Coronavirus and Digital Migration: Are We Prepared for the Abrupt Transition to E-Learning?

A tectonic shift is underway in global K-12 education in response to the rapid and unpredictable spread of the frightening COVID-19 pandemic. Schools, colleges and universities have shut down almost everywhere leaving students, teachers and families in uncharted territory. With our educational institutions closed, parents are stepping-up to provide improvised ‘homebound’ education and educators are abruptly transitioning, almost by default, to e-learning in the form of distance education or video enhanced online programs. Provincial school authorities are playing catch-up and trotting out hastily-packaged Learn at Home distance learning programs to fill the extended interruption of regular, in-person classes.

Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, gave the first signal on Saturday March 14 of a significant change in the official public health response to the pandemic. Public health officials right across Canada are now routinely forecasting lengthy school closures beyond two weeks and possibly until the end of the year.

Closing schools for an additional two weeks after March break came first, and now educators are scrambling to make the sometimes rough and difficult transition to providing e-learning for students unable to report to ‘bricks-and-mortar’ schools. Some schools districts may be able to patch-together short-term e-learning modules, but few are prepared for the shift to online leaning on a system-wide scale.

The global COVID-19 pandemic looks like the realization of the wildest dream of the purveyors of technology-driven “disruptive innovation.” Almost overnight, the competition for online learning is not face-to-face, in-person classes, because those classes are cancelled. Now, it’s down to two options — distance learning and online teaching or nothing at all.   It’s happening so fast that even champions of radical technology innovation such as Michael B. Horn of the Christensen Institute are fearful that it may actually backfire.

Transitioning online cannot happen overnight. Recognized experts on digital learning, including the University of Limerick’s Ann Marcus Quinn, warn that technology is essentially a tool and transitioning is for more complex than simply swapping traditional textbook content for digital material is not the answer.

“Online teaching takes preparation and planning,” says Michael K. Barbour, co-author (with Randy LaBonte) of the annual report, The State of Online Learning in Canada. It requires “the careful consideration of the tools,” their strengths and ,imitations,  and the adoption of “pedagogical strategies” best suited to the means of delivery. “The situation we currently find ourselves in is one of triage,” Barbour claims. “It is’t online teaching, it is remote teaching in an emergency situation.”

Closing schools makes good sense in the midst of acute public health emergencies if it helps to save lives. Yet it does not necessarily have to mean suspending all teacher-guided instruction and learning.  While Alberta announced on March 15, 2020 that all of its K-12 schools and day care centres were closed indefinitely, elementary and secondary teachers are at school and engaged in developing plans for e-learning to support students.  In the case of the Calgary Board of Education, the top priority became gearing up to offer learning online, especially for high school students in their Grade 12 graduating year.

Much can be learned from the abrupt change to distance learning in countries ravaged by the pandemic.  Surveying the challenges faced by China over the first month of school closures, Adam Tyner, a former American visiting scholar at Shanghai’s Fudan University, identified  some vitally important lessons.

• Expand your learning management system capabilities so that teachers can post videos and interactive content, students can submit work, and teachers and students can easily engage in ongoing communication.. Upgrade your limited, ‘bare-bones’ student information management system by adding a new module, and hold teacher training sessions to bring teachers up to speed on how to utilize the tech tools;
• Increase your bandwidth and assume that not all students own smartphones or have computers at home.  Regular television stations can be required to air community programming and to include televised elementary school lessons, on a rotating basis, grade-by-grade during the daytime hours. Secure free internet access, for the duration of the crisis, following the lead of major Chinese providers such as Huawei.
• Encourage teacher experimentation with every means of communication to maintain active links with students.  Lessons and teacher-guided activities can be delivered in small videos or on podcasts, and mini-lessons or discussions carried out utilizing Zoom and other commercial apps.
• Address the technology access digital disparities gap: Purchasing 4G-equipped tablets and service may help to bridge the “digital divide” between ‘haves’ and have nots’ when it comes to access to technology and the Internet.
• Plan for Learning-Challenged Students: Switching from in-class to distance online learning is jolting for many students, and particularly for those who are struggling, need more attention, and perform better in guided activities.
• Tailoring E-Learning for High School: Teenage students experiencing more freedom than usual need more motivational strategies, ongoing monitoring, and accountability to keep them on track with their learning plans.

Ministries of education and school leaders are gradually recovering from the school culture shock delivered by a totally unexpected and dire public health emergency. Some school district superintendents have lost their bearings and continue to promote conventional system-bound thinking in a rapidly changing educational order. With students being educated at home during the regular school hiatus, e-learning has emerged, almost by default. First off the mark were Alberta and New York City schools,, Ontario is now on board with the March 20, 2020 launch of the first phase of its Learn at Home e-learning initiative.

