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eSchool News
Out of COVID crisis comes education’s opportunity
David J. Saltmarsh, ED.D., Global Education Strategist, JAMF
January 11th, 2021
There's no debating that COVID-19 brought chaos to education--but in
all that chaos may be a chance for education to reinvent itself
The COVID-19 crisis has caused unprecedented disruption to schools,
bringing a fractured landscape of reopened classrooms, distance
learning, and hybrid models that combine both.
While it’s tough to find silver linings in the pandemic, I think there
may be one for the American education system: an opportunity not only
to better leverage digitization to ensure the best outcomes for
students, but to reimagine many aspects of pedagogy entirely.
“In chaos, there is fertility,” the author Anais Nin wrote, and I
believe COVID-19 could be the impetus for long-overdue changes in
everything from teaching methods to school schedules. This could
improve education long after the pandemic has subsided.
I’ve been in the education field for 27 years and have traveled to
schools all around the world. While digitization is taking hold in many
communities, access to and integration of digital resources is thus far
inconsistent.
Meanwhile, many cling to traditional teaching models that prevent
students from learning in new ways and archaic practices such as
allowing athletics and a need for childcare to determine school
schedules, which is the main reason the typical school day starts at 8
a.m. when research shows adolescents don’t really wake up until 9.
Educators for years have discussed various ways of modernizing the
learning experience with more personalization, flexibility, and
interaction with digital tools.
This long list includes Technology-Enabled Active Learning (TEAL), a
collaborative, media-rich method that was pioneered in higher education
and, its proponents say, works well in secondary schools, and flipped
classrooms, a blended learning model where students are introduced to
content at home and work through it in the classroom.
COVID-19 puts more wind behind the sails of such initiatives because
techniques and curricula tailored to the individual needs of each
student have moved from idealistic goals to must-haves during the
crisis.
There are too many variables in the current environment for a
one-size-fits-all education approach, from differing degrees of
in-classroom vs. distance learning within states, districts, or even
schools, to disruption of a student’s routine to take care of a sick
parent or work a part-time job to help out financially during the
pandemic-driven recession.
COVID-19 has magnified the need for flexibility to allow each student to be fully engaged and learn at their own pace.
Addressing distance learning, a McKinsey study said school systems must
“determine the appropriate number of learning hours each day and the
proportion of those hours spent online for each age group. The split
between synchronous learning, with students taught together in real
time, and self-paced, asynchronous learning will vary as students
mature. So will the mix of large groups, small groups, and one-on-one
instruction.”
Such considerations are urgent because of the pandemic, but the actions
that educators take now and the lessons they learn from them could form
the basis of long-term changes in education practice in a digital world.
Nothing should be off the table when it comes to reimagining the post-COVID education future.
For the next six months, for example, why not reduce teachers’ number
of classroom and online instruction days to three and let them devote
the other two to professional development? After all, teachers
simultaneously are being required to change their instructional
practices for distance learning and become digital mavens. It’s a big
ask, and they need the training to get it right. Empathy for teachers,
while often touted in the media, needs actionable mitigation. They,
like everyone else, are dealing with the same circumstances of
disruption to their family routine, the same economic stressors and
concerns.
We have an opportunity to consider replacing the traditional school day
scheduling that may not be conducive to the needs of all students with
more elastic schemes that better reflect today’s digital realities. In
her book, “Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning – Learning in the Age
of Empowerment,” Beatrice McGarvey cited examples of organizational
change that places the needs of the student at the center of decisions
on when, where, and how learning should take place.
Why not employ more “mass customization,” which sounds like an oxymoron
but is a way of tailoring instruction to each student’s needs and
interests through a self-paced curriculum? TEAL fits into this
strategy, even out of the classroom. Technology-enabled customization
is not limited to the content. With the right tools, school leaders and
teachers can adjust learners’ access resource and device-based
privileges to meet the students’ ever-adjusting readiness.
While the pandemic has school systems scrambling to drive student
engagement amid extraordinary disruption, the technologies and
practices being put to use now can not only preserve the education
experience in the near term but enhance pedagogy well into the future.
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