Despite attempting to assess an entirely different set of skills, the results of OECD’s 2022 test of creativity shows that the top scorers – Singapore, Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, and Finland – are many of the same countries that score highest on the PISA tests of reading, math, and science.
Other results highlighted in OECD’s report include:
Roughly half of the students who excelled in creative thinking did not excel in academic domains.
Girls performed much better than boys; in terms of average performance, boys did not outperform girls on the creativity assessment in any participating system.
Socio-economically advantaged students performed better than less advantaged peers, but the association between socio-economic status and performance is not as strong as it is in mathematics, reading and science.
OECD bases the test on a definition of creative thinking as “the competence to engage productively in the generation, evaluation, and improvement of ideas that can result in original and effective solutions, advances in knowledge, and impactful expressions of imagination.” OECD’s description of the assessment also notes that this definition focuses on “little c’ creativity” that “15-year-old students can reasonably demonstrate, and underlines that students need to learn how to engage productively in generating ideas, reflecting upon ideas by valuing their relevance and novelty, and iterating upon ideas until they reach a satisfactory outcome.”
“Secondary school students in England feel less able to express ideas at school and are less likely to report being able to take part in creative activities compared with their peers in many other countries, according to a major international assessment.And they are less likely to say that their teachers value creativity, according to the latest report from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) on creative thinking, from research carried out in 2022.”
“For 27% of students tested in Germany, the levels correspond to creative thinking skills that are strongly indicative of future success in the career world. Meanwhile, 22% were barely able to generate ideas for simple visual designs and written descriptions or find solutions to problems.”
“Korea scored above the OECD average in creative thinking in school environment and participation in creative school activities. The ministry said “We were able to confirm school efforts to improve the creative thinking skills of students.” On the nation’s low score in the creative thinking self-efficacy index, the ministry quoted the OECD as saying countries with higher scores in creative thinking tend to have lower indexes in self-efficacy.”
“Compared to other countries/economies, a relatively large proportion (39 percent) of Aotearoa New Zealand students were ‘top’ creative thinkers and most (86 percent) performed at or above baseline proficiency. “Expressing creativity through writing and social problem solving was a strength of Aotearoa New Zealand students, as was generating diverse and creative ideas. They did less well in scientific problem solving, visual expression and evaluating and improving ideas.”
“The Philippines’ score may be concerning, but some may have seen the writing on the wall long before the PISA results came out. Our educational system tends to emphasize creativity only at the preschool level, dramatically shifting to more traditional methods of education such as rote memorization and ‘right versus wrong’ approaches from First Grade onwards.”
“New data suggests Scottish teachers are doing a good job of encouraging creative thinking – but the government’s decision to opt out of new Pisa test means evidence is limited”
“The OECD had difficulty reviewing U.S. schools’ instructional practices for creativity and innovation, because practices differ significantly among states and districts, and did not release U.S. results.”
What’s changing in the China’s education system? What might change in the future? Those are some of the questions that Thomas Hatch asked Yong Zhao about in preparation for a visit to China last month. Zhao was born in China and now works all over the world, including in China, exploring the implications of globalization and technology on education. In part two of this interview, Zhao offers his impressions of recent changes in addressing students’ mental health and discusses the broader context of the Chinese education system and some of the challenges and opportunities for changes in the future. In the first part of the interview, Zhao shared his observations about some of the educational innovations he’s seen, and he’s been involved in China.
Thomas Hatch (TH): In the first part of our conversation, you shared a number of examples some new schools and educational developments in China. In other places like Finland, the US, and even in places like Vietnam and Singapore, I’ve also seen more attention to students’ mental health. Have you seen any initiatives related to supporting students’ healthy development or mental health and well-being in China?
Yong Zhao (YZ): I think that is happening because they’re adding more psychiatrists, more psychologists or “psychological teachers” to schools. Those never existed in China until recent years. So that’s a beginning. But also, traditionally, teachers of Chinese have had a responsibility for psychological support, though they may not have specific training for it. But the approach in Chinese culture is also different from the western way of constructing psychological and mental well-being. In the West, I think we sometimes misunderstand psychological issues because we just describe them, we measure them, we test them. And we have a handbook that defines what’s considered mental health. I’m quite worried about this. Is this a good thing to do?
It’s similar with what’s considered special education in China. Asian countries definitely have a very different definition. There the term applies primarily to those who have a major disability. But now the Western movement of attending to ADHD and learning differences is slowly spreading, though they are not being addressed in schools.
TH: When you say you think that the approach to psychological well-being and health is different in China, how would you describe it?
YZ: First, I’m not a researcher in that area, so I cannot describe it, but I’m very worried about the Western definition going into China and getting applied in that cultural context. I’ve always worried about what is China and what is the Western way of doing things? I’m struggling with this.
Yong Zhao
But one thing I want to emphasize is people always think I’m critical of China, but I’ve said, “I’m critical of everybody.” This is very important. I don’t think anyone has got it right. If someone had it right, we could retire. And some people say, “you’re pro- America.” And the truth is, I’m more critical of American education than other places. I think there is an interesting question about whether the Western way is the right way of doing this. when you think about well-being, I’m not sure because when you look you can see there is widespread misuse of special education, misuse of mental health issues, and I think there are a lot of problems that arise with psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Many things are happening
“I’m critical of everybody. This is very important. I don’t think anyone has got it right. If someone had it right, we could retire.“
TH: One of my goals is to understand what’s changing within a Chinese context and to think about the cultural, economic, and geographical conditions or “affordances” and what they can tell us about the possibilities of educational change. Can you give us your sense of the Chinese conception of development overall and the purposes and aims that underlie Chinese education?
YZ: Right now, I think China is quite misunderstood. People are easily influenced by media stories. You and I started this conversation talking about how schools don’t change, but like Larry Cuban has said, changes are like a breath on the window in the wintertime. You breathe on the window, and something happens, but then you’re gone, and it’s gone. We need to keep that in mind. Schools do not change, but they’re always changing. This is what I love about it. It’s happening all the time. Every week, for example, I receive emails from someone who is discussing innovation somewhere. Innovation is still there. But how come most schools don’t change? But schools actually do change because they do little things. When you refer back to the grammar of schooling, the grammar in schools hasn’t changed in a long time. But at the same time, there are activities that are changing. So, we need to consider how big a change is a change. That’s another thing to think about.