New challenges are surfacing as high-tech entrepreneurs and dominant learning corporations such as Nelson LC see an opportunity to expand their market share in K-12 education.  Educational leaders, closely aligned with learning corporations and working through the C21Canada CEO Academy, see an opening to advance “21st century learning” as the best preparation for the workplace of the future. Teachers’ concerns, on this score, about the encroachment of corporate interests and the fuzziness of such programs are well founded.

Educational technology has its place when it’s serving the needs of teachers rather than complicating and overburdening their working lives. A brand-new book, Daisy Christodoulou‘s Teachers Versus Tech ?, tackles the question squarely and demonstrates its value, particularly in the case of spaced repetition adaptive algorithms and comparative judgement assessment. 

Seasoned technology learning analysts, such as Henry Fletcher Wood  recognize that online learning has, so far, over-promised and under-delivered when it comes to improving teaching and raising student achievement. Practicing classroom educators like Minnesota K-6 teacher Jon Gustafson are actively engaged in translating and adapting “effective principles of instruction” to online and blended learning. Eschewing jazzy e-learning strategies such as student-centred “PBL/inquiry projects” and video chats, Gustafson is applying best practice, including retrieval practice, explicit writing instruction, and formative assessment.

Getting schools, teachers and students prepared for a longer period of distance learning is fast becoming a priority for provincial education policy-makers and school-level management and curriculum leaders. Let’s hope that evidence-based pedagogy and best teaching practice do not get swept aside in the transformation to e-learning in K-12 education.

How is student learning changing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis?  What is emerging in the hiatus to fill the gap left by the prolonged cancellation of K-12 schools?  Should classroom educators be wary of learning corporations appearing bearing charitable gifts to school systems?  Why are teachers so skeptical of system-wide e-learning and online learning panaceas? Going forward, will teachers and ed tech find a way to live in peaceful coexistence in K-12 education? 

 

 

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Coronavirus and School Closures: Should Schools be Closed and, if so, When?*

The global footprint of coronavirus – COVID-19 – is expanding and national governments as well as regional school districts are making the difficult decision to shutdown the schools. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared it a “pandemic” and all of Canada’s education ministers participated in a teleconference to discuss the situation and potential policy responses, specifically following the annual March break for students and teachers.

Political leaders at the highest levels, working closely with public health authorities, are weighing their emergency measures options to combat the pandemic, ranging from school closures to mass quarantines. Closing schools may be politically expedient, but its effectiveness in curbing transmission is far from clear.

School closures have already interrupted the public education of some 300 million students across the globe. The first nation to close schools was Hong Kong, back in January, then Japan on February 27, and now many more jurisdictions have followed suit, including Italy, South Korea, Iran, France, Pakistan, New Delhi, the New York City region and northern Washington State.

Deciding to close schools in the case of COVID-19 is particularly challenging for one major reason. In the initial wave, the novel coronavirus, unlike HIN1 in 2009, had not affected children at high rates. Out of 44,672 initial confirmed cases in China, fewer than 2 per cent occurred in children under 19 years of age, and no deaths were recorded among those younger than 10 years old. That may be a low estimate because the attack rate for children, at a later stage in Shenzhen, was 13 per cent.

Closing schools, in some previous epidemics, has proven helpful in reducing transmission of seasonal flu among children. One 2013 British Medical Journal report, based upon a systematic review of epidemiological studies, concluded that school closures contained rates of transmission, even in the absence of other intentions. Yet determining “the optimal school closure strategy” remained “unclear” because of the wide variation in its forms of implementation.

Tracking the impact of school closures has proven tricky for researchers.  Some closures were limited to individual schools and, in other cases, whole school systems. Closing before the peak of the outbreak or well into the outbreak suggests that decisions are being made as either a precaution or a reaction to rising student influenza-related absenteeism. In some cases, schools close so children can receive antiviral medicines or vaccines, or in conjunction with a strategy of “social distancing.”  Such wide variations in implementation strategies makes it a challenge in determining which change actually affected transmission.

The body of research on school closure impacts during epidemics is surprisingly large, encompassing the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, the 2002-03 SARS pandemic, and the 2009 HINI flu outbreak.

Yet the results of those school closures have been mixed. Closing schools for more than two weeks has been linked to lower transmission rates in Hong Kong (seasonal and pandemic flus) and in England (H1N1), but not so in Peru (pandemic) or the United States (during seasonal flu epidemics).

The 2008 Hong Kong outbreak, the 1957 epidemic experience of France, and the 1918 pandemic records in some U.S. cities demonstrate that shutting schools can have no discernible impact, especially if decisions come too late in the cycle of the outbreak. Relying upon older parents or grandparents to be caregivers during closures may actually increase mortality rates among more susceptible populations.

