Master Teacher in the GWTeach Program, SuJin Choi identified how limited internet and hands-on learning accessibility during COVID-19 hindered D.C. Public School students, slowly creating a learning gap.
A Look Into: (CES course) The GW Teach Program
Professor: SuJin Choi
The GWTeach program is an academic minor that prepares students in STEM majors for teaching licensure in Washington, D.C. In courses like GTCH 1002: Inquiry-Based Lesson Design, students design, teach, and assess learning in a STEM lesson. Students engage directly in local classrooms, like McKinley Middle School and DC Preparatory Academy, mentored by a Master Teacher.
Choi, teaching Step 1+2 Hybrid (GTCH 2003), Project-Based Learning (GTCH 3103) and Functions & Modeling (GTCH 3203), updated her goals for her courses to better address students’ learning gaps from just an academic sense to now tackling social and cultural delays, too. She noticed that rowdiness in the DCPS classrooms was a byproduct of online learning without social interaction and kids being “bigger” and "strong" but — lacking the maturity of their age — not knowing how to deal with other students.
"The community partner and community engagement part of it is really important to me because it gives me that understanding of the perspective and the needs and the priority of the school community that they are having currently," Choi said. "So interacting with the middle school teachers and school administrators to really understand and making my courses more relevant and meaningful."
Choi has expanded the GWTeach program with the skills she obtained from her undergraduate studies in Texas. She began her GWTeach journey as a product of the University of Texas at Austin's UTeach Natural Sciences Program, the original GWTeach approach to prepare science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors for teaching.
Relearning a safe and fun environment as young students have come back fully in person is a job that involves many ongoing tweaks. For some, this may be an overwhelming practice, but for Choi this is her pride and joy. Choi said she enjoys making her work "relevant" by continuing to develop a relationship with schools in the District.
Choi has embraced the philosophy that teaching is the best way to learn from GW students who have said that they’ve learned from her courses how they themselves process information and how to become better students because of this learning method.
She also emphasized how she has taken a bigger role in being in charge of Math Matters, a tutoring program led by the Nashman Center and GWTeach in which GW student volunteers tutor math to DCPS students, who collaborates with GWTeach.
Choi said her favorite full-circle moment is seeing students who take the GWTeach courses who went to a D.C. school and received education with the help of the University program. She also enjoys how DCPS students get excited about GW students coming in to teach every few weeks and fostering an intimate community where both sides can give back to one another.
“It’s not just collaborating with them or just coming in once in a while but it’s having that continuous relationship and collaborations to really make everything that I do relevant and meaningful," Choi said.