“Schools don’t change, but they’re always changing. This is what I love about it. It’s happening all the time. Every week, for example, I receive emails from someone who is discussing innovation somewhere. Innovation is still there. But how come massive schools don’t change?“
We also have to think about the diversity of the student population and who is benefiting from doing what. That’s another thing we normally don’t talk about. We talk about education innovation for all students, but not necessarily everybody benefits from the same allocation of time. I’ve not written this yet, but I’m working on this now. Another reason education doesn’t change is that whenever you change a school, you change the entire school, but the needs of the local community are always diverse. Whatever you change it into becomes a monopoly, so you never meet everyone’s needs. What I’m trying to do is to say schools should build many schools within a school, so you actually have diversity, allowing certain schools to grow within your school to meet the needs of the community. That’s my recent theory; trying to go in that direction.
TH: Your comments about change and the grammar of schooling are fascinating because the “grammar” hasn’t changed, but only if you look back within the modern, industrial era. Because if you think back beyond 100 or 120 years — if you go back far enough – some key aspects of schooling have definitely changed. So, it’s a question of perspective. If today, instead of trying to produce changes that we’re going to see tomorrow, we’re actually looking ahead to 40 or 50 years, we might be much more successful if we can be strategic in terms of enabling schools to shift over the long-term. As you look ahead and think about what could or what might happen in terms of Chinese education, do you see ways that it is changing or that it could change in the future?
YZ: What is going to happen in China? First of all, in any foreseeable future, China will not drop the Gaokao, the national exam to select students for university. The Chinese people value college credentials very much. I used to joke about how much Chinese love credentials. Even if they don’t know how to drive, they want to buy a driver’s license, they just want that damn thing. So that will not change. But the Chinese government has been trying very hard to adjust the numbers of students going to high schools and universities and to vocational high schools. Now, at the end of 9th grade, the students are divided into two groups by the Gaokao. It’s like the German system used to be. The highest scorers on the test go to the general high school and then they go to college. Another group goes to the vocational, technical high school, and then you go to the workforce. There’s a lot of problems with that, and right now they’ve changed the quotas so that more students are supposed to be sent to vocational schools. So, they’re trying to adjust that.
But my view is this. I think I wrote in my book “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon” that in China, the big problem is that no matter what you do, people will think there is always one best college – for example, Tsinghua or Peking University – and you can only take in so many kids no matter what you do. So, no matter how you change the exam, there are only so many kids who can go in. That is a huge problem. So, the Gaokao will dominate for a long time, and you will have a lot of kids dropping out of the education system before 9th grade if they’re not getting on the path to the best universities. It’s just that, basically, there’s no point to stay in the system. So, that’s not going to change.
What is going to change? Is after school, weekends. I also think that because of the access to technology and the quick spread of AI, you will have a group of students who, in a sense, are already pre-selected to get into general high schools and to prepare for the colleges. But you will also have a lot of students who have decided “I’m not going to college. I can’t go to college.” Those places with those students might see some changes, and those schools that have those students are not visited and are not understood by people. You know, if you go to a county level, they have high schools, and those high schools don’t have the best students because the best students have been sent to the provincial capital. I don’t think people understand the experiences of those kids who aren’t going to college, what their life is, and you might see some significant changes in those places.
“If you go to a county level, they have high schools, and those high schools don’t have the best students because the best students have been sent to the provincial capital. I don’t think people understand the experiences of those kids who aren’t going to college, what their life is, and you might see some significant changes in those places.”
TH: That’s fascinating, and it connects with Clayton Christensen’s notion that disruptive innovation emerges when there are people who are unserved, and I think you’re identifying in China that there are students who in a sense are not served by their schools or colleges. It could be fascinating to see what might develop there, particularly given the development of technologies and the spread of internet and AI.
YZ: There’s another thing that will affect China a lot, and that’s the drop-in birth rate. Right now, China is graduating over 11,000,000 college students, but the birth rate last year in China was closer to 9 million. As a result, a lot of elementary schools and kindergartens are closing because they don’t have enough students. But now there are groups of private colleges, smaller colleges, and they’re actually trying very hard to get kids in because that’s how they make money. Imagine what would happen if you opened all those places and take in every kid into college?
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.
To look back on some of the key education issues and stories from 2023, Thomas Hatch shares IEN’s annual roundup of the end-of-the-year headlines from many of the sources on education news and research that we follow. For comparison, take a look at IEN’s scans of the headlines looking back in 2021, 2020, 2019 part 1, and 2019 part 2. The next post will look to 2024 by pulling together some of the education predictions for the coming year.
Reviews of education stories in 2023 highlighted:
The continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement, student absences, teacher shortages, and other aspects of student and teachers’ health and well-being
Pandemic recovery initiatives and concerns about a “fiscal cliff” that may cut off funding for those initiatives.
Developments in education technology and particularly the potential impact of artificial intelligence following the launch of ChatGPT in 2022
Advocacy for the “science of reading” and foundational learning in literacy and numeracy
Persistent concerns including inadequate education funding, inequities in educational performance and opportunities, and the challenges of innovation in assessment and instruction.
A Capture of Moments, Danna Ramirez, New York Times
an unusual early childhood experiment up close; wrestling with large datasets to better understand education trends; getting over a fear of math to cover efforts to revolutionize the teaching of calculus; and, yes, talks with professors struggling with adjusting teaching to the presence of AI chatbots
“The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced significant changes in 2023, including updated marking-schemes and increased number of exams that candidates can take.”
