ABSTRACT
Children and young people with disability are a "vulnerable" population within a pandemic context as they face structural inequities and discrimination as a result of their impairments. In this paper, we report research that sought to examine the learning experiences of children and young people with disability during the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted to understand how this group fared and whether different interventions impacted on these experiences. Data were collected from an online survey organized by Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) that garnered responses from more than 700 families. The study contributes empirical evidence to the growing literature about COVID-19-related impacts on learners already recognized as experiencing multiple disadvantages in schooling. We find some significant gaps in supports offered to students with disability and their families. Notwithstanding that some students did not receive any support from their schools, where supports were offered, social supports had the greatest positive impact on feelings of learner engagement. Our findings support key propositions in the social and emotional learning literature, namely that particular resourcing should be dedicated to social interaction and feelings of belonging as these are crucial to learners engaging in learning processes. There are clear implications of these findings in terms of what educational institutions might do to help engage students with disability in remote learning.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the educational experiences of diverse student populations throughout the country and among Virginia public schools. English Learners (ELs) had a unique set of needs and services prior to the pandemic, and potentially were more vulnerable to pandemic-related disruptions in typical school operations than other student groups. We analyze statewide, student-level administrative data on the composition of the EL population, the identification for and reclassification out of EL services, and the exit of ELs from public school enrollment in kindergarten through grade twelve between the 2010-11 and 2020-21 school years to examine changes between the pre-pandemic period and first post-pandemic onset year (2020-21). Our key findings include the following: (1) Following the onset of the pandemic, the number of students classified as EL decreased for the first time in a decade. Specifically, whereas the number of students classified as EL increased by 26.0% (25,171 more students) between 2010-11 and 2019-20, the number of students classified as EL decreased by 3.2% (3,852 fewer students) between 2019-20 and the first post-pandemic onset year (2020-21). (2) There was a 21.6% decline (6,223 fewer students) in the number of Virginia K-12 public school students newly identified for EL services in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20. The drop in new EL identification occurred across student groups, but was largest among Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students, and ninth graders. (3) The number of EL students reclassified as fully English proficient decreased by 57.3% (8,169 fewer students) in 2020-21 as compared to the pre-pandemic period. This decline is nearly three times the size of the previous largest year-to-year change. The drops in reclassification among ELs occurred across student groups and were somewhat larger among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students. (4) EL students' exits from Virginia public schools in the post-pandemic onset were a continuation of pre-pandemic trends and did not meaningfully vary by race/ethnicity, economically disadvantaged status, or disability status.
ABSTRACT
In this study, a comparative analysis was conducted to explore how students' learning outcomes were potentially influenced by student engagement during different modes of instruction. The study compared the final mean grade point averages (GPAs) of a sample (N = 600) of middle school students during in-person, online, and hybrid modes of instruction. The sample group was divided into two subgroups (Group 1: n = 300 and Group 2: n = 300). The designated timeframes for the evaluation were before the COVID-19 pandemic (sixth grade, 2018-2019), at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (seventh grade, 2019-2020), and during the COVID-19 pandemic (eighth grade, 2020-2021) to determine if student engagement affected academic achievement. The three data analyses used to compare the students' final mean GPAs included: (a) Paired t-test (between in-person and online instruction when compared among the entire sample);(b) One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA (among in-person, online, and hybrid instruction when compared for Group 2);and (c) Independent Samples t-test (between online and hybrid instruction for the entire sample). The results from the analyses indicated there was no statistically significant difference when students transitioned from in-person before the pandemic to online instruction at the onset of the pandemic. However, a statistically significant difference was shown when students transitioned from online to online or online to hybrid instruction throughout the pandemic. Recommendations for practice and future research focusing on students' needs were presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
The present mixed methods study aimed to understand the challenges faced by teachers of the gifted and how elementary gifted learners were supported and taught during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was administered to 310 elementary school teachers of the gifted across the United States between March and June 2021, one year after initial school closings. Focus groups were utilized to further explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the work of teachers of the gifted in their schools. Educators shared lessons learned from this experience related to (a) a better understanding of how to utilize remote instruction, (b) reimagining the gifted education classroom, and (c) use of a variety of strategies to provide more student choice, differentiation, and individualized pace. Results from this study provide insights that can guide educators, curriculum specialists, and school administrators to improve online instruction for gifted learners in the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2022, the Center on Reinventing Public Education convened a panel of education and youth development experts to take stock of recent efforts to address students' mental health and well-being and to reestablish core elements of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools. The panel agreed that the pandemic's impact has been complex, but that there have been few dynamic and collaborative efforts to address it. While the experts recognized the tremendous demands placed on teachers to address students' academic as well as social and emotional needs, they noted that the kind of innovation they called for in 2021 (e.g., new kinds of learning environments, partnerships, and funding models for mental health and social skill development) had yet to materialize. The panelists arrived at three calls to action that reflect the challenges and opportunities young people are facing. Specifically, they call for policymakers and advocates to: (1) Embrace technological innovations that can improve student well-being while still honoring the fundamental need for human relationships;(2) Overcome turf wars and divisions;embrace "big tent" thinking for social and emotional development and well-being support;and (3) Build new, integrated monitoring and response systems to address the urgent needs of young people.
