The COVID-Slide: Helping Vulnerable Students Overcome Post-Pandemic Learning Loss
By Divya Sridhar, Ph.D., Policy Advisor at McGraw Hill
It is estimated that more than 50 million children in the United States will likely not return to school for weeks or months because of the coronavirus pandemic. [1] There is an abundance of literature to suggest that children who spend long periods away from their educational coursework experience deep knowledge decay, a phrase coined “learning loss.” Traditionally, students face learning loss during the summer months. But, under the current, unusual circumstances, COVID-19 is likely to compound and accelerate the expected learning loss this year, as state authorities have ordered their schools to move students to remote learning, and some have suspended in-person learning for the rest of the academic school year.
Unfortunately, it is expected that COVID-19 will create an early onset of students’ summer learning loss, thereby widening existing equity gaps that disproportionately impact students who are first-generation, low-income, and students of color.
Measuring Learning Loss
The topic of learning loss, particularly during the summer months, is a heavily researched subject without clear solutions. Existing research[2] suggests that when students take an extended break from their coursework, they are likely to slip behind, starting the fall semester at a disadvantage.
For example, a survey by the Brookings Institute[3] found that, on average, students lose 25–30 percent of their school-year learning over the summer. Students face distinct learning losses in math. The Northwest Education Association (NWEA) estimates that, during the summer, students — depending on grade level — could lose between half and all of the achievement growth one would expect in a normal academic year.[4] Therefore, learning loss is particularly pronounced in math and science, in comparison to fields like reading and English.[5]
To make matters worse, the problem disproportionately impacts minority students and students from families of lower socioeconomic status, due to the resource and educational equity gaps that persist for these students.[6] Not to mention, students with special needs and receiving English-as-a-second language (ESL) services whose challenges may be exacerbated by the use of EdTech.
How Learning Loss Impacts the Future of Work and Economy for Students
In particular, the learning loss during COVID-19 places high school juniors and seniors who are preparing for their future postsecondary plans — which may include enrolling in college or the workforce — at a particular disadvantage. It could be argued that while younger students may be able to return to school and make-up for the learning losses, students in their pivotal years of high school face the greatest challenges. Learning loss will have serious repercussions not only on the students and their schools, but also on the economy as a whole. Furthermore, high school students from underrepresented backgrounds and low-income communities are often behind from day one, due to myriad circumstances, even in schools where they have been accepted.
To meet the demands of the current and future workforce, eliminating barriers to entry for future college and workforce participants from traditionally overlooked communities and underrepresented backgrounds is critical, especially for those students who will face extensive learning losses. The California Student Aid Commission study conducted on the various economic and housing insecurities that affect students, paints a particularly grim picture for students attending community colleges without the necessary education and economic supports.
The achievement gaps are especially stark for Science Engineering Technology and Math (STEM) degree majors, for whom a mathematics and science foundation can present immediate barriers to entry. The majority of these students from underrepresented backgrounds attend high schools that do not offer advanced mathematics courses. Math and science are fields where knowledge is incremental, and particularly important for there to be continued learning over time, since the information compounds.
Without a clear time frame that reflects the end to the COVID-19 crisis, and a return to normalcy for students to their respective schools, the country needs to identify solutions to support students in halting any learning loss — as efficiently and effectively as possible.
What is a Potential Policy Solution to Learning Loss for Students?
As many students transition to virtual education, it is critical for students to have access to high-quality solutions that can support their course pathways and plans, based on a thorough understanding and assessment of existing knowledge gaps. Intelligent adaptive learning platforms, implemented appropriately, are particularly effective in accurately assessing and identifying student’s existing level of mastery and shaping their progress, as compared to their peers.
A number of education thought leaders, including the Gates Foundation and Educause, have identified adaptive learning as a promising, personalized solution for students.[7][8] The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has also taken a defined interest in proposing a solution to the problem on how to produce a more prepared and skilled workforce for high-demand jobs, particularly in STEM careers. The DOE’s solution is focused on further grounding and scaling “personalized and adaptive learning” in the educational system, to create multiple pathways to learning that can support students to align with the existing jobs in the workforce.