How effective are tutoring programs likely to be? What kinds of challenges need to be addressed for tutoring to contribute to real improvements in schooling on a large scale? In this extended series of posts, IEN continues to scan the news and research on the emergence of tutoring as a key strategy to help students “recover” from the school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first part of this series describes some of the funding initiatives contributing to the emphasis on “high-dosage” tutoring as a “recovery” strategy, as well as some of the initiatives to expand access to tutoring being pursued in the US in particular. Part 2 of this scan will describe some of the challenges educators are experiencing as they try to develop and implement tutoring approaches, and Part 3 will survey some of the specific new developments and “micro-innovations” that could make tutoring more effective in the future. This series is part of IEN’s ongoing coverage of what is and is not changing in schools and education following the school closures of the pandemic. For more from the series, see “What can change in schools after the pandemic?” and “ We will now resume our regular programming.” For IEN’s previous coverage of news and research on tutoring, see Scanning the News on High Dosage Tutoring, Part 1: A Solution to Pandemic Learning Recovery, and Part 2: Initiatives and Implementation So Far. This post was written by Thomas Hatchand Jonathan Beltran Alvarado.
In the wake of the COVID-19-related school closures, “high dosage” tutoring represents a rare instance of a “recovery” strategy that seems to have wide support, willing funders, and available resources. Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that over the past two years, tutoring initiatives have taken off around the world, particularly in the US.
Tutoring around the world
The global interest in tutoring has always been reflected in the enormous investments in “shadow education” – often private programs that children attend to supplement and support their schooling. In China, survey estimates suggest that while 65% of families with school-aged children took advantage of private tutoring in 2016, that number may have surged to 92% by 2021. In response, the Chinese government passed regulations designed to ban for-profit companies from tutoring in core curriculum subjects.
In China, survey estimates suggest that while 65% of families with school-aged children took advantage of private tutoring in 2016, that number may have surged to 92% by 2021
Although the size, scale, and pressure of private tutoring are often highlighted in Asian countries, the interest in tutoring is evident across the globe. In England, according to the Sutton Trust’s 2023 report “Tutoring: The New Landscape,” almost 1 in 3 young people aged 11 – 16 report they have had private tutoring, up from 18% in 2005. In Spain, nearly half of families pay for children to get private lessons, with those families spending about 1.8 billion dollars (USD) on classes with languages – particularly English – as the main priority. In Egypt, the New York Times reports, “Students in Egypt are flocking to private tutoring centers as the country’s public schools remain overcrowded and underfunded,” explaining that estimates suggest that Egyptian families are spending over one and a half times more on pre-college education than the government does. A “mind-blowing” amount, as Hania Sobhy, an expert on Egyptian education, described it.
At least for wealthy elites, private tutoring may have no international boundaries or many other constraints. Sarah Thomas, in “My Surreal Years Tutoring the Children of the Super-Rich,” explained: “I wanted a job that allowed me free time, so I registered with a tutoring agency. A few weeks later, I found myself in a speedboat cutting across the Indian Ocean towards a superyacht the size of a ferry.” That job soon led to other tutoring arrangements where her “classrooms would be on yacht decks surrounded by dolphins, in Monaco penthouses with infinity pools, and in Mayfair townhouses with halls full of Mapplethorpes.”
I wanted a job that allowed me free time,” she writes, “so I registered with a tutoring agency. A few weeks later, I found myself in a speedboat cutting across the Indian Ocean towards a superyacht the size of a ferry. – Sarah Thomas, My Surreal Years Tutoring the Children of the Super-Rich
In the US, tutoring has always been a popular strategy for providing “extra help,” but following the school closures, tutoring is emerging as a more integral part of schooling across the US. According to a Education Week survey of school leaders and teachers in 1,287 districts at the end of the 2021-22 school year, almost 90% of those responding said that their school or district was offering some kind of tutoring (interesting, only 75% said that they “somewhat agreed” or “completely agreed” that “tutoring is an effective intervention for students in my district or school”). Backing up those numbers, by the spring of 2022, estimates suggest that districts had dedicated over $1.7 billion in Federal funding to tutoring-related efforts and predicted spending could reach 3.6 billion by 2024. Correspondingly, the Department of Education reported that in the 2023-24 school year, more than four out of five schools reported offering tutoring programs, ranging from traditional after-school homework help to intensive tutoring.
Private funders are also supporting tutoring efforts by establishing Accelerate, a new organization dedicated to developing and scaling affordable “high-impact” tutoring programs across the country. With funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Arnold Ventures, and the Overdeck Family Foundation, Accelerate set out to raise at least 100 million dollars to develop a network and make grants to support some of the most innovative tutoring models. According to later reports, Accelerate has provided 10 million dollars to 31 organizations developing “innovative” tutoring models and a million dollars to five different states to establish support and “infrastructure” for integrating tutoring into the regular school day that can serve as a model for other states.
States and cities have also participated in increasing the number of tutoring programs available around the country. New Hampshire’s approach includes offering a Yes, Every Student scholarship providing $1,000 for private tutoring from “state-approved educators” for “any young person whose education was negatively impacted by the pandemic.” New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut described the reaction to the program this way: “When I explain the program to [parents], they become very excited, like, ‘Oh, this is great. In some cases, they’re almost like, ‘It’s too good to be true. How can this possibly be?’”
“When I explain the program to [parents], they become very excited, like, ‘Oh, this is great. In some cases, they’re almost like, ‘It’s too good to be true. How can this possibly be?’”
In Ohio, most families now qualify for $1,000 to pay for tutoring. Through its Afterschool Child Enrichment program, called ACE, the Ohio State Department of Education supports educational activities for students who “experienced learning disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.” In Ohio’s case, however, families who meet the income restrictions can use those funds for a range of activities, including summer camps, language and music lessons, and after-school programs, in addition to tutoring.
Next week: “Predictable challenges and possibilities for effective tutoring at scale – Scanning the news on the emergence of tutoring programs after the school closures (Part 2)
ARC brings together members of education systems and organizations such as Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Uruguay, Wales, and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan, and the International Confederation of Principals (ICP). Summaries and materials from previous ThoughtMeets are available on the ARC Education Project website. This article was written by Mariana Domínguez González, Sarah McGinnis & Trista Hollweck.
Ready or not, advanced technology (like ChatGPT) is part of the educational landscape, Yngve Lindvig declared. Even as the debate continues on the possibilities and consequences for schools and higher education, educational leaders must make policy decisions on artificial intelligence in their systems that take into account key questions like:
• How can we make sure that pedagogy drives technology and not the opposite?
