Concerns about learning loss
Unplanned school closure resulting from the Covid-19 has impacted student learning physically, emotionally, socially, and academically. Educators and school administrators express concerns about learning losses and gaps and lack of student engagement, motivation, and approaches to learning skills. The unprecedented sustained school closure periods have brought attention to ‘lost learning’. This is undoubtedly the topic that teachers have been discussing at my school, and they are finding it challenging to finish teaching the units within the scheduled timeframe. Teachers in the Diploma Programme worry about completing the syllabus and equipping students with the DP exams’ skills, knowledge, and understanding. It adds stress and anxiety to students, teachers and parents.
How can students retain learning and meet the expected grade-level academic performance when they are not motivated and engaged? It has become increasingly important to find effective ways to capture student attention and engage them with their material on a day-to-day basis. I wonder what effective strategies teachers can implement in their classrooms to mitigate lost learning. I started reading the IB research paper, “Lost Learning”: What does the research really say? written by Joanna Cardinal.
Definition of learning loss
Before exploring effective strategies to help students recover from learning losses and bridge content gaps, defining what we meant by ‘learning loss’ seems essential. In education, learning loss refers to students who previously made progress in mastery but then experienced a decline in performance. This decline may be due to several factors, including summer vacation, natural disasters, student absence, weather-related school closure, ineffective teaching, interrupted formal education, political unrest, etc. Covid 19 learning loss is also further impacted by anxiety, stress, coronavirus infection, parents’ mental distress, inconsistent remote and hybrid teaching methods, learning in a different timezone, lack of social interaction, etc.
When understanding learning loss caused by the pandemic, it is important to remember that “…while students may not have made the expected progress, they have not necessarily “lost learning”. (Cardinal, 2020, p.3). Skills are often gained through practice, just like a sport or musical instrument. When we take a break from learning or engaging in that skill, we might lose some of that competency over time. However, we should still be able to perform that skill, although it might be rusty at first. For me, this significantly highlights the importance of teaching approaches to learning (ATL) skills explicitly to develop self-directed learning. Put simply, there might be learning losses in different subjects, but students have not lost their learning. I will consolidate my readings and identify possible strategies that teachers can implement in the classroom to address learning loss and gaps.
Strategies to recover learning loss and bridge content gaps
It is interesting to know that “Even with large predicted learning losses, most students will remain within the typical grade range and be able to engage with typical class content next year.” (Allensworth and Schwartz, 2020, p.2). We will need to pay special attention to “students who have already been struggling before the disruptive effect of the Covid 19 pandemic, as they are most likely to fall out of the range of their grade.” When students experience learning loss, they are more likely to struggle in their classes, which leads to lower grades and reduced self-confidence. The lack of face-to-face social interaction has also impacted the development of the students’ self-esteem, decreasing their motivation to learn. That’s why it’s crucial to implement strategies that address learning loss and gaps and ‘social loss’ intentionally. It is important to note that these strategies have long existed as teachers have supported students with mixed abilities and levels under normal circumstances. They are now even more compelling to implement in order to help students overcome learning loss and social loss and bridge content areas gaps. Always go back to the fundamentals, Maslow before Bloom!
Build relationships
The first and the most important step to support students is to build positive relationships with students. “Strong, supportive, and sustained relationships with adults in schools consistently predict children’s capacity for resilient behavior even in the face of traumatic experience. ” (Allensworth and Schwartz, 2020, p.2). This is what teachers do regardless students are behind academically or not. The more we know about our students as individuals, the better we can provide appropriate instruction and develop genuine relationships with them. The learning process is much more effective when we get to know our students. It’s easier for students to retain information if they feel connected with their teachers and peers.
In my previous post, Check-in Activities to Engage Students, I mentioned the importance of “go slow to go fast”. To create a productive and safe learning environment, getting to know students and building relationships is vital. Restorative-justice circles is another strategy teachers can use to build community. Restorative-justice circles, also known as community circles, allow students to voice and express their feelings on sensitive issues. The main idea behind restorative circles is that everyone who was affected by an incident in some way has a voice and can be involved in finding a solution. When students develop a sense of belonging and trust with the teacher and their peers, they are more likely to take risks in learning and feel motivated to achieve their learning goals.