Harvard’s Graduate School of Education[9] also highlights the need for students to practice Math using personalized solutions, during periods away from school, given how incremental the knowledge gain is, in the area of Math.
Potential Policy Solutions for Learning Loss
Long-term learning loss doesn’t have to be an educational consequence of Covid-19. Powerful digital learning platforms, like McGraw Hill Rise and ALEKS, cater to an individual student’s needs by identifying learning gaps and providing personalized content, helping to embedded assessment and personalization to help ease the transition back to the new school year, regardless of teaching format, and ensure that every student is prepared to succeed this year and beyond.
- Rise is new ELA and Math, Grades 3–8, supplemental solution that is completely digital for today’s remote learning environment and specifically designed to tackle learning loss. With Rise, students access content curated to each grade and resources that allow for review and reinforcement of topics to improve comprehension and mastery. Teachers will have access to customized student reporting dashboards and real-time feedback on student content mastery. Additionally, Rise’s recharge feature allows for asynchronous reinforcement of topics, allowing students to reach mastery of core ELA and math learning objectives at their own pace. This easy-to-use and flexible learning tool is expected to have an immediate impact on closing learning gaps in schools across the U.S. this fall.
- Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces, or ALEKS, is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system, which can be accessed from any location and from any web-enabled device, making delivery convenient and ubiquitous. ALEKS can be used by colleges and universities to support students’ in taking courses through traditional remediation-based models, Multiple measures, corequisite models (pairing remediation with credit-bearing coursework, and accelerated learning models). Many colleges and universities have been successful in partnering with local schools to provide high school students with a streamlined pathway to receive college credit, using ALEKS Placement Preparation and Learning program, to support their foundation in math and science courses. Using ALEKS at participating schools, students have the opportunity to accelerate learning to qualify for credit-bearing college courses, or take remedial or dual credit courses, as offered by the partnering schools.
Transforming Education as We Know it: 21st Century Classrooms
Within the next year, as more truly intelligent learning solutions are released and tested in the market and there are larger-scale adoptions, classroom education is likely to completely transform. This technology-enabled transformation will be driven by passionate instructors and administrators who will integrate adaptive learning systems fully into the education experience, changing the construct and nature of classrooms, and reevaluating the way in which subjects are taught.
When personalized and adaptive learning is embedded into the educational system, more students, especially those who are at-risk or enter their postgraduate fields with a marked disadvantage, have a better chance at success through differentiated support. Such support can more adequately address the objectives, concerns, pathways, and competencies of every learner.[10] Some of the most tangible benefits of personalized and adaptive learning have been found to impact students in STEM fields who do not have the means to pay for cost-prohibitive tutoring services and other educational supports.[11][12]
With that being said, there is truly more work to be done. You may be wondering:
How will schools and educators be able to afford new investments in a 21st century classroom? Can the Federal stimulus package jumpstart the testing of new and innovative pedagogy?
We review the CARES Act in the next blog, to identify how the CARES Act could support schools and educators during the crisis.
References
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/opinion/coronavirus-schools-closed.html?smid=em-share
[2] http://www.whatkidscando.org/archives/whatslearned/WhatIfSummerLearning.pdf
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/research/summer-learning-loss-what-is-it-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/
[4] https://www.nwea.org/blog/2018/summer-learning-loss-what-we-know-what-were-learning/
[5] https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/06/summer-math-loss
[6] African American and Latino students are particularly impacted, as these students tend to gain less over the school year and lose more over the summer compared to white students.
[7] https://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/resource/personalized-learning-what-is-it/
[8] https://er.educause.edu/~/media/files/articles/2016/3/marapr16erfullissue.pdf?la=en
[9] https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/06/summer-math-loss
Divya Sridhar, Ph.D., is the Policy Advisor for Government Affairs at McGraw Hill. McGraw Hill is a learning science company, serving students, teachers and faculty with customized print and digital educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. In her role, Divya supports thought leadership on the company’s education policy priorities, relationship building with federal state and local policy makers, and strategic advocacy for the company’s business units. Divya has 10 years of combined experience in healthcare and education policy and has worked on issues such as interoperability, district digital transformation, educational equity, student data privacy, and funding for instructional materials.
