By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
While “social distancing” is now the rule in public schools and on university campuses, the term “social disconnect” is now being used for the failure of online education to provide the connections that face-to-face communication provides.
We are now using the term “contact teaching” for what we had previously considered the norm.
This reduction in learning is now regularly called the “COVID slide,” similar to the “summer slide” that K-12 students undergo while out of school each summer.
“Slide reversal” is any attempt to make up for the lost learning from last spring’s shutdown. In China, most K-12 schools and universities were able to start back up and extend their spring semester. They normally have a two month summer vacation, but this year it will only be three weeks. They not only extended the spring through the end of July but will begin the fall semester one week early.
We are now getting data on the damage to higher education. The publication “Campus Technology” reports that “56 percent of faculty who moved courses online were using teaching methods they had never used before.” They found that “97 percent of institutions moving classes online had to call on faculty with no previous online teaching experience. 50 percent of institutions had at least some faculty with online teaching experience. 48 percent of faculty who moved courses online reduced the quantity of work they expected from students, and 32 percent lowered their expectations for the quality of student work.”
“Chronic absenteeism” has proven to be a big problem with online delivery. Despite having digital devices and online access at home, as many as 15 percent of students essentially disappeared, abandoning any connection with their school and teachers. This does not include the homeless students who are living with a parent in a car or “couch-surfing” and for whom their contact with their teachers at school was their one remaining anchor in society. This is a clear indication that getting everyone a laptop and hooked up to the internet is not going to “reconnect” these students.
When some teachers and administrators came to realize that online is simply not working for many students, they have resorted to “paper work packets” that are delivered to the student’s home, sometimes along with school meals. This is somewhat similar to the correspondence courses offered by many universities in the 1950s and 1960s. However, completion of those courses was low due to the lack of face-to-face assistance and no motivation from classmates sitting to each side pursuing the same tasks.
“Pandemic pods” are a strategy used by groups of families that band together to improve the educational experiences of their children when the kids cannot return to full time schooling. Triggered by the generally abysmal results of online learning last spring, these proposals vary from online clusters of students managed by teachers or tutors adept in online delivery, to limited face-to-face homeschooling clusters. In its initial stages, pods mainly appeal to parents of elementary students who do not work well alone. According to Education Week, some affluent families are willing to pay up to $700 a month to pod teachers, in effect privatizing education.
“Micro-schools” within a community use libraries, community centers or homes to restart face-to-face education with 8–10 students spaced apart and instructed by qualified teachers.
A “distributed campus” is a general new usage for spreading out students across the school or university. It includes timing of classes, transport, offsetting of mealtimes, distancing, etc.
Both K-12 and higher education have quickly discovered that many online/digital educational systems do not have “interoperability” or the ability to work with other systems. Much money for such limited digital technology has been wasted.
And finally, “bullying of teachers” by some school boards has arisen as a concern when schools are mandated to fully open during an upsurge in cases but safety plans for students and school personnel are unclear or lacking. These conflicts are occurring mainly in regions with more “pandemic denial.”
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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.