PAL News and Announcements

8/26/20

PAL Goes Remote

This spring, PAL faculty faced a monumental task – how to rapidly convert PAL’s service-learning, practicum-centered courses to a new remote-learning format without losing the community connections and field experiences that make the PAL Program meaningful for our students. PAL director, Caren Holtzman, along with the other spring EDS practicum instructors Susan Scharton, Luz Chung, Amy Bintliff, Chris Mamas, Erica Heinzman, and Sharon Fargason,  tapped into their existing networks of community partners to find out how PAL could best serve the community during this difficult time. An innovative menu of remote-learning activities was quickly compiled to ensure that all PAL students were able to complete their scheduled practicum hours in an impactful way. In addition to remote tutoring and mentoring, UCSD PAL students were able to assist teachers with technical issues, design remote-lessons, create educational and wellness videos, lead arts lessons, compile resources, participate in mindfulness activities, create video games, and use virtual visits and other online resources to connect with our local communities.
 
Remote learning also opened the door to new local and national partnerships. This spring, PAL began working with Homes for the Homeless, a New York City organization committed to using a family-based, child-centered, education-focused approach to addressing family homelessness. Through the organization, PAL students served as mentors and tutors to homeless K-12 students and met weekly with them through Zoom. PAL students also wrote letters to incarcerated youth in Louisiana prisons, contributed art work to a neighborhood project, worked with families through a local non-profit, and worked directly with parents to help engage their children in academic activities.
 
PAL has also teamed up with other UCSD organizations such as the UCSD Staff Association, Housing Dining and Hospitality, and the Center for Student Involvement to work together in supporting the social, emotional, and academic needs of local students.  While the pandemic related shift to remote learning posed many challenges, UCSD students in EDS/PAL practicum courses rose to the occasion and made positive impacts in many places with many people.

6/19/20  

Outstanding PAL Leadership Award

The Outstanding PAL Leadership Award recognizes PAL students who have demonstrated a commitment to the PAL Program and to PAL partner schools over a significant period of time and who have made outstanding contributions to both PAL classes and to PAL community collaborations.

We’re pleased to recognize Brycen Barron-Borden as our first Outstanding PAL Leadership Award recipient. Brycen has worked with the PAL program since Winter 2018 both as a student tutor and later as an undergraduate instructional assistant.