ABSTRACT
E-learning has increased through the years in MLIS programs, a trend that has been intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some students choose to take online classes;others have been required to do so by the pandemic. This raises the question: Are students properly prepared to learn online? For this study, researchers created an E-Learning Guide with resources and tips for e-learning. Several sessions were offered during orientation for incoming graduate students in a Library and Information Science program in the northeast United States. During these sessions, the researchers reviewed the E-Learning Guide. Students were surveyed immediately after the sessions and at the end of the semester to learn what, if any, resources were useful. Based on the results, students appreciated having a synchronous session wherein the researchers reviewed the E-Learning Guide, having specific resources to use for e-learning, and having access to a guide with resources for e-learning.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for and value of delivering high quality online learning experiences. Engaging students in an online environment poses unique challenges, such as cultivating a community of shared learning, encouraging student buy-in, and focusing student attention, which may be more easily achieved in an in-person setting. Despite these challenges, high student engagement and learning in an online environment is possible. The process of engaging students as active members of an online learning community begins with the recognition of what GenZ students need and requires intentionality in aligning these needs with instructor goals and course learning objectives. Thus, this paper is a shared narrative from an instructor-student writing team that highlights the synergy of instructor practices and techniques and student behaviors and attitudes that promote a quality online learning environment for students enrolled in Clemson University's Youth Development undergraduate minor in the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department. © 2023 National Recreation and Park Association.
ABSTRACT
For rural locations, the use of remote learning may provide schools the opportunity to meet student needs without requiring students to travel long distances to access services. It is critical that teachers of students with disabilities understand how to support learning and know how to use the accommodations, modifications, and assistive technologies listed in student Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) in online classrooms. Students with language disabilities sometimes require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems to effectively communicate. This article provides teachers with practical tips of teaching students to use AAC online and supporting its continued use in the virtual classroom.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research is to evaluate the disabled education in accordance with the quality of inclusive education in the distance education process in line with the opinions of special education teachers. The research was conducted with 10 special education teachers who were teaching special education and general education in schools with special needs students in Kazakhstan and who agreed to participate in the research voluntarily. The research was designed in accordance with the case study, one of the qualitative research designs. Research data were collected with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. As a result of the research, it was revealed that the teachers used online lessons, video sharing, homework control, online activities and mobile applications in the teaching of the lessons in the distance education process, they preferred formal education to distance education, and they found distance education insufficient to meet the individual needs of students in learning. In addition, teachers stated that they found family participation in distance education and teacher-student peer interaction insufficient. The results obtained from the research revealed the necessity of eliminating the obstacles in the education of the disabled in accordance with the quality of inclusive education.
ABSTRACT
Background: This article describes teachers' equity concerns related to teaching mathematics online as a result of the COVID-19 pivot to online/distance-based instruction. COVID-19 restrictions forced the creation of virtual education contexts that magnified existing equity issues related to access to technology and the challenges of providing inquiry-based, student-centered instruction. Methods: This study took place under conditions promulgated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nine teachers agreed to share their observations and experiences with the sudden switch to teaching mathematics online. Our methods included two online open response surveys. We qualitatively analyzed the responses from the surveys, coding for a priori, and emergent themes (Charmaz, 1995, Emerson et al., 2011). Findings: The results indicate that our participants experienced concerns for students and families struggling to effectively engage with and access online education, and shared the practices and online tools they found most and least helpful in enacting equitable instruction. Contribution: This work sheds light on how skilled and caring teachers leveraged prior experiences, collegial support, and technological tools to meet the challenges brought by the sudden transition to online mathematics pedagogy.