Additionally, COVID-19 restrictions have negatively impacted the parent-child relationship at home for some students, especially if their parents have to deal with job loss, reduced employment or financial crisis. Home is not always the safest place for every student. These students will benefit from having a positive relationship with a supportive adult who guides them and helps them develop resilience. Let’s not forget Rita Pierson’s TED Talk: Every kid needs a champion. Check out my other blog post, Social Emotional Learning Questions to Students, about SEL conversations with students.
“To support students’ development, it is essential to maintain the commitment to providing holistic education and not be pressurised to focus predominantly on academic results. A focus on social-emotional activities to recover the motivation and engagement in learning could support students to positively adjust to the new academic tasks.”
Joanna Cardinal
Create a positive and inclusive learning environment that promote social interaction
One of the significant impacts on students due to the disruptive pandemic is social isolation, leading to mental distress. Social interaction is one of our best tools for learning. Foster an inclusive and positive learning environment that offers opportunities for student social interaction can help them recover from learning loss and social loss. “Research on the stress of school closures and the academic impact of Hurricane Katrina finds that while students initially experience some learning loss, the persistence of these losses depends on the receiving environment.” (Allensworth and Schwartz, 2020, p.2). Here are some ideas to create a positive and inclusive learning environment that promote student social interaction.
- Co-create classroom norms with students to establish the expectation, learning community and culture.
- Keep the classroom organized and clean.
- Arrange the learning space that facilitates learning. (i.e. rearranging the furniture; having a resource corner)
- Provide resources that encourage independent learning. For example, it could be a study area where students can take notes and review course materials.
- Create opportunities for collaborative learning (e.g. peer teaching, group discussions, group projects, role play, jigsaw reading, peer feedback…)
- Display student work in the classroom to help them see their learning progress towards the desired learning outcomes.
- Celebrate learning regularly. (e.g. showcase student work in the assembly)
- Use invitational and academic language to encourage them to take learning risks and share their thinking. Check out Collections of Academic Sentence Starters compiled by Larry Ferlazzo.
- Use protocols to ensure every learner have an opportunity to share their ideas and contribute to discussions. EL Education provides great classroom protocols.
When learning feels safe, fun, engaging, and respectful, students are more likely to want to share what they know with others and improve their learning, increasing the speed of learning loss recovery.
Teach affective skills deliberately
Developing ways of building students’ resilience and perseverance not only contributes to students’ academic growth, but also supports their personal growth. We need to equip students with coping strategies to deal with challenging situations during times of distress or failure so that they can bounce back and thrive. Some strategies are listed in the ATL Smörgåsbord document in the category of affective skills. More ideas and tools to build resilience can be found on PositivePsychology.com: 23 Resilience Building Tools and Exercises (+ Mental Toughness Test). These activities can be done during the check-in before the class starts or through an advisory program.
Teach at the right level
When students are behind their learning, it is understandable why curriculum compression and acceleration teaching methods are used. However, students will likely feel frustrated, distracted, and disengaged if we attempt to cover material that is too difficult or give them extra content without knowledge construction process or scaffolding. To counteract these feelings, we adjust our instruction so that it responds directly to students’ current skill level. Using the methodology of “Teaching at the Right Level” (Cardinal, 2020, p.7), we can more easily motivate students to engage in learning and increase self-efficacy fully. Self-efficacy is one’s belief in succeeding at a given task. It’s a critical piece of emotional intelligence, defined as an individual’s ability to perceive effectively, control, and evaluate their emotions. If the task or content is too challenging, it can negatively impact students’ self-efficacy and learning outcomes.
