TCNJ

20 The College of New Jersey Magazine On a warm morning in July, Olivia Williams '23 is huddled at a table under a pavilion at the Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County. She is flanked on either side by Cameron and Derek, two rising third-graders from Trenton. But the agenda today isn't bound to the table. One moment Williams is going through lessons in a textbook, the next she's sitting on the concrete floor, chalk in hand, drawing a number line to help her explain math problems. students — Williams cracks a smile. "What haven't I learned?" she says. The $2.4 million tutoring program took place over July and August, with 100 educators working with 2,000 stu- dents preparing to enter kindergarten through sixth grade. The program's 23 sites — YMCAs, YWCAs, and Boys & Girls Clubs — stretched across 18 of New Jersey's 21 counties. Funding came from a $2 million grant from the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, a private initiative co-led by First Lady Tammy Murphy, and a $400,000 grant from the Overdeck Family Foundation. The idea for the tutoring corps orig- inated with Laura Overdeck, who, with her husband, John, created the fami- ly foundation 10 years ago. Overdeck is well versed in how kids learn. She is the founder and president of Bedtime Math, a nonprofit organization that provides parents of kids from 3 to 9 years old with a daily math problem. Overdeck, well aware of TCNJ's stellar reputation for training tomor- row's teachers, approached President Kathryn Foster about her idea for a summer tutoring program for students who might have struggled to keep up with their studies during the pandem- ic. Foster then approached Suzanne McCotter, the dean of TCNJ's School of Education, who took the idea and, with help from across the campus and around the state, molded it into reality. "We had to choose where we were going to focus," McCotter says of plan- ning for the summer tutoring corps. Ultimately, they settled on mathe- matics instruction for two reasons. " The differences in achievement were illuminated by the pandemic. " — Suzanne McCotter, dean of education To be sure, there's a learning curve for both Williams and her students. An art education major, Williams took a course last spring titled "Curriculum in Art Education," which in any other year would have provided her some days to observe a classroom inside a local public school. But the COVID-19 pandemic prevented her from having that valuable experience last school year. So when she heard about the School of Education's ambitious new summer tutoring program, aimed at helping K–5 students make up for lessons they might have missed during the pandemic, Williams jumped at the chance. She is one of 35 TCNJ students who joined what is known as the New Jersey Summer Tutoring Corps. "I thought it was a great opportuni- ty to get my feet wet with teaching," Williams says. When asked what she's learned about teaching this summer — her first working directly with

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