Public heath experts caution educational leaders and school principals against basing decisions on the North American H1N1 experience. “The sensitivity of the 2009 pandemic to school closures probably relates to the high attack rates in children compared with adults,” the BMJ study pointed out. “Outbreaks in which children are less affected” such as COVID-19, “might be less sensitive to school closure.”

Closing schools also has broader socio-economic impacts and unrecognized health effects. There are trade-offs in being overly cautious by closing schools, including potential lengthy disruptions in student learning and compelling parents to stay home from work. Students from lower socio-economic neighbourhoods would also be deprived of school meal programs and cost-free supervised athletics activities.

The most authoritative study of school closure impacts, in the August 2009 issue of The Lancet, actually assesses broader community impacts. If all U.K. schools closed, some 30 per cent of health and social care workers would be taken out of commission, compounding adverse effects on the financial health and viability of communities.

School authorities would be well-advised to consider the potential duration of closures in their emergency response plans.  While it is probably wise to err on the side of caution with school-age children, the longer the closure lasts, the more problematic it becomes, especially in the absence of e-learning bridge programs.

Closing schools for more than two weeks to combat COVID-19, as in the case of Hong Kong, could have a detrimental effect upon the school schedule, year-end-examinations, and the conventional grade- promotion system. It’s possible, perhaps likely, that students will be seriously set back by missing so much instructional time.

Implementing “e-learning plans,” including digital and distance learning, is recommended by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but there’s a major problem with that constructive proposal in its guide for school administrators. It’s feasible in e-learning ready school systems like those in Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, and the State of Ohio, but not yet in our provincial school systems.

Few Canadian school districts are prepared or trained to implement e-learning days system-wide, and they have, with few exceptions, resisted piloting e-leaning modules during winter season storm days.  Scrambling to implement hastily prepared distance learning or online courses will not prove effective at all. Nor are schools fully equipped to administer year-end assessments online or to report the results electronically to students and parents.

Closing schools may be expedient in assuring the concerned public that actions are being taken to control the spread of the contagion. This is especially so now that managing the fears and anxieties of children and families is emerging as a priority during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the lower attack rates for children and the weight of research evidence, it’s much harder to make the call to dismiss classes and suspend school for what may well be an indeterminate period of time.

 Should schools be closed to contain and reduce the transmission of the 2019-20 coronavirus?  What does past experience closing schools during epidemics tell us?  Should schools be closed early in the cycle as a precaution or in reaction to escalating attack rates among children and their teachers? How prepared are school districts to implement e-learning as a bridge in the teaching-learning process?  If schools do close, the question is — for how long given the unpredictability of the spreading contagion?  

*An earlier version of this commentary appeared in The National Post, March 11, 2020. 

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Implementing Inclusive Education: What Lessons Can Be Learned from New Brunswick?*

Implementing true inclusive education is one of the most formidable challenges facing Canadian provincial school systems.  Scanning the Inclusion and Special Education policy landscape from province to province, New Brunswick stands out as an outlier. The so-called “New Brunswick Model” adopted in 2006 and formally confirmed in 2012-13 focuses almost exclusively on integrating all students into regular or mainstream classes.

Education Minister Dominic Cardy’s recent announcement of a New Brunswick inclusion policy review was welcomed by concerned parents and teachers. Defenders of the existing inclusion model under Policy 322 reacted with dismay and trepidation, and for good reason.  Public consultations have revealed, once again, that the total inclusion classroom is not working for every student nor for far too many regular teachers.  While former Education Minister Jody Carr and his entourage are travelling the world promoting that model, it is on decidedly shaky ground at home.

Everyone today supports inclusive education and there can be no turning back.  Societal changes, human rights advocacy, and the growing complexity of classrooms in terms of capabilities, language, race, ethnicity and gender have combined to forge a broader commitment to truly inclusive education.

What looked progressive fourteen years ago when Wayne MacKay proposed the current N.B. inclusion model has now been superseded by newer, more flexible and more responsive approaches better suited to meeting the full range of student needs. We are also now more attuned to significant differences on the question of how to achieve meaningful, properly-resourced inclusion for all students across the full spectrum of abilities.

A lot is at stake in the latest review of inclusive education policy. That is because the so-called ‘New Brunswick Model’ is a provincial export product and is being considered for implementation in Ireland. An October 2019 report from the Irish National Council on Special Education (NCSE), heavily influenced by Carr’s policy advocacy, tilted in the direction of adopting a ‘total inclusion model’ and it has inspired a fierce debate in Ireland.

The proposed policy reform has put New Brunswick education under the microscope. No other Canadian province has chosen to follow the N.B. inclusion path, and this has been duly noted by vocal critics of the whole scheme in the widely-read Irish Times newspaper.

Much has been made of UN Special Rapporteur Catalina Devandas-Aguilar’s commendation of New Brunswick for its compliance with international human rights declarations. That was, it must be noted, one of the only positive mentions in her report which critiqued almost every other province for their ‘uneven application’ of policies across all public services, including heath, education, housing and transit.