ABSTRACT
Before the pandemic, Community Works in New Orleans, Louisiana ran large-group (100- to 200-student) after-school and out-of-school-time programs that integrated enrichment and academics for youth in grades K-8. When school buildings closed in March 2020, Community Works started offering more versatile programming options to meet the needs of their students, inclusive of various virtual programs and some in-person after-school and daytime programs. They then shifted their focus from their virtual programming options to facilitate operation of two learning pods, one funded and located within the local K-8 public school for the children of teachers and one composed of mostly homeschooled students that was housed in their office building and funded by the Vela Education Fund. This report discusses how an organization with experience running out-of-school-time programs proved well positioned to support students during the pandemic by providing enrichment that supplemented the remote instruction they received from schools and by prioritizing students' social and emotional well-being. Supporting full-blown school replacement for families new to homeschooling created new challenges for an organization used to supporting supplemental activities, especially because some families did not know they were expected to provide curricula.
ABSTRACT
In this report, we complement our latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel with in-depth interviews of leaders on the ground in five school systems. Our goal with these interviews was to learn from system leaders about the academic needs of children as they return to school, how districts and charter schools are addressing those needs, and how the pandemic has affected schools. In Brief: (1) Education leaders across the country recognize that students are falling behind academically during the pandemic. Some districts are responding by emphasizing grade-level instruction and just-in-time supports rather than remediation. We interviewed top leaders in five school systems committed to this approach to learn more about its implementation, (2) We found that implementing acceleration required school systems to work with schools in new ways, but the strategy was complicated by a host of factors that made getting to instruction difficult: challenging student behaviors, staffing shortages, and the politicization of health, safety, and education. All these pressures have made leading school districts in 2021-22 like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole, and (3) School districts across the country are working hard to catch students up. But the Whack-A-Mole experience of leading during the pandemic raises questions about how these pressures will affect system leaders and leadership and whether, in the future, schools alone will be able to do enough to help all students get the help they need to recover. [For latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel, "Flux in the Educator Labor Market: Acute Staff Shortages and Projected Superintendent Departures. Selected Findings from the Fourth American School District Panel Survey. Data Note: Insights from the American Educator Panels. Research Report. RR-A956-9," see ED617372.]
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic presented new challenges for educators who teach students with disabilities (SWD). Research on the experiences of SWD during the pandemic is limited, but what is known suggests that SWD access to services and supports declined during the pandemic and that steeper learning losses are likely. Pandemic interruptions may be particularly problematic for secondary SWD because they missed out on critical preparation experiences while approaching the transition to college and career. Given these disruptions, it is critical that educators have the support and training they need to accelerate learning for SWD moving forward. This report presents national survey findings from secondary school principals and educators from the spring of the 2020-2021 school year, exploring educators' access to and use of supports for teaching SWD. The analysis focuses on the roles that teachers play and the service delivery models that they use for teaching SWD.
ABSTRACT
Hyde Park Neighborhood Club (HPNC) is a small, hyper-local community-based organization that, before the pandemic, provided after-school care and enrichment to children living on the South Side of Chicago. During the pandemic, HPNC created a learning pod for children in grades K-8 to provide parents in the community with childcare and students with online learning support. HPNC staff supervised students' online learning and provided social experiences that were designed to mimic those that students would experience in school in a normal year. Key Lessons: (1) a community organization that provided after-school programs overcame scheduling challenges and competing parent demands to provide in-person support and enrichment to students in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood when school buildings closed during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, and (2) the organization hopes to provide more structured individual support to students after the pandemic, but faces logistical barriers and, more critically, a shortage of clear funding sources.
ABSTRACT
Parent engagement contributes greatly to the teachers and parents as well as the child. Within the scope of this study, it was aimed to examine the opinions and practices of preschool teachers about parent engagement studies during pandemic period in depth. For this purpose, phenomenology, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. 53 preschool teachers who were determined with the maximum diversity sampling method participated in the study. The study employed a semi-structured interview form. The researchers gathered the study's data through online interviews and one-on-one phone calls with preschool teachers. The audio recordings from the participants' interviews were transcribed, and then inductive and comparative analysis were conducted. As a result of the research, the theme of parent engagement in the pandemic includes the parent as the teacher, activities, engagement problems and strategies to increase engagement. Research findings have shown that parent engagement has become necessary, even mandatory, especially during the pandemic period. Even, in this period, the concept of the parent as a proxy teacher draws attention. This research results showed that the importance of parents' engagement in education and parents' becoming better equipped in the education of their children. At the microsystem level, it is clear that the Ministry of Education should encourage parent engagement. At this time, it appears to be beneficial in terms of both addressing gaps in this area and following up-to-date studies by offering in-service training to teachers on Ministry of Education parent engagement studies. Furthermore, rather than relying on teachers' initiative, the Ministry should make parent engagement works mandatory.