• How do we make AI generated data relevant for teachers and students to support learning?
• How can teachers and students be data generators and critical users?
• How can teachers be their own data managers and have access to effective tools for data informed feedback in real time?
• How do we know the data we use is ethical and complies with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)
In this context, Lindvig argued, ChatGTP and advanced technology should be embraced, rather than feared, but in a thoughtful and reflective way. Although many governments and system leaders are concerned about the speed of change and a lack of control over AI, banning its use in schools and higher education is not the answer, he continued. AI has the possibilityto disrupt established instruction and assessment practices tosupport student learning in new and powerful ways, but its threats must not be taken lightly, he warned.
Addressing both threats and opportunities, Lindvig described how data-informed learning can be a critical element of effectiveAI use in schools, where data are generated by the students andare used in the learning situation. Since the origin of content in most data management systems is unknown, however, a number of risks must be considered when using AI generated data in schools. These include lack of diversity in content, creating an echo chamber of self-reinforcing opinions and sources, and promoting content that may not be aligned with priorities in educational systems. The main problem is that when a student uses AI generated data, the output is not derived from the student’s critical thinking, reflection, ideas, or product, but it is outsourced to a machine that disconnects the student from the learning. On the other hand, Lindvig explained, if you are able to make an AI-empowered solution within your system, controlled by your system, linked to the curriculum, tagged with curriculum goals, incorporating student feedback based on the intentions in the curriculum, then we have a system that could actually change something.
For Lindvig, perhaps one of the most powerful changes that AI could bring to education is a shift from more traditional assessment practices (such as essay writing and tests) to production-based formats where students must demonstrate their learning in multiple ways using a variety of multi-modal formats. When AI is assessing multi-modal products aligned with the goals that the teacher sets for the learning experience, then the teacher also gets something in return for using advanced technology. Additionally, AI used for assessment can engagestudent learning and provide immediate feedback within the classroom. Of note, AI implementation guided by teachers’ goals ensures that the feedback provided to students is aligned with the educational system’s curriculum and not “big tech” controlled algorithms. After testing this type of AI implementation in Scandinavian schools in May and June, Lindvig noted that teachers reported that the AI feedback on student work was aligned with the values in the curriculum and that it provided them with more time to communicate with their students.
So where do system leaders start in order to implement an AI-empowered solution that is pedagogically relevant? According to Lindvig, systems should:
• Own the login platform, even if a company runs it for the system.
• Control the student catalog which contains the data.
• Implement very strong General Data Protection Regulations, and decide –at a federal, provincial and/or municipal level- which applications are allowed to be used.
• Own the curriculum by making sure that the applications filter the information so that it includes only the content that is relevant and pertinent to the national/provincial curriculum.
This interview is one in a series exploring what has and has not changed in education since COVID. Previous interviews and posts have looked at developments in Poland, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Vietnam.
Thomas Hatch: What about now? Have their been changes in terms of the uses of technology and “digitization”? Is that something that’s still going on or that is a focus for professional development during the summer?
Barbara Gross: The focus on digitalization was also there in the beginning of the pandemic and that’s an emphasis that’s continuing. But there was very different handling of this depending on the capacity of the school and the capacity of the teachers. The teachers often had to have their own devices, and they had to have digital competencies. The response depended on the individual effort of teachers, not just what the government expected teachers to do.
TH: Were there other issues that the government tried to address?
BG: They thought about trying to be innovative with buildings and facilities. In fact, they bought a lot of chairs during this period. The aim was to provide chairs with wheels, but soon it emerged that to ensure for social distancing that wasn’t really helpful. There were also some governmental decisions about how to use funding which weren’t always supported by the community or by teachers.
TH: What about other repercussions from the pandemic? Are there particular concerns around education that have emerged or is it more like the pandemic is over and we’re moving on?
BG: What is still discussed are teachers’ and students’ digital competencies. In addition, there have been some concerns about student learning and also about drop-out rates. There were higher dropouts because students didn’t see the necessity any more of going back to school. This is especially a problem for students from families who are already marginalized. There are also reports stating that students from families with the lowest levels of economic resources decided not to go to a secondary school or to a university, but instead to do more vocational training. So there has been some “catch-up” discussion, particularly about having longer school hours or schooling on Saturdays, or adding school time in June. But there were also many voices that were opposed to this, and one of the things we’ve written about is that learning isn’t so linear, so just adding more school hours doesn’t necessarily mean you are adding more learning. We know that learning is much more complex. We can’t just say “you lost 10 hours, so now we’ll give you 10 more back.”
…learning isn’t so linear, so just adding more school hours doesn’t necessarily mean you are adding more learning. We know that learning is much more complex. We can’t just say “you lost 10 hours, so now we’ll give you 10 more back.”
There was also some data that children from vulnerable families were not getting enough healthy food or getting as many support services during the COVID lockdown as they were before. Many of those children before COVID went to school and afterschool all day and got a proper meal at lunch; but during COVID, when the schools were closed, they didn’t have those services either and that affected their health. There have also been a lot of reports about the wellbeing of all students and how they missed out on all the social aspects of schools. The consequences are likely to continue to affect their lives.
TH: Can you tell me a little bit about the comparative research you’ve done about how different education systems are talking about and responding to the COVID crisis in education?
BG: In our comparative research we looked at educational policy responses to the pandemic in countries like Italy, Austria, Germany and England. We’ve seen it’s all about trust and what research governments trust. The priorities have been on health, security, and on the economy so policymakers have been listening to the medical experts and economists. Educational research has not been referred to and included very much. For example, in Italy we’ve seen that a lot of women have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, so now there’s more interest in having more early childhood services and more interest in creating special programs for enhancing specific competencies for women.
We’ve also seen that differences among countries depending on how states define who is “vulnerable” or “in need.” For example, we have seen that the focus in Italy has been on inclusive schooling. From the 70’s on, Italy has had schools for all, including children with disabilities or learning difficulties. During COVID, in the discussions of which students needed support, there was a focus on making sure that students with disabilities and learning difficulties got extra support, but it was mostly left up to the teachers to figure out how to give them more attention or other kinds of support. In Italy, there was not as much focus on other aspects of diversity, for example, on children whose home language is different from the language of instruction, and, compared to other countries, less focus in Italy on socioeconomically disadvantaged learners.