Many educators and researchers in Ireland are puzzled as to why the N.B. model emerged as a preferred option when it is at odds with inclusive policy elsewhere. Most provinces, including neighbouring Nova Scotia, offer ‘inclusive education’ with options ranging from integration into regular classrooms to special ‘resource’ classes to specialized programs in alternative school settings.

Defenders of the N.B. model were rocked a year ago by a series of Toronto Globe and Mail investigative stories focusing on whether “inclusive classrooms” were working for most if not all students. The deeply moving story of Grayson Kahn, a 7-year-old Ontario boy with autism excluded from his school for assaulting an Education Assistant, captured nation-wide attention. It also departed from the usual script – extolling the virtues of inclusion – and, instead, raised serious questions about the difficulties of accommodating children with complex needs in regular classrooms.

Teachers in Canada, including many in New Brunswick, are reporting a dramatic rise in violent incidents disrupting their classrooms, and rising tensions with families who feel their regular stream children are at risk. For the past five years, periodic concerns have been voiced by the New Brunswick Teachers Association (NBTA) over threats to the safety of teachers and education assistants.

Some educators in the Globe and Mail series addressed the so-called ‘elephant in the classroom,’ daring to wonder if inclusion has gone too far for students with very complex needs.  Inclusiveness will not work, they claimed, without “a thoughtful rethinking of how we teach children with diverse needs and how we structure the school day.”

School districts in Canada are beginning to acknowledge the need for “time out rooms” to allow students experiencing meltdowns space and time to recover. Families with children who have intellectual and developmental disabilities are increasingly being asked to pick up kids early, start the school day later or simply keep them home for the entire day.

Complicating matters is the fact that apart from a few advocacy or parent group surveys, most Canadian school districts, including those in New Brunswick, didn’t formally track these exclusions or shortened days until recently mandated to do so.

The N.B. inclusion system is full of holes, judging from concerns raised by parents and teachers during Minister Cardy’s current round of consultations.  Co-founder of Riverbend Community School in Moncton, Rebecca Halliday, was one of those speaking up for changes. She has fought an uphill battle for five years to establish a school for severely learning challenged students. Her struggles mirror those of hundreds of parents and families effectively ‘excluded’ by the total inclusion classroom policy and practice.

Conducting a provincial review opens the door, once again, to providing support for the most severely challenged students and need relief for their exhausted parents. What Halliday’s school struggle amply demonstrates is that it will not happen in New Brunswick without the introduction of a tuition support program being extended to students and families without the means to pay the tuition themselves.

Such a program exists in Nova Scotia where, since September 2004, provincial education authorities have offered a Tuition Support Program (TSP). It not only plugged the service gap, but broadened public access to intensive support programs designed for students with acute learning difficulties. Under the TSP, a small number of private, independent Special Education schools  (DSEPS) (Grade 3–12) not only exist, but fill the gap by providing a vitally important lifeline in the continuum of student support services.

Inclusion is an ideal to which most advanced education countries, provinces and states aspire.  One of the best and most influential international statements, the Salamanca Statement on Principles and Practice in Special Needs Education (UNESCO 1994), continues to inform much of the current policy on inclusive education. Children should be learning together in schools – but not necessarily in one particular setting.

With the exception of New Brunswick, provincial ministries of education take their cue from the Salamanca Statement and are working toward inclusive education by removing barriers and improving student supports across a range of program service options, including intensive support for children with the most complex needs. Today, inclusive education is the overriding philosophy and the real challenge is to ensure that students, parents, and service providers find the ‘right fit’ for every child or teen.

Winning a September 2016 Zero Project prize and recent praise from a UN agency, it turns out, is a dubious honour for New Brunswick because it involves expending so much time and energy defending a regular class setting for everyone, when some fare far better in smaller classes with more intensive resource support and others thrive with more individualized attention.

Instead of merely complying with a UN philosophical declaration, Minister Cardy and the Department would be better advised to study carefully the findings of Nova Scotia’s 2018 Inclusive Education Commission and its prescription. Following that extensive and comprehensive review, Nova Scotia is now fully engaged in building a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), much better aligned with best practice and evidence-informed research.

• An earlier version of this post appeared in the Telegraph-Journal, March 5, 2020.

Tackling inclusion stirs up passions and raises sensitive issues, but it’s time to address the key policy questions: Will the New Brunswick Model ever work, given the complex challenges in today’s classrooms?  What are the real and unintended consequences of mandatory inclusion in the absence of other viable, attractive or effective alternatives?  Is the properly-resourced all-inclusive classroom model feasible or sustainable?  If the N>B. model is optimal, why are school districts everywhere tilting more in the direction of implementing MTSS and attempting to support everyone across the full continuum of needs? 

 

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