Lessons from the Transition to Pandemic Education in the US

Analyses of Parent, Student, and Educator Experiences

Marni Fisher, Kimiya Maghzi, Charlotte Achieng-Evensen, Meredith Dorner, Holly Pearson, Mina Chun, Marni E. Fisher, Kimiya Sohrab Maghzi, Charlotte Achieng-Evensen, Meredith A. Dorner, Holly Pearson, Mina Chun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000435153
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This volume narrates and shares the often-unheard voices of students, parents, and educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through close analysis of their lived experiences, the book identifies key patterns, pitfalls, and lessons learnt from pandemic education.

Drawing on contributions from all levels of the US education system, the book situates these myriad voices and perspectives within a prismatic theory framework in order to recognise how these views and experiences interconnect. Detailed narrative and phenomenological analysis also call attention to patterns of inequality, reduced social and emotional well-being, pressures on parents, and the role of communication, flexibility, and teacher-led innovation. Chapters are interchanged with interludes that showcase a lyrical and authentic approach to understanding the multiplicity of experience in the text.

Providing a valuable contribution to the contemporary field of pandemic education research, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in the sociology of education, online teaching and eLearning, and those involved with the digitalization of education at all levels. Those more broadly interested in educational research methods and the effects of home-schooling will also benefit.

1
Elementary Stories

Kimiya Sohrab Maghzi, Marni E. Fisher, Veronica Bloomfield, Frances Hansell, Leslie C. Whitaker, and James St. Amant

We know what quality education is in the classroom. Pedagogical decisions and approaches are important aspects that help educators and practitioners develop their teaching. Student engagement (Dewey, 1916), student connection (Bishop & Berryman, 2006), and organization are all integral aspects that can make teaching and learning a success. When students and educators feel happy (Achor, 2011) and safe (Ginwright, 2016), they are more likely to productively engage, share, connect, reflect, and learn. Furthermore, the connections students build with one another reduce trauma symptoms (Crosby et al., 2017).

Before pandemic education, we knew the importance of developing the whole child (Guisbond et al., 2006). Furthermore, the need to develop socio-emotional skills in our students has been identified as crucial (Maghzi et al., 2020). This includes emotional intelligence (Goleman et al., 2004), social cognition (Garcia Winner et al., 2016), and coping mechanisms (Carter & Kravats, 2011 /2017).

What education was not prepared for was the sudden transition to pandemic education. Educational learning theory (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978), curriculum theory (Pinar, 2012), teaching pedagogy (Apple & Beane, 2007), and engagement (Dewey, 1916) were still effective but needed to shift—usually with too little preparation and warning—to a distance learning medium entirely new for elementary education (McElrath, 2020).

We start our journey through the impacts of pandemic education with elementary stories. These include the voices and diverse experiences of professionals and parents in elementary settings as they reflect on their initial experiences with how the pandemic forced all of education online for the second half of the school year.

Tales From Third Grade

In this story, a third grade teacher working with a grade-level team focuses on the pedagogy and teaching methodologies used to support students.

In the beginning, I was nervous

I had a comfortable understanding of technology.

My main challenge

was bringing the teaching and learning experience to life

with a truncated version of virtual interactions.

Students needed to develop the fluidity

of so many programs and documents!

My team and I—

We.

We helped alleviate my anxiety,

reconnect with my students, and

set them up for success.

We had to develop and determine

and create and plan

standards, engagement, and time

for reading, writing, and math—

Am I being sensitive enough?

Am I pushing hard enough?

Am I pushing too hard?

While preventing students from feeling overwhelmed.

My time with students was so precious…

I began with connecting and

tracked with a time-consuming daily spreadsheet—

but kept me in touch with what students were doing—

data to give each parent weekly…

I was so impressed with how much I saw my students grow.

For some reason,

teaching online is exhausting!

I am so grateful that

I already had my classroom culture set up

before launching distance learning and

hope that come next fall

I can greet them all with a giant hug!

I recognize that teaching during these trying times has been a vastly different experience among all teachers as we struggle with the technology, access, and shift in instruction. While I think my discoveries in my personal journey may provide valid insight and support to those looking for successful ways of reaching their students, I want to make my current position and perspective as transparent as possible.