We’ve also seen that differences among countries depending on how states define who is “vulnerable” or “in need.”…In Italy, there was not as much focus on other aspects of diversity, for example, on children whose home language is different from the language of instruction.
TH: And how did the Italian response compare to what you saw in other countries?
BG: In Italy, the reopening of schools was more delayed, as there wasn’t as much of a focus on reopening as there was in England, Germany and Austria. In Germany and Austria, for example, there were re-openings at least for some students in May of 2020. There were also differences in terms of who was considered “vulnerable.” In Germany, there was more of a focus on immigrant students and less on students with special educational needs. In Austria, in the government documents we see the focus on linguistic diversity and the children who did not speak German. They argued that if these students didn’t go to school, then they would not learn to speak German, and the consequences would be severe.
There were also differences in terms of digitization. Both England and Austria were well-prepared before the COVID outbreak, but Germany was not. In Germany digitization overall is still an issue, and there were discussions about it during the pandemic. In Italy, they were aware of the digital gap so the focus during COVID was on filling this gap. In terms of “catch-up,” we’ve also seen that equality was prioritized of equity. After the first wave, in Germany, England and Italy there was a discussion about who was most in need, but then when it came to actually giving support, no differentiation in the provision of support measures was made. Of course, this is also a source of inequality – equity does not come with equality.
After the first wave, in Germany, England and Italy there was a discussion about who was most in need, but then when it came to actually giving support, no differentiation in the provision of support measures was made. Of course, this is also a source of inequality – equity does not come with equality.
We also found in our work in Italy and Austria that schools have also learned from COVID that they have to emphasize wellbeing, particularly the social aspects of wellbeing and students’ relationships with their peers. If those relationships are missing, if students can’t go to school, they don’t have the same opportunities to develop their social competencies. We found that how the schools and teachers in different countries have responded to that depends on how “output oriented” they are – how much they focus on producing particular outcomes. For example, we’ve seen a stronger output-orientation in England than Italy. But in all the countries, one of the main messages of the pandemic in education has been that already existing difficulties exacerbated.
In this interview, Barbara Gross talks with Thomas Hatch about her research with schools in Italy and what she observed during the COVID-19 related school closures. Gross is currently Junior Professor in Educational Science with a Focus on Intercultural Education at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany. Until October of 2022, she was an Assistant Professor at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, in Northern Italy. Bozen-Bolzano is in South Tyrol, a region bordering Austria, where almost 70% of the population speaks German as their primary language. Some of Gross’ work explores this linguistic diversity as Italian is the language of instruction in Italian language schools and taught as a second language in German-language schools; German is the language of instruction in German-language schools and taught as a second language in Italian-language schools (Further Language Learning in Linguistic and Cultural Diverse Contexts: A Mixed Methods Research in a European Border Region). Because of the right to schooling in these official languages teacher education in the region also has to prepare future teachers to work in each system (Approaches to Diversity: Tracing Multilingualism in Teacher Education in South Tyrol, Italy).This interview is one in a series exploring what has and has not changed in education since COVID. Previous interviews and posts have looked at developments in Poland, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Vietnam.
Thomas Hatch: Can you share a little about what happened in schools in Italy when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, and then how the education system there has responded?
Barbara Gross: Obviously, Italy was one of the first societies to feel the effects of COVID so the schools closed very early, with the first school closures in Europe taking place in Northern Italy on the 21st of February, 2020. Then, because Italy has a centralized education system, the decision was made to close schools and universities nationwide on March 4, but initially they only announced a closure until March 15th. The governments’ decision to close the schools focused on protecting the health of children and young people, and they ultimately decided to leave schools closed until September 2020. I assume the long lockdown was influenced by the fact that there are a lot of schools in Italy with small classrooms and a lack of teachers which made it difficult for social distancing and for staffing smaller groups.
When the government closed schools, they also announced there should be an immediate switch to online teaching, but in Italy there is something called “school autonomy” and within it “didactic autonomy,”which meant that schools also had autonomy to decide how to deal with online teaching and remote teaching. School autonomy took effect in 2000, and within the School Autonomy Regulations there are rules regulating teaching autonomy (art. 4) and organisational autonomy (art. 5). The application of these rules is the direct responsibility of the school, which implements them with flexible criteria, but respecting the families’ freedom of educational choice and, in any case, recognising and valuing diversity, promoting the potential of each pupil, and adopting all the initiatives useful for achieving educational success. The educational institutions ensure the implementation of remedial and support, continuity and school and career guidance initiatives for pupils. On the basis of autonomy, educational institutions can change the annual number of hours of teaching disciplines (subjects) by a quota of 20%.
In terms of the response to the closures, generally, the tendency was for schools to go to remote teaching immediately and to do a lot of online teaching. That was a challenge, because neither the teachers nor the children were well prepared for the transition. It was difficult also in some regions where the internet connections still are not very good. In those areas, the Ministry of Education encouraged teachers to contact children via phone if they didn’t have access to the internet or to send materials to children or parents. Locally, there were also a schools where teachers would leave materials for the students and then return to pick up the work that the parents brought back to the school after the students worked on them In some primary schools, it went on like that until the end of the 2020 school year so those schools never even had remote teaching. However, some schools reopened for children whose parents had to go back to work, and the government did discuss opening up some “catch-up programs” during the summer, but the teachers’ unions said that the health of teachers also had to be safeguarded. That’s why schools didn’t open up again until September, 2020.
TH: What about other aspects of the response? Was there a local or regional effort to get people connected or to get them devices?
BG: Because the internet access in some places was so sporadic, getting everyone devices wasn’t really a viable solution. But there were funds for devices, especially for what they considered “vulnerable children.” However, from the beginning of the outbreak the decision was to leave the schools closed to protect the health of children, so the focus wasn’t really on education. The expertise that was considered was always the expertise of medical experts. Then the government started to consider the economy and opening up businesses, and it wasn’t until after that that they thought about education.
