Emelia Hughey
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Catherine Calabro-Cavin
Research Mentor School/College/Department: 826 Michigan / 0
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors: Emelia Hughey, Catherine Calabro-Cavin
Abstract
The centrality of a students’ voice is vital to the educational and creative process. Students at 826michigan, a non-profit organization, engage in after-school tutoring and/or creative writing programs. In order to support the interests of students, parents and educators who interact with 826michigan, feedback is an indispensable part of program refinement. My research with 826michigan focuses on determining program efficacy using feedback and scoring tools. Each quarter, 826michigan collects qualitative and quantitative data from students, parents, volunteers and teachers. Additionally, 826michigan supplements their research process with the more formalized Analytic Writing Continuum (AWC), which is a rubric developed by the National Writing Project to reliably score various attributes of a student’s writing. This rubric offers quantitative values to show a students’ growth. Data collection for the AWC tool requires a pre-test and post-test of students’ raw writing samples from the start of the program and the end of the program. Results for student writing improvement and parent surveys are still being processed, however, volunteer surveys demonstrate that many volunteers that work with 826michigan believe that the space is diverse and empowers students through creativity. 826michigan provides a positive environment that many volunteers want to return to as 53.6% of volunteers reported they would be likely to return or definitely knew they would want to volunteer again. Overall, despite some hiccups regarding volunteer utilization, many volunteers grew positively through 826michigan by developing interpersonal skills and would continue to engage in programs. The results of the volunteer surveys suggest that moving forward, 826michigan has a strong community and team for their programs. In previous years, many parents and teachers have been satisfied with 826michigan’s performance in regards to empowering and improving students. Further investigation would be needed to compare how hybrid and fully-online programs compare in efficacy to in-person programs and if there is any noticeable difference in program quality in transition periods.
