Virtual tutoring

Northview students create a way to connect students to tutors during the pandemic

Ingenify is a tutoring platform created from scratch by Northview students.

Graphic by Grace Peng

Ria Dubey, Staff Writer & Meghana Ramineni, Editor-in-Chief

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven a difficult obstacle that has impacted so many around the world; adapting to it has pushed for the greatest changes, education standing as just one of many.

 The social distancing regulations and quarantine restrictions in place since March, along with the closing of schools, have left families with limited options to sustain their lifestyles. Many have lost their jobs, and countless businesses have closed. Parents find themselves stuck between trying to keep their jobs to ensure a source of income and finding a solution for their children in the face of school closings.

Juniors Jatong Su, Paul Philip, Edward Chen, and Benson Zhang have acknowledged this issue prevalent not only in the Johns Creek community but across the country. They felt that providing a solution to families struggling with the transition to virtual learning would contribute greatly, although on a smaller scale within this community. 

Quarantine has been difficult for everyone, but these students chose to turn this unfortunate situation into an opportunity. This summer, they began developing the beginnings of their organization, Ingenify.

“Over the summer, my friends and I were looking to start a project, and we were thinking of what will be in demand, what kind of problems we could try to solve, [and] what things we can improve upon,” Su said.

They realized that many volunteer opportunities will become unavailable to students due to the pandemic, creating a gap that needed to be filled. Furthermore, they drew upon their experiences from the spring and figured that a considerable amount of students would be looking for additional help in their studies. Hence, Ingenify was born. Ingenify is a tutoring platform made to connect students to the tutor that is right for them. Unlike other platforms that do not allow students to choose their tutors, on Ingenify, prospective students are able to explore a variety of options and choose what is best for them. Moreover, the entire website and portal was coded from scratch, setting it apart from others.

“On Ingenify, the tutors are just users on the site. We do vet them, and we do check them to make sure that they're qualified and they are who they say they are,” Su said. “Other than that, they can have their own ways of teaching things like that. So, instead of being a tutoring organization, we just seek to connect the supply with the demand.”

Ingenify works to connect tutors to other students. Since most of their tutors are high school students they are able to receive volunteer hours for their club while spending as much time with their students as needed.

Junior Anisha Gurram signed up to tutor, feeling confident she could provide services that many students could benefit from amidst this pandemic. With previous experience as a one-to-one reach tutor, Gurram took on a role that requires certain qualifications, including a minimum GPA, and an interest in teaching certain school subjects. She prefers math as opposed to language arts and has created her tutor profile on the website to showcase this. As a tutor since the beginning of the school year, she has seen Ingenify face the initial challenge of lack of participation.

“I know they had a bit of trouble getting participation at first, but then they got a lot more tutors and tutees by word-of-mouth,” Gurram said. “The creators told a bunch of their friends and their friends passed on the word.”

Although Gurram enjoys being able to teach others on subjects she is interested in, she feels the greatest pleasure comes from the end result. 

“It’s the gratification you get from helping someone,” Gurram said. “It’s nice when they actually understand you, and they are able to get the grade on the test.”

Ingenify has been able to grow and develop due to their partnership with many service organizations at Northview, primarily Beta Club as well as multiple honor societies. They have reached out to many lower-income schools, which they are currently cooperating with, as well as larger nonprofits such as Interns For Good.

“We've been expanding our platform and getting tutors from these organizations,” Su said. “We're also having events on Ingenify which are attracting students.”

Megan Hart-Sekman, Northview Beta’s sponsor, reveals her support for the club as both a teacher and parent. After Su and Philip approached her about the idea of offering tutoring services online, Hart-Sekman was enticed by the concept and helped provide aid through Beta. 

“This conversation has been going on in the community, and [Philip and Su] picked up on it. They created this way to sort of give back and help out where the need arose,” Hart-Sekman said.

Although she is mainly used as a reference when reaching out to various schools in the community to confirm there is an adult on board with the plan, Hart-Sekman feels the initiative the students took with creating Ingenify was great and impactful in its own way. She believes Ingenify allows young people to learn and parents to benefit.

Hart-Sekman is able to view this situation from the perspective of a sponsor as well as both a teacher and parent. Several parents in online forums as well as friends of hers have expressed their struggles with helping their children while maintaining a full-time job or helping children whose skill sets have changed as they grew older. As a parent, Hart-Sekman finds herself falling into the latter category, leaving less room for flexibility to help her children.

 “As an adult and as a parent, over the summer, obviously questions were always arising with COVID,” Hart-Sekman said. “I have twin sixth graders, and my kids are struggling terribly in math because [they] are just not seeing the concepts in the way they’re used to with the teacher up on the whiteboard. I am not equipped to help my own children with higher math.” 

As a teacher, Hart-Sekman also acknowledges the difficulties of virtual learning. She expresses her feelings of confusion as to whether kids are listening or not and understanding the daily material, as she is unable to hear or see the kids due to technological limitations.

“I’m not sure if that’s inhibiting learning or not because the work the students have turned in has been fine, but I don’t know how much collaboration is going on,” Hart-Sekman said. “It’s just hard to measure what’s happening in a student’s mind when the student is sitting at home and the cameras off. It’s a struggle.”

Principal Brian Downey recognizes the resources available in the Johns Creek community and acknowledges the huge difference this can make on each individual’s lives, especially in terms of education.

“There are a lot of schools and a lot of communities and a lot of families that don't have access to things. So it really does put those kids at a bit of a disadvantage. In terms of their success,” Downey said. “I think we're very fortunate to be in a community where we have these extra support systems and that our families have the ability to access those extra support systems.”

Although people continue to face these challenges, there are many others who have the means to take the initiative similar to the development of Ingenify; doing so may create an immense, beneficial impact on communities around the world during these trying times.

“Ingenify is different because we try to combine the best of both worlds,” Su said. “Our goal is to create a platform where students can get as much help as they need from as many people as possible.