[F]rom the beginning of the outbreak the decision was to leave the schools closed to protect the health of children, so the focus wasn’t really on education. The expertise that was considered was always the expertise of medical experts. Then the government started to consider the economy and opening up businesses, and it wasn’t until after that that they thought about education.
TH: And what happened with the exams during the closures?
BG: Generally, the government had a very pragmatic way of dealing with exams, stating that grading should not disadvantage learners. In high schools, for example, exit exams for graduating students were simplified, and in the composition of the final grade, the oral part received a higher weight; however, the oral part was held in person, with social distancing. For younger students, you can see from the data that students’ grades for the year were higher than normal. That probably reflects the concern about inequality and not wanting to penalize students who didn’t have the support to study at home or to get the help they would have gotten in schools. They didn’t want the students’ grades during the closures to hold anyone back.
TH: What happened when the schools came back in person in September 2020?
BG: After the schools reopened, there was no other national shutdown, but in the spring of 2021 there were some local school closures. Again, these decisions were made at the national level, in response to data health, for example, on the number of cases in a particular area. When the students did come back in September 2020, schools in certain regions tried different kinds of social distancing. Some had different entrances and exits. Some schools also continued with hybrid education, having some students in class at school and some at home online at the same time. There was also priority placed on keeping schools open for younger children, to try to make sure they can be in school, every day, in person, but then for secondary school students, it was more of a hybrid mixture.
In terms of other changes, primary schools in my area in South Tyrol introduced a new period of “self-organized learning” during the first hour of the school day. This was supposed to allow for flexible entrances – and thus lower the risk for infections – and, at the same time, help students to adjust to going back to school and catch up on possible learning losses.
“As far as the newly introduced learning format of self-organized or independent learning is concerned, around 80 percent of the teachers and pupils in primary and secondary schools stated that they got along well with the learning format of self-organized or independent learning. A similar picture emerges for parents and guardians: 82 percent believe that their child coped well with this learning period. A point of criticism in connection with self-organized learning is that, especially in primary school, the pupils were often given too few challenging tasks in this learning area. It was also criticized that the use of digital media was limited at this school level.”
The national government also took other steps, for example, they were very committed to enhancing or fostering the wellbeing of students. Even though Italy doesn’t normally have school psychologists, they provided funding so that schools could get a psychologist or find other ways to support students and even teachers and parents, if needed – the aim was preventing and treating negative consequences that emerged during COVID-19. That was a national decision, and it meant that schools had a right to a certain number of hours of support from a psychologist in 2022 – however, they also discussed the need for a permanent systemic introduction of the function of psychologists in educational institutions.
References
Gross, B., Kelly, P., & Hofbauer, S. (2022). ‘Making up for lost time’: neoliberal governance and educational catch-up for disadvantaged students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Germany and England. Zeitschrift für Diversitätsforschung und -management2, 161-174. doi: 10.3224/zdfm.v7i2.04
Kelly, P., Hofbauer, S., & Gross, B. (2021). Renegotiating the public good: Responding to the first wave of COVID-19 in England, Germany and Italy. European Educational Research Journal, 20(5), 584-609. doi: 10.1177/14749041211030065
Francesconi, D., Gross, B., & Agostini, E. (2021). The role and facets of wellbeing during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative analysis of Austrian and Italian educational policy. Psihološka istraživanja, 24(2),141-162. doi: 10.5937/PSISTRA24-32602
Gross, B., Francesconi, D., & Agostini, E., (2021). Ensuring equitable opportunities for socioeconomically disadvantaged students in Italy and Austria during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative analysis of educational policy documents. Italian Journal of Educational Research, 27, 27-39. doi: 10.7346/sird-022021-p27
This week, Chi Hieu Nguyen talks with Thomas Hatch about the after effects and developments in education in Vietnam following the COVID-19 school closures. Nguyen is the CEO, and co-founder of Innovative Education Group (IEG). Innovative Education Group is an umbrella group of more than 10 education ventures. The interview includes a brief discussion of IEG’s work before Nguyen discusses what happened in Vietnam’s schools following the COVID-19 outbreak, how the education system has responded and what has happened since.
Thomas Hatch: Before we talk about the school closures, can you give us a sense of the kind of work you and your colleagues at IEG do in Vietnam?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: We serve the entire spectrum of the education landscape in Vietnam. We work with policymakers, researchers, school leaders, teachers, parents, and students, and each venture tackles a different problem. We manage education consulting companies but we also run full scale K-12 school systems; we’re involved in publishing, assessment, online learning models, and after school learning models, and even a nonprofit foundation to rebuild public schools in remote areas or provide scholarships and mentorship to underprivileged college students. But the majority of my work focuses on K-12 schools in terms of building new schools, upgrading schools, and transforming old schools. I focus mainly on the academic operation side.
The School Closures in Vietnam
Thomas Hatch: Can you give us a sense of what happened in schools in Vietnam after the COVID-19 outbreak?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: I think Vietnam is a very interesting case. If you look at the data, for example, in South Asia in general, during COVID-19, Vietnam had a longer stretch of lockdown compared to other countries because we were quite late in getting vaccinations going. So the closures started in March 2020, and, in total, we were probably online for a year and a half, and, at least for certain areas, it could be longer.
Thomas Hatch: Was that a government-wide shutdown? Was there any discussion or planning up to it? Or was it one day the schools were open, and the next day they were closed and online?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: In Vietnam it’s usually a top-down decision of the Government to shut down. But this time, it wasn’t uniform across the country. They started shutting things down depending on where the outbreak took place. Shutdowns could also happen based on the district. For example, there are 16 districts, and when a district had an outbreak, that district got shut down, and the others districts could stay open. So the school system operated in a very flexible way, but only in the beginning. Then there was an intense period with the biggest outbreaks in summer and fall of 2020. That’s when pretty much the entire country got shut down, including the schools. Then, as we recovered, opening schools was really based on the city again – which had the highest amount of a percentage of vaccination and things like that. But the Government decided to have a target of 100% vaccination, and that is the reason why when it got back to normal it was pretty much every city and every province that came back to normal schooling. That happened around February–March of 2022. It was almost 2 years or a year and a half on and off, but mostly off.
