Dear colleagues,
Prior to COVID-19, academics faced the challenge of an ever growing learning gap among students due to various socioeconomic pressures. Other factors include racism, segregation, a general decline in upward mobility and a downturn in the global economy. Generally, there is also an increased reliance on homework, for example, which only serves to widen achievement gaps. Isolation and self-learning also have detrimental psychological effects. For many students, particularly those from poor backgrounds, face-to-face interactions with teachers and peers offered a source of comfort and alleviated the learning gap.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the learning gap, with more students at risk of suffering from learning loss. In my previous discussions, the challenges of online learning were examined, with a tentative consensus being shown in favor of blended learning, while the shortfalls in such pedagogical models partially owing to poor digital infrastructure and internet connectivity were also acknowledged.
In this discussion I would like to know if any of you have noticed an increasing shortfall in the learning outcomes of your students? Perhaps some types of pedagogy have improved learning outcomes? Can students who are lagging in their learning be helped in some specific way at present or post COVID-19? Is there any effective way to reduce the learning gap?
Thank you for your time and best regards,
Aftab
Quite an interesting discussion.. definitely education sector has been hit badly due to COVID 19..Lack of access to virtual teaching tools especially in remote areas has affected teaching..
DR AFTAB!! The COVID-19 slide: What summer learning loss can tell us | 1 ... closures on student academic achievement ... of loss increases in the upper grades. ... Inequality in reading and math skills forms mainly before kindergarten: A replication,
https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2020/05/Collaborative-Brief_Covid19-Slide-APR20.pdf
https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/123/3/1073.short
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/17/why-covid-19-will-explode-existing-academic-achievement-gaps/
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime
Regards--
I think that parents should be at the frontline to make sure these disparities are not widened. Thanks to so many existing and emerging platforms, there are several free educational materials available to help in this direction. What is needed is parental control and guidance. Now that face-to-face contact is difficult, if not impossible, especially with other people whose pandemic status is challenging to know physically.
However, the challenge is low-income families who cannot afford online engagements.
Dear Aftab,
You have asked relevant questions.But you will be surprised that the youngsters who are serious about learning find their own way. We need to be patient and understand their need!
In reality, there is an increasing interest on the use of e-learning tools as a result of COVID-19 crisis. However, the use of blended learning (e-learning and face to face education ) is the best solution to reduce the risk of learning loss. I think that after COVID-19, some face to face sessions can help to reduce the learning gap.
The combined integrated learning approach between virtual and realistic learning must be adopted face-to-face and other paths of learning must be opened, such as augmented reality such as holograms and artificial intelligence applications.
For next academic year, more likely there will be a mix of online-only and hybrid teaching methods.
The hybrid approach includes both online and face-to face to different ratios for the delivery of contents.
However, if things get really bad because of Covid-19 health crisis, then faculty and students can switch completely to the online-only method of delivery.
Best regards
Prof. Dr. Mazin A. M. Al Janabi
Full Professor of Finance & Banking and Financial Engineering
EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey,
Santa Fe Campus, Mexico City, Mexico.
The covid-19 pandemic will take existing academic achievement differences between middle-class and low-income students and explode them.
Teachers, administrators, and parents have worked hard to keep learning alive; nevertheless, these efforts are not likely to provide the quality of education that’s delivered in the classroom.
I think there are many gaps and reducing them depends on the context. some gaps because of the availability of the electronic devises, others belongs to the shortage of resource, food, save environment. Thus, each context requires special solutions for its gaps.