ABSTRACT
This brief summarizes a case study that assessed the gendered impact of COVID-19 school closures in Kenya. COVID-19 school closures escalated education inequalities especially for girls and young people in rural areas. These closures exacerbated adolescent mental health issues, food and economic insecurity, and experiences of violence. COVID-19 response programs implemented by both the Government of Kenya and non-state actors were not able to fully mitigate the impacts of school closures for adolescents, teachers, or schools. Continued efforts to understand the implications of school closures and to support vulnerable students are needed. [This brief was prepared with the support of Faith Mbushi, Natalie Wyss, Emily EunYoung Cho, Karen Austrian, Eva Muluve, Laura Muthoni, and Beth Kangwana.]
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic upended math instruction--but not equitably. Although little is known about the quality of math instruction in different school settings during the 2020-2021 school year, evidence from national survey data collected throughout the pandemic suggests that students' "opportunity to learn" (OTL)--defined here as time on instruction and content coverage--differed dramatically depending on whether students were learning in person or through an alternative mode of instruction. This Date Note presents findings from the 2020 and 2021 Learn Together Surveys to highlight the challenges to standards-aligned instruction that secondary (grades 6 to 12) math teachers might have perceived one year into the pandemic, how frequently they skipped standards-aligned math content, and their reasons for doing so. These findings add to the growing body of evidence showing that students in fully remote and hybrid school settings had fewer opportunities to engage with grade-level math than students learning in person. Specifically, secondary math teachers who provided remote or hybrid instruction reported skipping standards-aligned content more frequently and were less likely to report being able to devote as much time as they would have liked to math instruction compared with their in-person counterparts. These findings are particularly significant for students who attended schools that were less likely to offer in-person instruction during the 2020-2021 school year.
ABSTRACT
Online education was the exception rather than the norm of the English school system prior to March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in two periods of government-directed school closure from March to July 2020 and again from January to March 2021. These closures necessitated a transformation to online education almost overnight. Although much of the work set for students was a transfer of tasks appropriate for a physical classroom uploaded onto digital platforms, some adjustments had to be made to ensure it remained appropriate and effective. As time went on and colleagues developed their techno-pedagogical maturity, so too did the interactive nature of lessons improve. Yet, these elements were enhanced on a broader scale not merely by colleagues' successful adaptation to the digital classroom, but also by their development of pastoral approaches to teaching beyond the physical classroom. Teachers who invested pastorally in their digital communities created, fostered and were able to shape the culture of online education more purposefully and effectively for their students, increased a sense of inclusion, and thus better provided for equity amongst their student bodies, aiming to limit and narrow the academic and pastoral gap between students from low socio-economic backgrounds and their peers.
ABSTRACT
Following the World Health Organization's announcement of the global pandemic because of the Coronavirus Disease 2019, most Canadian universities transitioned to offering their courses exclusively online. One group affected by this transition was students with disabilities. Previous research has shown that the university experience for students with disabilities differs from those of their non-disabled peers. However, their unique needs are often not taken into consideration. As a result, students can become marginalized and alienated from the online classroom. In partnership with Student Accessibility Services, this research revealed the impact of the transition to online learning because of the pandemic for university students with disabilities. Students registered with Student Accessibility Services completed a survey about the effects of online learning during a pandemic on the students' lives, education, and instructional and accommodation. It was clear from the results that online education during COVID-19 affected all aspects of the students' lives, particularly to their mental health. This research provided a much-needed opportunity for students with disabilities to share the factors influencing their educational experience and identified recommendations instructors should consider when developing online courses to increase accessibility and improve engagement.
ABSTRACT
This interview piece addresses the following questions: Does the COVID-19 pandemic offer any lessons for moral character education? Do the experiences of students, educators, and communities during the pandemic illustrate the importance of aspects of character education that may have been known but taken for granted? The three authors bring to this the perspectives of a philosopher of moral psychology and education (Curren, the interviewer), a clinical psychologist and co-founder of self-determination theory (SDT), a systematic approach in the psychology of motivation, development, and well-being (Ryan), and a moral theorist focused on mindfulness and virtue (Barber).