My name is Garrett Tusler and I am a second year masters’ student in the International Education Development program, with a concentration in International Policy and Planning at Teachers College, Columbia University. This last summer, I had the opportunity to participate in a Monitoring and Evaluation Internship at the Refugee Youth Summer Academy (RYSA) through the International Rescue Committee in New York. RYSA is a program designed for recently arrived refugee students as they prepare to enter the New York public school system.

Prior to Teachers College, I had deemed myself as “not-a-math-person”. Through my coursework, however, I began to see the beauty in data and how statistical analyses can be used as an essential key in supporting and strengthening the work done inside the classroom. My time with the IRC focused on understanding how to strengthen and support programmatic decisions based on quantitative and qualitative data of the surveys we created.  Prior to the first days of school at RYSA, I developed and coordinated outreach initiatives to Spanish speaking families to better understand their needs both inside and outside the classroom. I compiled their responses, determined trends within the data, and shared my findings with my colleagues and the Teachers at RYSA. Through this analysis, we uncovered that access to technology proved to be a major barrier for many students. Using this data, we were able to take the necessary actions and provide computers, tablets, or internet access to those in need.

 Given the complexities of running a completely remote summer school program, an additional project of mine was to use the data we were gathering from students and their families to instill a stronger sense of community. Using data visualization, my colleagues and I worked on a multilingual Newsletter that used data visualization to show who was participating in RYSA that year.  From bar graphs showing the distribution of all of the languages spoken by students, to bubble charts superimposed on a map of New York to show in which burrows our students lived. I began to see the beautiful flexibility within data analysis and the myriad of ways it can be used within organizations. Throughout the semester, the teachers would often use our data and data visualization techniques to support the work they were doing inside the classroom.

One of the greatest skills I learned during my time with RYSA was the creation and implementation of pre/post assessments and surveys.Choosing which skills or abilities to assess and which questions to ask was as important as analyzing and discussing the data itself. Considering the multiple literacy levels of the students at RYSA, it was a goal of mine to ensure we closed the feedback loop. I dreaded the thought that these reports and excel sheets would sit in a forgotten folder on my computer. To combat this, I created numerous infographics and graphs to show our data in numerous different ways and in several languages. Information should be accessible to all, no matter your mother tongue or data literacy level. My time with RYSA further highlighted my passion for using data to support educational initiatives. Like  puzzle pieces neatly falling into place, I uncovered my skills in turning a seemingly messy excel sheet into a piece of art and ensuring the information was accessible to all. I am so thankful for this experience, and very grateful to Teachers College for providing me with the tools to succeed in this role and for allowing me to explore different avenues within International Educational Development that I previously never knew existed!