The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
The future is near for socially distant learning
Experts predict flipped classrooms, flexible scheduling, more technology training
Amy Dowell craves a sense of normalcy.
A time when she can put her kids back on a Westport school bus and focus on her job as state director of Education Reform Now, a research and advocacy group.
“My kids are longing to see their teachers’ faces,” Dowell said.
Dowell, like others, however, say they know deep down inside, there is no going back to the way things were after months spent home during a pandemic, learning off computers and worksheets.
The brick-and-mortar schools students will eventually return to will not be like the one they left abruptly in mid-March.
Crowded classrooms or cafeterias? Not with social distancing rules in play.
Take that hat off in the hallway? Perhaps, but not the face mask?
Snow days? Not so fast, but we’ll get back to that later.
Experts say that in addition to hitting the reset button on a semester of lost learning, there are lessons learned that should shape curriculum, access to technology and respect for social and emotional learning.
Michael Alfano, dean of the College of Education at Sacred Heart University, expects a paradigm shift.
“I think there was this conceptualization that online learning was (a separate) space,” Alfano said. “That whole mindset is self-imposed. When the dust settles from this crisis, experts in teaching and learning and curriculum design will think more creatively about how curriculum can thrive and be creatively extended.”
A Sputnik moment
Richard Schwab, an endowed professor of educational leadership at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, likens the pandemic’s impact on digital education to what Sputnik was to science education in the 1950’s.
“Reluctant educators will realize they better get on board,” Schwab said. “Technology will never replace a good teacher but we’ve learned in some cases it can be a really good tool.”
Michael F. Young, an assistant professor of psychology and educational technology at the Neag School, agreed and said teachers now know it can be done.
“We’ve seen inklings of awesomeness,” Young said.
Young suggested more schools may embrace flipped classrooms, where lectures are listened to online at home, and classroom time is reserved for doing problems under the guidance of a teacher.
Sheena Graham, a music teacher at Harding High School and Connecticut’s 2019 Teacher of the Year, also sees a closer relationship between teachers and students — and parents.
“I don’t think it will be temporary,” she said. “I know I can’t wait to get back into my classroom, see all my students at once and sing to our heart’s content.”
Graham hopes education will become more project based than it was, with a more integrated curriculum and more flexible scheduling.
Maybe not all students have to be in class five days a week, she said.
Online learning has its drawbacks, but it has allowed for more common planning time with other teachers than ever before, Graham said.
Jeff Leake, president of the Connecticut Education Association, expects the 2020-21 school year to be like none other.
“We need to reexamine what school year to school year means,” he said.
Resetting the clock
State Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona said he is reluctant to pull out his crystal ball with the situation still evolving.
He is confident enough to say things will be different.
He recognizes inequities have been exposed and some made worst — particularly for students who are learning English and those with special needs that.
“We can’t go back to a system that had us ill-prepared for this disruption,” Cardona said. “We have to come prepare for blended learning to be part of our normal repertoire,”
He sees a greater emphasis on technology and technology training.
“We hired a chief academic officer Irene Parisi. Her job is going to be to develop resources, so that when they engage in distance learning it’s not random acts of online learning,” Cardona said.
What about the 180-day school year requirement?
“I don’t think we can rule anything out,” Cardona said.
As for turning to distance learning on snow days, Cardona said capability could collide with nostalgia.
“For some, snow days are a cultural tradition that is hard to let go of,” he said.