Is Covid-19 a Game-Changer for Education?

Climate ActionEducation
Written By Chris Wright
 

Are we at the tipping point of innovation?

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a dramatic interruption in the way we do schooling across the globe. Schools in SE Asia have been shut since January and in the US, Europe and Australasia since March in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus.

Necessity has called us to reimagine our educational constructs as schools on a global scale are dramatically changing their pedagogical delivery – in a way that many of us would not have thought possible just a few short months ago.The World Economic Forum sees a silver lining in the dark COVID-19 cloud, citing it as a “catalyst” that could finally change “centuries-old, lecture-based approaches to teaching, entrenched institutional biases, and outmoded classrooms.” Or as one school superintendent reportedly said, “This was a nice, swift kick in the ass to get out there and innovate.”

When school campuses reopen it will be not a simplistic choice between rebooting of what we did before or a complete change to system design but a re-evaluation of what we are trying to do | what we hold as important.

This is our moment to reimagine education.

“I guess it’s better late than never to discover the obvious. Parents and superintendents are vanquishing the needless infliction of nonsense known as homework. Standardized testing is being cancelled, an actual miracle. Colleges have recognized that enrolling students next Fall is more important than SAT or ACT scores. Each of these emergency measures has been advocated by sentient educators forever. So, there is reason to celebrate (briefly), but then you must act! Use this time to remake schooling in a way that’s more humane, creative, meaningful, and learner centred. This is your moment! Each of us needs to create models of possibility.”
- This is Our Moment!, Gary S Stager, 27 March 2020


What are we learning?

One of our early lessons is that you cannot just replicate what happens in a face-to-face classroom to the virtual environment. Attempts to do so leave both teachers and students exhausted in video-conferences and assignments that take much longer to complete at a distance.

“Simply perpetuating our prescriptive approach to teaching will not hold up in this moment of crisis, which demands from teachers not just to replicate their lessons in another medium, but to find entirely new responses to what people learn, how people learn, where people learn and when they learn. Technology cannot just change methods of teaching and learning, it can also elevate the role of teachers from imparting received knowledge towards working as co-creators of knowledge, as coaches, as mentors and as evaluators. It can enable teachers and students to access specialised materials well beyond textbooks, in multiple formats and in ways that can bridge time and space. Technology can support new ways of teaching that focus on learners as active participants. These are precisely the learning tools that are needed in the 21st century.” 
- How can teachers and school systems respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? Some lessons from TALIS, Andreas Schleicher, Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills 23 March 2020

The role of the teacher is being redefined - a move away from deliverer of content to facilitator and coach. Teachers are facilitating tasks that require greater levels of student independence and agency. This means that the teacher needs to focus more on providing quicker formative feedback, concentrating on skills and understanding of tasks.

The relationship between school and home is changing. Classroom walls have been knocked down overnight, and parents share the classroom with the teacher and student. Parents are being given a deep insider look into the educational process like never before. There is definitely a new level of transparency, where parents can witness teachers teach. Will parents in the future demand ubiquitous oversight of their children’s learning? Will all players - parents, teachers and students - change their expectations and behaviours based on their online experiences? Will all demand less 'classroom' time?

Collaboration between schools has never been so rich. As schools prepared for campus shut down they shared their contingency plans (which I captured an signposted in Covid-19: Head of School - What's your contingency plan?) and as online learning became the norm they shared lessons learned on a weekly basis (Lessons we are learning about teaching and learning online). The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined how interconnected people of the world are. In the future our students will understand their interconnectedness  and navigate across boundaries to leverage their differences and work in a globally collaborative way.

The challenge of how we assess student progress and achievement has been brought into sharp relief with the cancellation of international examinations all over the globe. But it has also raised concerns about not only how we are testing but what we are testing. Is this an opportunity of moving summative assessment away from high-stakes examinations to exhibitions of learning where students present their work portfolio style? Here the teacher acts as a facilitator helping students curate their work.

Management

We have learnt anew the importance of having systems and protocols in place. We have also learnt that meetings can be shorter online! How will this change how we do business (will staff meetings become collaborative learning space online? What about leadership meetings | board meetings)?

People matter: We have learnt the beauty of human contact, of being with each other and sharing life's ups and downs. Is this our greatest learning: that people matter, everyone is precious? Africans have much to teach us in their lovely concept of ubuntu: 'I am because we are', or as an African proverb has it: "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So far, many of the experiences of virtual schools has exposed how ed tech has largely failed to do what would be most powerful: leverage the relationship between teacher and learner, as opposed to just broadcasting stuff. However, pair good teachers, who coach and facilitate, with good content and good tech (adaptive, interactive learning platforms that personalise learning), and the sky is the limit.

