WILL THE ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHING CHANGE after Covid 19 is contained?

 

April, 2020, I wrote about Flipped classrooms where the conventional notion of classroom-based learning is inverted (not included in my Google blogs).  

Children are introduced, via online, to the focus of learning and / or a task working on the problem independently (or with a parent) at home. The next day teachers in the classroom, work with small groups or individuals to enhance understandings and to progress each child’s learning’ and to set in motion more individual planning.

The Economist newspaper, 26th June, 2021 in an article titled ‘Catching up is hard to do’, advocated the same idea of working online at home [or dedicated study rooms at school] and personalizing the learning happening in the classroom.

The economist suggests that ‘rich world’s schools were running out of puff’. International tests are indicating that children are scoring ‘no better than they did two decades ago’. Older students are not engaged even though curriculums in some countries have been ‘stripped back’.

‘The crisis has thrust technology on a profession that has been slow to adopt it’, schools invested in mainly tablets which are ‘proving useful in providing live translation of lessons, especially for children whose first language is not English’.

As ‘pupils are not well-served by ‘one size fits all’ approach to schooling’, ‘to facilitate individual growth learners need varying kinds of assistance’.

Although in this article there are warnings about technology not being the cure for all to achieve successful learning outcomes, it may encourage teachers to work more effectively using Edtech as a resource allowing teachers to work with individual children. For example, new material delivered to a whole class at the start of lessons, might be taught through videos for students to view outside the classroom. Some teachers could produce video lessons while others ‘plough their efforts into helping individual pupils’.

In Colorado (Studio for Academic Excellence), ‘[Older] students are only required to attend school in person’ two or three times a week. They independently learn online the rest of time. This frees up teachers to provide extra help to those who need it’.

Advantages:

§ The pandemic school closures have improved links between all parents and teachers.

§ The assumption is that students ‘blossom’ in this atmosphere - online and 1-1 tutoring.

§ It seems a great way for students to increase their growth; they work more independently with the knowledge that support is still there.

§ Schools have invested in technology e.g. tablets for individual use.

§ Teachers have had to become experienced in the use of online learning. Some teachers will be great at creating virtual lessons while others will be great at tutoring.

§ Small group learning is already part of the classroom pedagogy. Will one-on-one tutoring become core parts of the education system? It should!

§ Assuming that this type of learning applies to older students, they work at their own pace and level of ability.

Disadvantages

§ As stated in the article students like to be among their friends and teachers.

§ Quick adjustments to teacher explanations via online will not happen until the next day.

§ Teachers will have students asking questions on-screen, after teaching hours.

§ Tasks / information prepared by one teacher for the internet would necessitate that s/he knows where students / teachers are at in the learning projection. There may be the need for periodic changes in roles.

§ It seems that even this seemingly more flexible arrangement, ‘one-size fits all’ could creep into the tasks / information set online – differentiated learning may not happen.

§ This change in organization would have to be carefully planned and all would need to make the changed thinking of teacher roles, a success.

- Learning cannot hop all over the place. Planning would be a collaborative affair. This does happen in some schools, but all schools?

- Classroom teachers may want the status quo remain or they may want to prepare online and work with small groups and/or 1-1 with their students, themselves.

- Working 1-on-1 in today’s classrooms, generally, does not regularly happen, but it could – for example, having the proclivity to schedule 1-1 with few students each day for a longer period of time and ensuring within a 3-week schedule, all students meet with the teacher.

- Schools set aside supervised spaces for independent study - more physical space and more teachers required (although this could be seen as an advantage!).

- The assumption is that many subjects are involved, for example, mathematics, topic research, science.