As the school year begins in many parts of the world, concerns over the safety of students and their families has led to education during COVID-19 being limited. Most schools have incorporated some level of online distance learning into their curriculums, and the amount of schools which are fully open to students are minimal. Parents are concerned that the quality of students’ education at home doesn’t reach the same quality as school in person, and rightfully so. From a technological barrier for economically disadvantaged families to a lack of personal interaction for elementary school students, the effects on education during COVID-19 may be able to be observed well into the future.
Online learning comes with its own set of issues for early education during COVID-19. During early years, students often learn the best through face to face interaction. Teachers find it incredibly challenging to make learning interactive for young students and also fostering long-term relationships with them. Some parents have decided to completely shift to home schooling, which is more well-established than normal schools’ attempts at online schooling. The challenge is even greater for students with special needs. Considering that limiting screen time is essential for many students, it is difficult for special needs students to participate in the same activities that they may have participated in while they attended school. Some parents are advocating for their special needs children to be able to attend school so that they are able to receive the highest quality education possible.
However, it is possible that learning at home may cause not cause sufficient damage to education. In fact, learning at home may actually be beneficial for some students.
Schooling Options
Dr. Timothy M. Wagner, a principal at Upper Saint Clair High School in Pennsylvania, provided us with some insight on what schools are planning for education during COVID-19. “There are two options right now, and these options are based on the guidance that has come from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and also the Allegheny County Health Department,” Dr. Wagner explained.
For students who want to remain as safe as possible, an option that they have is complete remote learning. Remote learning incorporates both asynchronous learning, which students are able to complete at any time prior to the due date of assignments, and synchronous learning, which involves attending class via a video call using services such as Zoom or Google Meets.
If students desire to be in an in-person environment as frequently as possible, it would be in their best interests to choose a hybrid model. Students who choose to follow a hybrid model for schooling are split into two groups, and each group will be able to attend school in person two times a week, with the rest of the week’s schooling being held online. At Dr. Wagner’s school, one group will be attending school on Monday and Tuesday, and the other group will be attending school Thursday and Friday. This is being done in an attempt to lower the population of students that are present at school in order for people at school to be able to practice social distancing.
Dr. Wagner emphasized that the way that the structure of education during COVID-19 is heavily dependent on new developments and guidance from healthcare professionals. “We keep watching the guidance from the state and also the Allegheny County Health Department, because we will adjust our model based on whatever their mandates and guidelines are.
The choice for students between in-person and at-home learning can be made based on their own desires for safety and which environment is best for their learning. Many students desire in-person learning in order to benefit from the social interaction that it provides. Furthermore, if there is a coronavirus case that becomes present in a school, the entire school won’t have to enter quarantine due to social distancing guidelines.
The form of learning that students had to experience during the spring of 2020 heavily influenced the new academic year’s education as well. “Last spring, when we were in sort of an emergency situation, there was not a lot of synchronous learning.” In order to foster good communication between students and their instructors, synchronous learning has been incorporated into both forms of education.
Changes and Disparities in Classes
Without a doubt, many classes that would typically involve hands-on learning, most notably science classes, have had to make adaptations to the current situation. Labs for science classes have either been converted into presentations that can be accessed online or have been pushed back to the spring, when it is more likely that a greater proportion of students will be able to return to school in-person with minimal safety concerns. Classes that would normally require normal instruction and independent work, on the other hand, have been able to adapt to the situation much more easily. “In some ways, AP World History hasn’t had to make as many adjustments as AP Chemistry, for instance,” explains Dr. Wagner.
A surprising fact is that there hasn’t been a significant impact to the performance of AP and IB students due to the coronavirus. “The data that I’ve seen so far indicates that our students were highly successful as they always were on their end-of-course exams.” Changes to exams during the previous academic semester certainly had an influence, but it is notable that students were still able to sufficiently prepare for their exams while at home.
Most students tend to thrive while learning at school, but others have discovered that they have the best learning experience at home. This will undoubtedly cause long-term changes in education. Some students, and even some parents, can benefit from having their students learning at home instead of having to be present at school. If it is popular enough by the public, the option between at-home learning and in-person learning may be here to stay after the COVID-19 pandemic diminishes.
The Long Term Effects of Online Learning and the Achievement Gap
Dr. Wagner explains the lack of information retention that education during COVID-19 may bring. “I think we see in all grades across the country, a little bit of a regression over the summer, the ‘summer slide’ it’s called in research… I think we have to be vigilant to ensure that during back-to-school this year, that true rigorous learning continues.” Dr. Wagner is correct; the summer slide is generally observed when school begins each year.
However, the world has a new phenomenon on its hands, which some are calling the “COVID slide.” This “slide” is observable through testing. Many students periodically complete a MAP test, or “Measure of Academic Progress” test. This test measures the rate of academic growth in a student, both in reading and math. NWEA, or Northwest Evaluation Association, the company who administers the MAP tests, recently released a report about COVID-19 and its effects on learning and retention. Their projections showed drastic impacts on students’ retention of information. Students, when compared to a normal school year, only had 70 percent of the reading learning gains. Math retention is even worse, as students are projected to have less than 50 percent of the learning gains. Therefore, as Dr. Wagner said, it is crucial that schools make sure that kids are still learning.
When Dr. Wagner was asked about roadblocks concerning online learning, he responded that “…one of the major roadblocks is just an equipment roadblock… There has to be the support in terms of equipment, so, a chromebook, or an iPad and then also, reliable internet access.” For schools, such as Upper St. Clair, which already have 1-to-1 technology for most students, the move isn’t terribly difficult in terms of connecting students to their teachers.
Zoom classes are already commonplace in colleges and universities this fall. However, for schools who don’t have as many resources or equipment, it’s likely the switch will be difficult and costly. For poorer schools, a lack of equipment isn’t the only problem. There are already significant achievement gaps between low and high income students. For example, according to research conducted by Econofact, “The children who have been persistently disadvantaged since kindergarten score 0.94 standard deviations behind those who have never been eligible — about 3 grades behind.” This fact coupled with the projected decline from NWEA suggests that poorer students will be even more disadvantaged, and the achievement gap will widen.
In general, it seems that education during this crisis will vary based on location, but without proper resources or careful efforts to help children succeed, this pandemic’s effects could seriously harm students well into the future. After the end of this school year, professionals in education will be able to make an “apples to apples” comparison between student performance between this year and the previous academic year to determine whether learning during quarantine has an overall positive or negative impact on students’ learning.