Not to do: “Great organizations had a stop-doing list longer than their to-do list...something to think about when we start the 'future' conversation.” (Kevin Bartlett)

Practice “Less us, more them”: Anytime a teacher feels the impulse to intervene in an educational transaction, it is worth pausing, taking a breath, and asking, “Is there less that I can do and more that the student(s) can do?” The more agency shifted to the student, the more they will learn. One exercise you can practice teaching online, as well as face-to-face, is talk less. If you typically lecture for 40 minutes, try 20. If you talk for 20 minutes, try 10. If you talk for 10, try 5. In my experience, there is rarely an instance in which a minute or two of instruction is insufficient before asking students to do something. While teaching online, try not to present content, but rather stimulate discussion or organize activities to maximize student participation. Piaget reminds us that “knowledge is a consequence of experience.” (Gary Stager, 26 March 2020)

Reflect

"The slow pace of change in academic institutions globally is lamentable, with centuries-old, lecture-based approaches to teaching, entrenched institutional biases, and outmoded classrooms. However, COVID-19 has become a catalyst for educational institutions worldwide to search for innovative solutions in a relatively short period of time." (World Economic Forum)

“It’s a great moment for learning. Students will take ownership over their learning, understanding more about how they learn, what they like, and what support they need. They will personalize their learning, even if the systems around them won’t. Real change takes place in deep crisis." (Andreas Schleicher, OECD)

“What I am pretty sure about, though, is this: Things are probably never going back to the way they were before. Not exactly. What I think that means is that even when we go back to school as normal, many of us will probably be adding more digital learning into our instruction. That might look like more blended learning in the classroom. It might look like some schools shifting to a 3- or 4-day week, where some days are done remotely, just to stay in practice. It also might mean that we'll be better able to personalize learning for our students, letting each student work at his or her own pace, and using digital tools to facilitate the process. With that in mind, what I'm sharing … a model for self-paced learning that one teacher has used successfully for a few years.” (Jennifer Gonzalez)

“We need to embrace our education ecosystems as a new reality, post-COVID-19. How do we ensure that (online)solutions become elements of a whole eLearning ecosystem (LMS, ePortfolios, plagiarism, apps, etc), with each a part of the seamless learning experience? ... As parents gain a better understanding of their child’s academic program and its effectiveness, the collective voice of parents will be stronger, their expectations higher – and causes to question will increase. Parents can plot in real time, learning progress as it occurs, instead of waiting for an ineffective grade, twice a year... In a current COVID-19 world, learning outside of traditional times and spaces is being embraced, initialized and acknowledged. The concept of attendance: virtual vs physical attendance? Does attendance equate to visibility? What are school hours, considering the flexibility provided by asynchronous and synchronous communication and opportunities for learning through apps, research etc. What are school days? Online learning is more effective in smaller chunks / activities than in a traditional context. How do we support mental wellbeing and teacher workload?” (Kathleen Donohoe and John Mularczyk, Can this renaissance in education be effective without a renaissance in educational policy? 4 April 2020)

“What, then, can instructional leaders do to ensure that the best teaching methods are enhanced by online tools once we return to face-to-face learning after this Coronavirus clears up? We can first identify what those “best teaching methods” are, and provide ample support for their use from the research base, as well as explanations that are consistent with the science of learning. For example, most schools will likely identify “eliciting performance through spaced and interleaved practice” as part of their instructional design. Once the effective teaching methods are identified, schools should select online tools that fit the methods. To continue with the spaced practice example, we know that certain online tools can enhance practice because humans are terrible at adhering to practice schedules and computers are great at managing them. Once the methods-based online tools are identified, teachers should be required to use them alongside viable non-digital alternatives. And since we now know that teachers are more capable with tech than we assumed, there shouldn’t be any issues moving forward, right?” (Zach and Stephanie Groshell, Has the Coronavirus Online Period Proven that all Teachers can use Technology?)

What if learning was...

  • Personal: this was an opportunity to really get to know each learner, to make all learning personal and truly differentiated?

  • Relevant: learning became grounded in real life experiences that students were immersed into?

  • Agentic: where students took charge of their learning and developed their executive functions?

  • Inquiry-led: initiated by student curiosity which was excited by teachers as facilitators?

  • Skils based: less focussed on content and more the development of skills and competencies?

  • Demonstrated - is this an opportunity to redefine assessment as a demonstration of learning, as opposed to completing graded multiple-choice tests and exams?

  • Networked: a collaboration with peers around the globe to study context-rich issues and tackle real problems?

  • Cheaper! when learning is online do we need as many teachers?

References

Chris Wright is an experienced educational leader. He has been Head of three schools, has worked in the tertiary sector in education research and teacher education and currently works at a school system level as Director of Education for a school company that runs 50 schools. He is an experienced IB workshop leader with an especial focus on leading Administrators workshops and leadership programmes. He is the co-author of one of the development courses for the new IB Leadership Pathway. He has a website providing practical tools for IB School Leaders.

Chris Wright
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