7 predictions about pandemic learning
Each 12 months, we share our 10 most-read tales. Not surprisingly, a lot of this 12 months’s Top 10 targeted on pupil engagement and on-line or hybrid learning methods associated to pandemic educating. This 12 months’s Number 1 most-read story focuses on what back-to-school appears to be like like throughout pandemic learning.
As colleges throughout the nation open their school rooms for a return to full in-person learning, educators, mother and father, and stakeholders are questioning what the autumn will carry. Concerns about COVID surges and a return to distant or hybrid learning aren’t removed from educators’ minds.
When colleges throughout the nation began shutting down in-person instruction in March of 2020 in response to the COVID-19 virus, a lot of the nation’s focus turned to COVID’s rapid and long-term impression on college students.
Educators, mother and father, stakeholders, and policymakers marvel how a lot learning loss occurred, how colleges can mitigate the impression on college students, and–maybe most urgent of all–what back-to-school will appear like within the fall.
As colleges start the 2021-2022 college 12 months, researchers and executives on the nonprofit NWEA are sharing predictions about the short- and long-term academic impacts we are able to anticipate to see.
1. Back to high school won’t imply “back to normal”: “If we expect back-to-school to be back to normal, then we missed the mark. Nothing about the past year was typical. Each student was impacted by the pandemic differently so our approach to recovery must be as unique as them. And it can’t just be about catching kids up by cramming more into the following year or holding them back. We must focus on the critical areas of unfinished learning while also attending to the mental well-being of our kids: many of whom completely disconnected from their teachers and peers for an entire year and may just now be returning back. The arc of their education will look very different (and it must) than for students who had continued access to learning. We must also recognize that we’re still at mile one of a massive marathon. While the pandemic may be subsiding as more and more vaccines are available, the long-term impacts of this past year are yet to be fully understood. From a kindergarten bubble coming this fall to better, more equitable approaches to grading policies – our education system has and will continue to be fundamentally changed. It’s time to challenge what returning to normal means and ask, ‘What will it take to truly commit to the success of all kids?’” – Chris Minnich, CEO, NWEA
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