Thomas Hatch: Who was making the decision about closing down schools? Was it the central government who would essentially say, okay, if you have an outbreak, you need to close? Or was it up to the local officials?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: It was the local authorities. Each province or municipality made those decisions depending on the outbreak. The central government gave a very general directive, but it was the authority of the province or the city that made the decision to shut down.
Thomas Hatch: Is that typical of decision making in the Vietnamese education system? Or is it usually more centrally controlled than that?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: Over time, they have tended to give more leeway for local authorities to make the decisions. In 2018, after many years, we had an entire revamp of the national curriculum. That revamp produced the first competency-based curriculum nationally. But before that there was only a “one textbook” approach. That meant that, before 2018, for the entire public school system, we used the same textbook. From 2018 onwards, there’s a set of textbooks to choose from, so there’s a lot more leeway and flexibility for schools in different districts and different provinces and cities. It’s still a centrally controlled system, but there is increasing flexibility for the local authority to make those decisions. Over the past 5 or 6 years, there’s certainly more loosening of regulations to support the growth of the private sector as well, but it’s more obvious in education.
“Like a Survival Instinct” – The Initial Response to the School Closures
Thomas Hatch: What was the first step, the first reaction in terms of the school closures? Was it that people said, “oh my, we’re going to have to teach online and nobody has broadband access? And nobody has computers?”
Chi Hieu Nguyen: That’s really what it was. It was like a survival instinct. Everyone got online as much as they could. It’s actually accelerated the speed of adoption of technology and the Internet in a lot of schools. Many people and schools got online quickly, within about one or 2 months. But in contrast to many other Asian countries, in Vietnam, most of the new adoption of the Internet and digital devices — almost 75% — were in the metro areas. That means that in terms of the continuity of education, the metro areas did pretty well, but that the gap between the metro areas and rural areas widened because of COVID-19. For the Metro areas, COVID was a big kick that got a lot of people online, and now there are a lot of new digital products and services that are available. But in my work, even now, we still have to provide computers and teachers to teach online for students in the most remote area of Vietnam.
Thomas Hatch: That’s a pretty incredible increase in digital use in the metro areas. How was that response possible? Was it led by the Government? Or by local authorities? Or business?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: For private schools, the schools did it themselves, but I think the local education departments were also very responsive. For example, my province, the leadership of the public schools didn’t even need to wait for the local government or the central government to decide. They got students connected very quickly. I think there’s also that agility in the teachers. It’s a very young generation of teachers in Vietnam, and many of them are technologically enabled in their daily life. I think there’s just this passion in Vietnamese teachers in general that might have helped even in more rural areas where there was less internet penetration and technology is very limited. But, overall, I think the infrastructure was in place except for the very poorest areas. Vietnam is a very fast adopter of technology in general, and we saw that kind of a quick transformation in education. Students at most of the schools I know, both private and public schools, get online very quickly within just about 2 months.
Vietnam is a very fast adopter of technology in general, and we saw that kind of a quick transformation in education. Students at most of the schools I know, both private and public schools, get online very quickly within just about 2 months.
Thomas Hatch: What about devices? Did the schools have to hand out devices or did kids have enough mobile phones?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: Phones are something very common in Vietnam. Vietnam is a very e-commerce economy so the infrastructure is there. Almost every house has a smartphone with a data plan connected with the Internet. I think it’s only with those with the lowest incomes or in the most remote areas where infrastructure is not strong enough. The majority of the country is pretty much connected.
Managing through Remote Instruction
Thomas Hatch: Then what? What were some of the first steps in terms of making sure that remote education would be effective? Was it training teachers in zoom and things like that? Was it creating a curriculum? And was that done centrally at the national level or at the local level?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: For one thing, the Ministry of Education worked together with the national television station to produce learning programs for every subject from grade 1 all the way to grade 12, so that even when students didn’t have internet they could actually watch the TV and learn the programs. But at schools, the effort was focused on just getting kids online and using the internet as a medium to get connected with students within the first, maybe 6 months to 9 months. There was not much of any conversation about teaching methods. But then, towards the end of 2020, and for most of 2021, there were more conversations and conferences about pedagogies, methods, and how to use technology. There was also new explosion of technological products and services in 2021. But for the first 6 months it was pretty much just getting online as much as possible.
Thomas Hatch: That’s very helpful. It’s really interesting the way you describe the COVID-19 response in phases, with an explosion of edtech technologies and things that teachers could use. It wasn’t necessarily focused on pedagogy. Can you give some examples of some of the more interesting edtech developments from your perspective?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: In just about 2 months it seemed like Zoom or Microsoft Teams were in every school. Then in 2021 Microsoft education came in, and suddenly there was an explosion in the number of teachers going for Microsoft education training to become a Microsoft Education Expert or to learn how to use the entire suite of packages and services. Google education followed as well. Vietnamese parents in general are also very keen on learning English with technology, and suddenly there is an explosion of pronunciation apps, reading apps, grammar apps, tons of this. There’s even an investment company translating the entire Khan Academy in Vietnamese.
For me, I also started using ClassIn. It’s a product from China, and it’s a platform that was built for the classroom. It’s different from things like Zoom that were designed as platforms for meetings and were hijacked into the classroom. On Zoom, for example, if you want to us another education tool, you have to ask students to switch platforms: “Okay, let’s go to Padlet” or you have to share a screen. And the moment you share a screen, with limited broadband, you often can’t stream a video or anything. Everything is just disrupted. But ClassIn brought everything together in one platform. You have a blackboard. You have a timer. You can store your video and your lesson plan, or whatever you want to share in ClassIn. Even if the students have very low broadband, they can still watch the video without distraction. It’s called like an online-offline model.
Thomas Hatch: But are schools still using these technologies and online tools?
Chi Hieu Nguyen: There are different aspects. Schools are more aware that something like COVID-19 could happen again and disrupt everything, so they’ve converted from paper-based into more digital resources. Now you see Vietnamese schools are starting to think about learning management systems like Canvas and everything digital lives there.
Schools are more aware that something like COVID-19 could happen again and disrupt everything, so they’ve converted from paper-based into more digital resources.