for further information you can come through this website
https://www.worldbank.org/en/data/interactive/2020/03/24/world-bank-education-and-covid-19
Also you can find some insights from UNESCO website:
https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse
Yes, I agree, due to the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic, the quality of the teaching process may decline. In the period of March-June 2020, in many schools and universities, due to the development of the Coronavirus pandemic, a significant part of the didactic processes was converted into an e-learning form. Therefore, now there is a rapid increase in the use of ICT, Internet and some Industry 4.0 technologies in the applications of the processes of conducting classes in a remote form via the Internet. Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, in order to limit the development of the pandemic, classroom teaching in schools and universities has now been suspended in many countries and replaced by e-learning. Therefore, the key question that teachers and students are currently asking are mainly related to the period of consecutive weeks or months of continuing teaching only in the form of e-learning. In some countries, in order to limit the development of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, this period has been extended until the end of the school year, i.e. June 2020. In addition, a particularly important next question related to this issue that many teachers and students in many countries ask themselves is how to conduct final exams of a specific stage of education, whether the dates of these exams will not be postponed due to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic future dates and will the form of these exams be changed? For example, in a situation where certain final exams, e.g. matura exams were previously conducted as standard classroom examinations in the form of written and oral exams, now in many countries a decision has been made to abandon the oral form of exams. Currently, some countries already have final examinations carried out only remotely via the Internet. As part of e-learning, more and more teachers and students use e-learning applications and platforms through which real-time online classes are conducted remotely via the Internet (e.g. ZOOM, Google Meet, Microsoft Teems, Cisco Webex, Skype ...). Mobile devices enabling access to the Internet, i.e. mainly smartphones, are used more and more for this purpose. Therefore, the scale of mobile learning is growing. E-learning can be carried out in a passive and / or active formula. As part of passive e-learning, teachers send to e-learning platforms specific tasks, didactic materials, instructions, homework, topics of projects to be carried out, etc., while in active e-learning, teachers and students or students participate in online classes, in real-time using applications and internet messengers such as ZOOM, Google meet, Ms Office Teems, Skype and others. In connection with the above, currently (March-May 2020) there is a dynamic growth in the use of ICT, Internet information technologies and some Industry 4.0 technologies in the application of the processes of conducting classes in a remote form via the Internet. The growing importance and development of e-learning is also correlated with the current acceleration of the digitization of the economy. On the other hand, various inconveniences and problems arise due to the fact that didactic classes at universities have been converted into e-learning. Among other things, when it comes to conducting exams in a remote company, via the Internet. In addition, not all types of classes, including seminars and classes, can be conducted remotely via the Internet to the same extent and scope as compared to analogous classes conducted in a stationary form in schools and universities. For some types of study courses, some types of subjects, the e-learning form is currently not able to fully replace, in terms of pedagogical functionality, classroom classes conducted at schools and universities. So there are still many issues to improve in terms of the implementation of the didactic process in the form of e-learning. The process of improving remote teaching via the Internet should also be carried out after the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic is over, as the return of similar pandemics in the future cannot be ruled out. Therefore, it is necessary to answer these questions and to better prepare education systems for such eventuality.
Best regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
Excellent discussion. I congratulate all participating academicians. Keep up the good work
Thank you Aftab Amin The longer the isolation time, the more risk of psychological impact on parents and students. Other problems will affect students' learning, whether directly or indirectly including economic changes, family income, unemployment, death and illness in the family, and others.
Dear Dr Aftab:
"The pandemic has shone a spotlight on inequality in WW education : School closures and social isolation have affected all students, but particularly those living in poverty. Adding to the damage to their learning, a mental health crisis is emerging as many students have lost access to services that were offered by schools.
No matter what form school takes when the new year begins—whether students and teachers are back in the school building together or still at home—teachers will face a pressing issue: How can they help students recover and stay on track throughout the year even as their lives are likely to continue to be disrupted by the pandemic?
New research provides insights about the scope of the problem—as well as potential solutions.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/covid-19s-impact-students-academic-and-mental-well-being
https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2020/05/Collaborative-Brief_Covid19-Slide-APR20.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/coronavirus-education-lost-learning.html
Kind regards--
Gentle researchers I share a little pre-print technical report about the possible evolution of post COVID19 school. I hope this is useful for this topic. Have a nice week. --sv-- Technical Report Post-COVID19 pandemic school ecosystem: AR/VR classrooms as ...
Teaching adult migrants with low literacy, living in poverty, I have seen the digital divide widen during the pandemic as lack of digital infrastructure and lack of resources has reduced access to education. While some students have participated in interactive classroom instruction using smartphones, the lack of digital literacy has also reduced access to education. For many migrants, living in cramped quarters with many family members and many of those children, participation in instruction is challenged. For others, despite instruction in using smartphones prior to the shuttering of classrooms, a lack of abstract understanding contributed to their non-participation in instruction, believing that phones were not a learning platform and that the phones would only be used to talk to the teacher in an informal way. The vast majority of my students were unable to participate in classroom instruction for three months. The few who did participate engaged in texting, videoing, voice messaging and working on assignments at home. Scaffolding with visuals, especially video, some students participated at a 100% rate for three months and developed other skills---the ability to listen and respond more quickly using WhatsApp than they did in classrooms. We also developed interconnectedness as students shared photos and videos from inside their homes and those were used as the basis for developing language. Finally, as the teacher, I learned a great deal. We were all learning together and I had to become innovative with tools I had thought were irrelevant to low literacy learners. Now I am incorporating digital literacy as an essential part of the curriculum in the fall. I am inspired by learners' resilience and persistence.
