GO Foundation

As we begin a new school year, more than 900,000 students attending 9,500 schools will be going #BacktoSchoolwithAmeriCorps. They will be greeted by 55,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers who are there to help improve school readiness, attendance, and behavior; boost reading and math achievement; and increase access to college and careers. These AmeriCorps members are creating positive and supportive learning environments. #AmeriCorpsinSchools. #Stand4Service #AmeriCorps30 #NationalService

Teacher Resident Luka is excited to tackle the year!

We are here at Pier 57 for August Forum! August Forum is our network-wide training, focused on preparing and inspiring August-start Fellows for the year ahead. 

Our Fellows tackle chronic absenteeism everyday. The chronic absenteeism rate was lower for students working with a Fellow than those without one at our largest school partner site in D.C. Attendance is a cornerstone of learning, which makes addressing this issue critical to students’ overall success. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e2RXKQ2u

We are still basking in the joy from Forum. The Fellows were so energizing and it was so fun to meet everyone.

Taylor is excited to start their teacher residency this year in DC!

Celeste Johnson completed her second fellowship year as a Fellow Lead in June and will be a special education teacher in Newark starting this school year. Learn more below! A fun story from a student: I encouraged one of the quieter students in our Arts Club to audition for A Wrinkle in Time. At the end of the audition time she spoke up and asked to audition. She blew everyone else out of the water and really got into character. She set the scene, her tone was on point, and she was stomping like the character would and it was just amazing. None of the adults in the room could keep the smiles off their faces and once she was done, we told her how great she was and how proud we were of her! What did you learn about yourself this year? This year taught me to step into the fullness of who I am and to have confidence in myself. This year forced me out of my comfort zone and pushed me to be in a leadership position, which is something I had never envisioned for myself. How did the fellowship help you figure out your next steps? Through these past two years of working as a tutor/mentor with students, it’s made me realize that I want to take on more responsibility and become a teacher in a community that I’ve already grown to love.

The tutoring landscape in the US is exciting: growth continues, with 46% of public schools reporting in the latest School Pulse Panel survey that they offer high-impact tutoring. So I will be honest and say I haven't paid much attention to global tutoring. It was a privilege and honor to spend Tuesday with Christian Wetell, Tom Hooper, and Nandini Chatterjee Singh, learning and talking about the future of tutoring around the world. A few takeaways: 1. Neuroscientists like Nandini are rapidly growing our understanding of how the brain learns, and the role of social-emotional development in positioning students to really thrive in school. The combination of neuroscience evidence with evolving technology will only help us serve more students better. 2. The demand for schools that center tutoring (or coaching, as they call it at Kunskapsskolan) continues to grow. And while personalized learning is at the heart of the 50+ schools the Swedish organization now runs around the world, it was clear from what Christian shared that the pathway to personalized learning is organizational strategy and growing the professional efficacy of teachers and teacher time. As always, education is about people. 3. Tutoring remains a human-focused endeavor, and it is exciting to see how technology can improve the human experience. Third Space Learning has data from an AI tutor coach showing that tutors who received feedback were both more satisfied and more effective as tutors. Developing an AI tutor is a next step in the evolution of this technology, even as we'll have lots of important conversations about trade-offs. If we want tutoring to truly scale, we have to lean on available technology. Having these valuable conversations in front of 250+ AmeriCorps Fellows about to spend the year working as full-time tutors through the GO Foundation was inspiring in its own right. We shouldn't take for granted that young people want to serve.

Thanks for coming!

We have officially wrapped up Forum 2024. Thank you to all our Fellows who joined in on the fun, learned so much, and embraced each other. We hope everyone had a great time!