Differentiated instructions & self-regulation
Teachers have differentiated their instruction using various tools and strategies to help students access the content. We can recover learning loss by intentionally planning how we use time and instructional strategies with students through differentiation. The ALL-ED (All Learners Learning Every Day) differentiation framework developed by Rhonda Bondie and Akane Zusho is helpful and practical. The authors specified four steps to implement differentiated instructions. I value this framework because teachers use student learning data to adjust instruction and assessment, and implement individual and group learning routines. Students also have the opportunity to set personalized learning goals with guidance which is necessary to develop student self-regulation. Self-regulation is important to mitigate learning loss and content gaps. If students set appropriate learning goals, have the strategies to achieve them, monitor their progress, and revise their action steps, they develop a sense of purpose and ownership of learning. Read more about differentiation in my previous blog post, Creating A Caring And Inclusive Community: Differentiation. You can also refer to PEERS Goals, adopted from Jim Knight’s coaching framework with permission, to guide students to set personalized learning goals.
Use assessment to identify learning needs and guide decision-making
One way that teachers can help mitigate learning loss is by using assessment as a way to identify where a student is struggling and which strategies can help them mitigate that deficit. Diagnostic assessments help teachers pinpoint learning gaps. Teachers gauge students’ learning progress through various formative assessments and, when necessary, provide timely intervention. Summative assessments are administered at the end of each unit or subject to determine students’ level of mastery. The three types to assessment work in tandem to ensure all students are progressing towards meeting their learning goals. We also hope to administer MAP assessment in May and use the data to inform our decision-making and support students.
Assessments aren’t just a way to report what students know, but also a way to get at why they don’t. We collect the summative assessment data to adjust the curriculum, instructions, and task design to meet their learning needs. It also allows students to identify their strengths and areas for improvement. Please refer to the UNESCO COVID-19 Education Response Education Sector issue notes page 9, assessing learning needs through different types of assessment.
“Assessment information is necessary for decision-making at different levels. Teachers and schools need to be able to make instructional decisions that support specific students. System leaders can also use this information to decide on policy and resource allocation.”
(UNESCO)
Teacher skills that promote self-directed learning
“Without the physical presence of teachers and other students, holding learners’ attention and encouraging motivation to complete assignments during the pandemic has been difficult, especially for younger cohorts.” (Schleicher, 2021). A lack of engagement is a common problem among online learners. This can be due to several factors, including a lack of learning skills and agency. Many students have found it challenging to prioritize their work and manage their time. When they feel stressed and anxious, they have limited coping strategies. Additionally, students become unmotivated and passively follow the rules and instructions when learning is compliant. We feel unable to control our life because of uncertainty and ambiguity caused by the pandemic, resulting in our mental distress and anxiety. If we equip students with learning strategies and empower them to direct their learning, we help them improve their academic performance and develop a sense of self-efficacy and control. By explicitly teaching students skills and strategies that promote self-directed learning, we involve learners in the learning process and also foster lifelong learning attitudes that they need in the unpredictable future.
High expectations for all
The expectations we have about our students influence students’ motivation and how we teach. Teachers need to have high expectations, yet realistic, for ALL students and design learning experiences that help them develop self-awareness and self-esteem. This goes back to creating an inclusive learning environment where every student can participate and demonstrate their learning. There might be learning gaps, and we need to believe that students can ‘catch up’ learning by building their competencies and developing learning strategies.
Teacher collaboration
Schools should also create time and structures for horizontal and vertical collaboration. Grade-level teachers share their observations of ‘learning losses’ in their subjects to identify patterns and generate solutions for academic and social-emotional recovery. They also discuss strategies to support specific students who show significant learning gaps. Subject teachers meet in their departments to discuss how they can best adjust the curriculum and assessment to address learning loss and gaps for the upcoming academic school year. Teachers can also identify the professional development needed to better support students academically, socially, and emotionally through professional dialogues. Schools need to support teachers’ well-being to have productive teacher collaboration. We are all impacted by the pandemic, including our teachers. When organizing meetings, we need to consider timing and have a process for productive meetings.
