Topic: COVID-19 effects on teaching and learning in the NYC Public Schools system
The section will focus on how teaching and learning has shifted at the outset of the pandemic to present. The barriers experienced by teachers (e.g. scheduling, blended and remote learning, online platforms and tools, revisions to a focus on priority standards, students’ unfinished learning, cultural relevance, trauma) will be discussed.
Kendra McKenzie (2019) argues that in order for students of poverty to conquer academic challenges, “teachers need to develop strong relationships with their students, embody respect in their
interactions with students, embed social skills in lessons, promote inclusive classrooms, recognize the signs of poverty, empower students, alter classroom environments, build core skills, provide accurate assessments, and recruit caring and empathetic staff”; the development of social and behavioral skills among students, in particular, has notable positive effects on their academic success.
Furthermore, educating teachers and educational leaders to be more aware of their internal racial biases would go a long way towards bridging the racial achievement gap. Hence, while it is important to confront the economic disparities shaping the socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps, embracing social and behavioral reform in the classroom can help mitigate their impacts.
Affluent school:
https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard//#dbn=02M290&report_type=EMS&view=City
NYC School Quality Reports data
Ovide ( 2020)
The pandemic has put a spotlight on America’s pernicious gap between those who can get online and those who can’t because internet lines don’t reach their homes or they can’t afford access or computers — or all of the above.
( Teaching and Learning Section) Singer 2020
According to Natasha Singer (2020), At the start of the school day, Ms. Clayton stands in front of the classroom, reminding her students to properly pull their masks over their noses. Then she delves into a writing lesson, all the while scanning the room for possible virus threats. She stops students from sharing supplies. She keeps her distance when answering their questions. She disinfects the desks between classes.
Then in the afternoon, just as her in-person students head home, Ms. Clayton begins her second day: remote teaching. Sitting in her classroom, she checks in one-on-one via video with eighth graders who have opted for distance learning. To make sure they aren’t missing out, she spends hours more recording instructional videos that replicate her in-person classroom lessons.
All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.
In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in pandemic conditions that are anything but normal. Some recounted whiplash experiences of having their schools abruptly open and close, sometimes more than once, because of virus risks or quarantine-driven staff shortages, requiring them to repeatedly switch back and forth between in-person and online teaching.
Others described the stress of having to lead back-to-back group video lessons for remote learners, even as they continued to teach students in person in their classrooms. Some educators said their workloads had doubled.
“I have NEVER been this exhausted,” Sarah Gross, a veteran high school English teacher in New Jersey who is doing hybrid teaching this fall, said in a recent Twitter thread. She added, “This is not sustainable.”
The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound impact, not only on people’s health, but also on how they learn, work and live. Among the most important challenges created by COVID-19 is how to adapt a system of education built around physical schools. At its peak, more than 188 countries, encompassing around 91% of enrolled learners worldwide, closed their schools to try to contain the spread of the virus. School closures have a very real impact on all students, but especially on the most vulnerable ones who are more likely to face additional barriers.Children and youth from low-income and single-parent families; immigrant, refugee, ethnic minority and Indigenous backgrounds; with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations; and those with special education needs suffer by being deprived of physical.
learning opportunities, social and emotional support available in schools and extra services such as school meals. They risk falling further behind and becoming isolated with school doors closed. These students are likely to lose the most in terms of educational outcomes and the support provided by schools if countries take insufficient measures to promote educational equity and inclusion.
Principal Goodson states that “ We are aware of learning gaps and we know that students could regress. That is why we are using the Unfinished Learning Document and prioritizing standards to ensure that students meet grade level learning expectations. Additionally we expect our teachers to use data to drive their instruction. There is no one size fits all approach.”
Assistant Principal Dr. Fowler,, the director of Special Education services stated, “ We believe in equity and equity is not about everyone getting the same support and scaffolds. It’s about everyone getting what they need to learn. Our approach varied depending on the child.”
Addressing learning gaps
School closures might have created new educational gaps or exacerbated already existing ones. The evidence is clear that students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are the ones likely to suffer the most. Likewise, certain groups of diverse students (e.g. students from specific ethnic groups, students with
social emotional needs (SEN).,) who are already marginalized will be highly impacted, which could be even worse if they are also from a low socioeconomic background. Estimates from the United States, for example, indicate that the learning loss from school closures in terms of reading and mathematics will be substantial for most students but particularly severe for vulnerable student populations, such as immigrant and refugee students or students with SEN.
Ensuring support to and by teachers
Teacher’s role and skills are irreplaceable and their daily contact with students places them among the most important agents of inclusion in education. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, they are core actors, guiding their students through the intensification of online distance learning. Furthermore, teachers, as well as school leaders, are the most likely individuals to be close to students’ families and can have a major role in both reaching the most vulnerable students and keeping their family engaged in their education.
Ensuring support to and by teachers
Teachers can help these students to remain connected during school closures by providing Internet hotspots, hosting video chats, sharing videos with closed captioning, providing translated material and engaging with the students’ families or guardians. While nearly 63 million teachers were touched by the crisis at the end of March 2020, ensuring support by and to teachers during such a crisis constitutes a great challenge and a key policy area to ensure equity and inclusion in education during school closures. According to a brief published in May 2020 by the World Bank, three core principles must guide policies aimed to promote teachers’ effectiveness and well-being: (1) support teacher’s resilience; (2) support teachers instructional; and (3) support teachers technologically. This section focuses on examples related to teacher networks and initiatives that have supported the most vulnerable and countries’ initiatives to ensure accessible resources for teachers and teachers’ socio-emotional well-being during the crisis.
