Bringing a Stanford course to high school students in their own classrooms via a hybrid model takes multiple layers of partnership, including with teachers and schools open to trying new approaches. But it’s the role played by teaching fellows that provides the “secret sauce,” says Lerone A. Martin, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies and in African and African American Studies at Stanford.

Professor Martin worked with Stanford Digital Education and the National Education Equity Lab to make his course, Between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Freedom, available to high school students in under-resourced communities. “The curriculum is provided by me as the professor, and it's the same curriculum that I teach here on campus to Stanford students,” he explains.

Teaching fellows – Stanford undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni – provide an additional, and personal, layer of support. They coordinate with the classroom teachers to co-lead weekly discussion sections on Zoom; they also provide robust feedback on student writing and help high school students acclimate to the challenges of college work. In this video, teaching fellows Juan Flores, Sam McLoughlin, and Anna Rose Robinson describe their efforts to make students feel at home and supported – and how they find teaching to be deeply meaningful and fulfilling.

The teaching fellow role is integral to all the courses that Stanford offers to high schools in low-income communities via the collaboration with the Equity Lab, across subjects that include bioengineering, computer science, and ethics.

Beyond Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. was rolled out in seven high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2024 and is slated to be taught in schools in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, this winter and spring. Students who pass the course receive credit from both their high schools and from Stanford. A separate video focuses on student experiences in the course.