Implement intervention programs
Depending on the school context and the students’ learning needs, schools might also implement tailored intervention programs, such as remedial programmes and catch-up programmes (UNESCO, 2020, p.2). This requires a formal discussion between the school leaders and teachers. For more information, please refer to the “UNESCO COVID-19 Education Response Education Sector issue notes” published in June 2021.
Project-based learning is not an intervention program. However, project-based learning empowers students to investigate a topic of their interest and promote collaboration and problem-solving. At the end of the 2020-2021 academic school year, we did IDEAS Project online, which was not graded. 83% of our students participated, and the project completion rate was 86%. We asked students how the group’s overall experience was, and one group answered:
“I think it was pretty fun and relaxed. It was exactly the break I needed from the online learning and summatives.” “I have been playing Minecraft for many years, but I never build a library so it felt quite refreshing for me.” (Grade 10 students)
Feel free to visit our students’ IDEAS Projects of 2020. Check out the blog post, “Recovery Through Project Based Learning” written by TheEduProject.
Holistic Learning to gain learning poster
My conclusion is that to address learning loss and gaps effectively, educators and schools need to implement holistic learning to help students gain learning. We will equip them with the skills, knowledge, and understanding to thrive in the unknown future. I have intentionally used the pinwheel to create this poster. It’s a childhood symbol, and it conveys optimism and energy.
Resources
- Conversations with kids created by Transcend, an excellent resource shares how schools can create a learning environment to prepare learners to thrive and transform the world. The toolkit contains questions that schools can use to converse with learners and invite them to share their opinions and ideas.
- Leaps for Equitable, 21st Century Learning, is another fabulous resource by Transcend describing how schools and educators can change student learning experiences and prepare them for the future post the pandemic.
References
- Allensworth, Elaine, and Nate Schwartz. “Student Learning | Annenberg Institute at Brown University.” Annenberg.brown.edu, Annenberg Brown University, June 2020, annenberg.brown.edu/school/categories/student-learning#:~:text=School%20Practices%20to%20Address%20Student%20Learning%20Loss&text=High%2Ddosage%20tutoring%20that%20is. Accessed 23 Feb. 2022.
- Bondie, Rhonda, and Akane Zusho. Differentiated Instruction Made Practical : Engaging the Extremes through Classroom Routines. New York, Ny, Routledge, 2018.
- Cardinal, Joanna. “Lost Learning”: What Does the Research Really Say? International Baccalaureate Organization (UK) Ltd, Nov. 2020.
- Ferlazzo, Larry. “Students Respond to Adults’ Fixation on ‘Learning Loss’ (Opinion).” Education Week, 2 Feb. 2021, www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-students-respond-to-adults-fixation-on-learning-loss/2021/02. Accessed 26 Feb. 2022.
- “Learning Loss Definition.” The Glossary of Education Reform, 15 May 2013, www.edglossary.org/learning-loss/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2022.
- Pychyl, Timothy, et al. “How Long Does It Take to Lose a Skill?” Hopes&Fears, 7 Dec. 2015, www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/question/216903-how-long-does-it-take-to-lose-a-skill#:~:text=From%20a%20motor%20learning%20perspective. Accessed 23 Feb. 2022.
- Schleicher, Andreas. “How Can We Foster Lifelong Learning Attitudes in Students?” OECD Education and Skills Today, 15 June 2021, oecdedutoday.com/how-can-we-foster-lifelong-learning-attitudes-in-students/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2022.
- Stoltzfus, Kate. “Why ‘Learning Loss’ Is so Complicated (and How to Address It Constructively).” ASCD, 1 Oct. 2021, www.ascd.org/blogs/why-learning-loss-is-so-complicated-and-how-to-address-it-constructively. Accessed 26 Feb. 2022.
- TheEduProject. “Recovery through Project Based Learning.” TheEduProject, 21 Apr. 2021, theeduproject.org/f/recovery-through-project-based-learning. Accessed 27 Feb. 2022.
- UNESCO. “COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response.” UNESCO, UNESCO, 4 Mar. 2020, en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse. Accessed 26 Feb. 2022.
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