I teach in a middle-class suburban school with a relatively low number of English learners. My district and school site ensured that all students had a decent device to work on for distance learning. I was already implementing Google Classroom,¹ interactive notebooks, Flipgrid,² Awesome Screenshot,³ and Screencastify⁴ and had some experience with Zoom⁵ and Google Hangouts⁶ before this journey. Therefore, while I had a comfortable understanding of utilizing technology, my main challenge was bringing the teaching and learning experience to life in truncated virtual interactions.

How Did I Start?

Online learning grew over time, and because students needed to develop the fluidity of so many programs and documents, what I could do by the third week is not what I would have recommended for the first week. From a teaching perspective, the distance learning experience went through the following nonlinear phases: setting up and teaching students (and parents) how to navigate the technology, getting students (and parent support) to complete the work, accessing students to teach new content, and refining student work.

In the beginning, my team and I developed a slide deck to teach parents how to set up for distance learning. This included accessing the child’s school accounts: Google Classroom, Clever,⁷ Epic!,⁸ and Zoom. I held two sessions where my students and I practiced using Zoom before day one of instruction began. This helped alleviate anxiety on my part, reconnect with my students, and set up day one for success.

The second hurdle found my team tackling the organization of how we would communicate with students. We developed a daily agenda in Google Slides and embedded hyperlinks for each assignment. To prevent students from feeling overwhelmed, we made new slides each day, rather than a whole week at a time. I emailed agendas to the parents and linked them into Google Classroom. We also created a school-wide Zoom/Google Hangout schedule so that grade levels had different whole-group times and siblings weren’t on at the same time.

The third piece of setting up for distance learning involved thinking about pedagogy. We had to determine which standards students would work on, how they would engage with those standards, and how we would dedicate our time during the Zoom session. My team partner and I met to decide on the standards and content and split up the work. We created interactive notebooks for reading, writing, and math. We used Screencastify frequently to model think alouds and explain directions for slides. All assignments were pushed through Google Classroom.

What Worked?

Collaboration was a huge part of successful online learning. Without my teaching partner and student teacher, I would not have had the time or energy to develop the curriculum. With that being said, a tracking system, frequent communication with students and parents, and highly prepared Zoom times have helped me succeed with distance learning.

To track student work, I kept a daily spreadsheet. As I checked student slide decks and videos, I noted students who had not started or showed signs of struggling. This was a time-consuming process, but it kept me in touch with what students were doing. I then used these data to give each parent a weekly update for their child, communicating which assignments were missing. If students were nearly finished, they could make up assignments with parental communication. Students who finished all their work were sent a Scholarly Hawk Award (certificate with their name and noting their accomplishment). Over time, these students were rewarded with a “Zoom Social Time” the following Monday. I used these data for shout-outs to students who were on track throughout the week. Positive reinforcement is a huge deal, even online!

Continuing along the vein of communication, some students and families were easier to engage than others. Over time, I had video conferences with different families, ongoing emails, and text reminders using Remind.⁹ Parents needed guidance on how to support their child. I requested that parents review the agenda with their child and check that their child did their work each day since third graders still need accountability and support.

In relation to teaching, I found my time with students was so precious that I had to plan tightly for the Zoom sessions. I spent about 40 minutes in the morning on Zoom instruction and began with connecting. We would say our good mornings and news in the chat box, sing our good morning song from the classroom, and play a snippet from the song “Happy” (Williams, 2013) to bring positive energy. The content consisted of examining math strategies from their Flipgrid videos the day before, reviewing math skills from a Google form, and discussing any needs that arose based on examinations of student work.

By t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Authors
• Foreword: Lessons From Education Pandemic Stories
• Introduction: Introducing the Prismatic Lens and Pandemic Education
• 1 Elementary Stories
• 2 Middle School Stories
• 3 High School Stories
• 4 Community College Stories
• 5 University Stories
• 6 Graduate Stories
• 7 Patterns in Pandemic Education: What Does It All Mean?
• Afterword: Voices in Isolation
• Index