COVID-19 has put remore learning in the front lines! Online learning is not as effective as traditional face to face learning especially when it come to teaching and learning practical hands-on skills.
Quite an interesting discussion.. definitely education sector has been hit badly due to COVID 19..Lack of access to virtual teaching tools especially in remote areas has affected teaching..
Dear Dr Aftab: the learning deficit gap could last a lifetime: Have a closer look at :
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime
Since early September, our school has been delivering in-class instruction with Covid precautions that are very strict. We have focused on digital literacy so that even ESL Level 1 learners (190-200 CASAS) are now familiar with Google Classroom and other aspects of digital literacy, in preparation for a future shutdown. As two cohorts were quarantined for two weeks, they went to distance learning without a hitch, the school providing Chromebooks to adult students who did not have a computer, and recommendations for accessing low-cost internet were provided, so that no students lacked access to the their online classroom! For my beginners, I am collaborating with their computer teacher to help students write and illustrate personal narrative books, using computers to type in handwritten text and Google Search to locate photos of their home countries or other pictures they want to use. Without the pandemic, we would not have been inspired to develop this focus and this project.
During the COVID19 period, I worked in two different regions. One was more disadvantaged. I implemented a three different and multimodality program in both regions. I have been using this program for 7 months and I have seen an effective development on the parents. They especially supported me and their children in innovative methods.
When many of us pivoted to distance learning for the first time in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020, it required a great deal of resilience, perseverance, and creativity, qualities that we observe in migrant learners every day. I became an emergent teacher after 17 years of teaching adult immigrants, and shared a successful journey with two classes of learners who are classified as Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education. But in the process, many students were lost because of lack of access to the internet, lack of computers, and lack of digital literacy. Over the summer, many of us (educators) immersed ourselves in webinars and other training, learning from our more experienced colleagues, and collaborating across the globe as well as locally, to develop plans for another shutdown.
As a result of this experience and planning, the shutdown that goes into effect in our school on Monday will likely lose no students. (When my class and I were quarantined four days ago, we were able to make a flawless transition to distance learning.) Our school prepared teachers over the summer with extensive training in Google Classroom, among other technologies. When our semester began in person in September, we all went to work preparing our students for distance learning. My ESL 1 students were engaged in daily digital literacy training with an experienced computer teacher who believed, like many of us, that we can set the bar high for our students and support their achievement in digital literacy just as we can for academic achievement.
As we know, the digital divide is a direct result of racist policies than perpetuate poverty, and, as a result, last Spring students were in effect abandoned because they lacked access to the internet and the equipment that would ensure their ability to engage in continued studies.
My school surveyed every student upon admittance in September and gathered data to identify their needs in order to determine the resources students needed for future distance learning. As a result, every student has been equipped with a Chromebook or laptop and ensured access to WiFi prior to shutdown.
At this time, 100% of my students are engaged in the same number of hours of instruction in distance learning as they were in classroom instruction. This is a dramatic departure than the situation we encountered six months ago.
My students' test scores are evidence of their success and improvement over the past two months of in-class instruction, including 3 students who improved 15-20 points each. I believe that it is possible that they will continue to progress during our time of distance learning, in large part because of the support and guidance of our school leadership, but also because of the extraordinary commitment students have to improving their lives, and their deep understanding of the profound impact that their current education will have on their achieving a full integration into their new host country. I remain in awe of them.
It is true that we really lost the charm of off line classes. The students attend online classes and school children are struggling to get the real meaning of scientific terms. But cost wise , it is cheap and disadvantaged people will benefit because they have to pay less amount for their education. No petrol cost and they can learn more provided they are interested and take initiative to learn. It is good and we can adopt blended learning. Thank you.
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