By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
New terms are being generated at record rate by the ed-tech industrial complex and education folks during this pandemic. In alphabetical order:
“Academic recovery” is needed to make up for the learning loss due to the switch to distance learning via digital media, usually by using more digital media in the classroom. Really?
“Acceleration” means making up learning loss by speeding up teaching.
“Assurance testing” refers to nasal testing of K–12 students for evidence of COVID-19.
“Box curriculum” describes the prepackaged set of materials designed to match state or professional standards, often delivered as hand-out workbook lessons.
“Breakout rooms” can be actual separate rooms or partitioned spaces within a single large classroom to create space for smaller groups of students for a portion of school time. Previously used to differentiate instruction for different ability levels, now provides spacing during the pandemic. It is also used in online learning to cluster students a teacher must “interact” with larger classes online cause many students to feel they are ignored.
“Breakthrough infections” are cases of COVID-19 that occur despite full vaccination.
“Bullying of teachers” involves threats directed at teachers, particularly from science-ignorant parents or school boards mandating fully open schools during an upsurge in a pandemic.
“Compassion fatigue” is the general exhaustion of teachers resulting from their higher level of concern for their struggling students during the pandemic.
“Coronavirus slide” is the loss of learning due to missed classtime, similar to summer slide.
“Discovery duffels” are provided to some K-5 students. They are filled with enrichment supplies that include STEM and other materials. Teachers will refill the bags to provide students hands-on activities.
“Crisis learning” is education during an external crisis such as this pandemic (not a student’s personal family crisis). This term lowers expectations that online or remote learning would be equivalent to face-to-face learning and is also called emergency remote learning.
“Covid shuffle” is the continual rearrangement of students in a classroom to be in compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance on social distancing.
“Compensatory services” are services provided to students to make up for lost progress or lost skills when special education services are not provided. This has been a widespread failure.
“Continuity of education” varies by discipline. Disciplines such as math are lock-step and highly dependent on continual learning and students have suffered major setbacks. Other disciplines allow easier make-up of missed lessons.
“Digidemic” describes the increased use of online or digital learning caused by the pandemic. This trend has been legitimatized by computer companies despite the widespread inferior results.
“Doomscrolling” is a perhaps addictive compulsion to scroll through endless bad news that is depressing.
“Emergency remote teaching/learning” is a phrase to excuse the poor learning that occurred in the remaining spring semester of 2020 when many schools had to rapidly move online. Using “emergency” inferred that if only there was more time, more training and more technology, learning would be just as good or better than face-to-face.
“E-proctoring” is the attempt to monitor online testing from afar. (Cheating in distance-learning situations has exploded.)
“Gating criteria” are the series of conditions that needed to be met for students to return to face-to-face teaching in schools.
“High-dosage tutoring” is one-on-one tutoring beyond what is normally provided in classes. This has become more heavily discussed as a method to partially make up for the loss of learning during the pandemic. It is a form of “personalized learning” since a tutor can address just those shortfalls in learning specific to the student. Unless more staff are hired, it overworks faculty.
“Instructional efficiency” is administration-speak for giving teachers and professors overloads. During the pandemic, many part-time faculty have been laid off and teaching loads expanded.
“Learning hubs” are sites designated for students who are homeless or lack wireless access at their home and must go to a special site to gain access.
“Meal logistics” was simple in normal times, although more and more American school children rely on school breakfasts and lunches for food security. With many students working online from home, schools may provide food on a take-away basis and sometimes provide meal delivery to the students’ homes via the bus route.
“Micro-schools” or “pandemic pods” can be the use of libraries, community centers or homes to provide face-to-face education with small groups of students spaced apart and instructed by qualified teachers during the pandemic.
“Pandemic denial” is the refusal of parents or school board members to take a pandemic seriously and make reasonable and scientific precautions to minimize contagion.
“Paper work packets” are printed learning materials and assignments delivered to a student at home during the pandemic.
“Personal risk budget” consists of weighing the benefits of venturing outside into contact with potential spreaders. For teachers, this involves the extent of exposure to youngsters, their likelihood of being infected, and the teacher’s risk of carrying the coronavirus home to family.
“Quaranteaching” encompasses all of the modified teaching methodologies implemented to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Phantom students” are those students in a school district that are completely missing from K–12 school but who should be in attendance or connected online. Funding of schools is based on a per-capita headcount of students and this dilemma became a major problem in the 2020-21 pandemic where 53,200 students did not shown up in distance learning in Michigan, 31,000 were missing in New York City public schools, Miami-Dade saw 16,000 disappear, and Anchorage, Alaska started the 2020 fall semester with 4,000 fewer students than expected.
“Redshirting” formerly applied to a student who holds back in high school in order to play sports another year. Now, many parents are holding back (redshirting) their kindergarten student for an extra year due to the lack of learning in 2020.
“Roomers and zoomers” separates in-person from online students.
“Scariant variant” refers to the ongoing discovery of genetic variants in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, reflecting the public fear that its gradual evolution to more virulent forms could possibly move it out of the “window” where current vaccines provide protection.
“Security theater” targets the over-promotion of walk-through temperature checkers or other devices to schools, asserting they are effective in managing the pandemic when they are not.
“Skip-year growth” notes that because of 2020 school closures, it will be necessary to compare student achievement scores across two years in order to provide an accurate assessment of students' academic progress.
“Social disconnect” is the reduced teacher-student interaction that defines distance learning.
“Virus snitching” occurs when some college students report to university administrators when they see classmates breaking rules in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus. While some universities actively encourage students to report violations by their peers, this is usually a genuine health concern on the part of a reporting student wanting to keep their campuses relatively safe.
“Zoom fatigue” is the stress and exhaustion often felt after even short online meetings. The exhaustion is due to the need to focus more intently as well as the problem of both online and surrounding distractions.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.