how students learn and develop."

With Claire bound for new adventures, Malcolm Reimer will take up the mantle of PAL Coordinator for 2021. Malcolm is entering his third year of a Science degree concentrating in Biology, and also works part-time for CMU's Enrolment department as a Student Ambassador. While no one can say for sure yet whether the new online model will continue through 2021, Hanson says there are preliminary plans to survey commuter students next fall, about how well the on-site model suits their needs.

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