The second aspect is the way they approach the lessons. There now might be a combination between online activities and in person activities. The students before class, during class, and after class spend a lot of time on the digital platform, and of course, in class, they have discussions and they have in-person activities. The third aspect is that classroom organization may be more flexible. It’s no longer just one teacher and the entire class. You can have the class study from a different location, doing something for a field trip and then have a class study online, for example. You can start to invite teachers from all over the world to teach and start to explore other possibilities. Of course, you see this most at pioneering schools. One I’m involved in is The Olympia Schools, a private K-12 school system that is a part of our school network. They’ve started talking about deeper learning, about virtual reality, how to take advantage of AI and virtual reality. Now they’ve started to bring ChatGPT into daily teaching as well so there is almost no resistance to the wave of technology anymore because of that COVID-19. Now they have that mentality that we have to be very agile with every new technology coming out. I think every city, in every major city in Vietnam, there should be about 4 or 5 schools like that. They are really pushing the boundaries, and they become like model schools that others can learn from.
In the second part of this three-part interview, Jacek Pyżalski draws from his own research to discuss the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of students and teachers in Poland and discusses some specific steps that teachers and schools could take to support their students. In Part 1, Pyżalski provides an overview of the school closures in Poland and how the education system responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 3 will focus on how the Polish education system has responded to the influx of refugees caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Jacek Pyżalski isthe Professor in the Faculty of Educational Studies (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan). He is experienced in researching the problems connected to social and educational aspects of ICT usage by children and adolescents. He was a pioneer in Poland in the field of cyberbullying research, and he has extensively studied the impact of crisis remote education on wellbeing of students, teachers and parents.
Thomas Hatch: I want to turn now to what you’ve learned in your research in terms of the effects of the pandemic and school closures on teachers and students in Poland. Are there a couple of things that you want to highlight?
Jacek Pyżalski: The information is that it touched not only the students, but all the other groups. When we did our research in the thirty-two schools, we used a couple of indicators of mental health and also dynamic indicators. For example, “Do you feel better, worse or the same as before the pandemic?” Although people were mostly publicly talking about the young generation, when we used the same indicators for all three groups – parents, students, and teachers – for mental and physical health the teachers felt the worst, then the parents, and then the students. So in some indicators adults were touched by the situation more severely than young people (Polish teachers’ stress, well-being and mental health during COVID-19 emergency remote education).
The second thing is it’s not justified to say that everybody in each group was touched the same. For young people, I would say that about 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 [about 15-20%] were touched severely. A lot of them were more or less indifferent as if nothing happened. But for 1 in 20, this was almost a blessed time, and they reported a lot of advantages. Some people wondered how in such an apocalyptic time anyone could have responded this way, but we found it was very consistent. In all the questions we asked, there seemed to be the same group of 4-5% percent of people saying “I feel better”; “I have a better relationship with my peers”; “I’ve got a better relationship with this student.”
it’s not justified to say that everybody in each group was touched the same. For young people, I would say that about 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 [about 15-20%] were touched severely. A lot of them were more or less indifferent as if nothing happened. But for 1 in 20, this was almost a blessed time, and they reported a lot of advantages.
We said, “What’s going on here?” And we went deeper. When I was meeting teachers, I asked “Do you have any students who are getting better?” Nearly all the teachers could think of such students. I asked the details, “Who is in this group?” and I learned there were young people who were totally withdrawn, socially withdrawn, before the school closures; they would never say a word during the lesson before the school closed. Now with the computer mediated communication, it was easier for them to respond to their teacher. There were also some young people who were the target of school bullying, and this was a time when they were physically protected. They could be cyber bullied, but it’s easier to be protected physically. Additionally, some students from the autism spectrum were able to adjust the volume and the pace for example. There was a lot of diversity in this group. For these kinds of students, the threat was to go back. To go back and to sit at the table in the class means they could lose everything they had achieved. For example, you are not talking before the pandemic. You started talking and being active in education and in contact. What does it mean that you go back to the state you were before the pandemic when you go back to school? Some said this not a lot of people, but still it’s real people that are coming back, and for them, it was a real threat. As a result, when I was preparing the teachers for reopening, I was also saying “identify those students and give them specific support, because those are the ones that need the support the most.”
There were some other general things we learned about. Everyone was saying that peer relations generally declined, but really it was about 50% of young people who said so. About 40% of students said their peer relations were the same, the same level and quality as before the pandemic. Why? One thing was that they were using computer mediated communication but the contact was not always that different. Some were meeting physically outside school for instance. There was also this five percent saying my relationships are better than before. It was the same with teacher-student relations. It was not everybody that said those relations declined a lot, the majority stayed the same. It was interesting, and in our research we found correlations between the quality of the important peer and student-teacher relationships and the mental health indicators. Those who said their relations declined suffered from lower indicators of mental health in many respects. So if anybody asked me, what would you do? I would invest in the quality of relations because this seems to be a factor that most profoundly impacts the well-being and mental health status of young people.
[I]f anybody asked me, what would you do? I would invest in the quality of relations because this seems to be a factor that most profoundly impacts the well-being and mental health status of young people.
Jacek Pyżalski: We were really very practical in the book. We said let’s start with wellbeing, with contact with the students. What are some small things you can do in the lesson, not only to teach, but to create and keep the community in the classroom? We were really focusing not only on the teacher as the producer of the lessons, but as the context. Of course, it was not only us, there were also big NGOs supporting schools. For example, this book was followed by a series of webinars that went deeper into each chapter. Live, during the webinars, we might have 4,000 participants, and when we looked the next day we might see that it was opened by 60,000 people. It was so needed. People were so lost in this new reality and were looking for solutions to achieve basic educational goals. There were a lot of these kinds of initiatives. People were organizing things like workshops where teachers would present some techniques and methodologies they used to keep the classroom together or to engage the students online.
People were also having a lot of problems, specific problems. For example, I would say one of the problems I heard many times from teachers of all levels was the issue of young people switching off the cameras. Some teachers were very angry about this, because for them, that was a sign that the students were not engaged and they wanted to withdraw from the lessons. But for me, it was not clear. So, with a colleague at my University, we asked our students anonymously if they were for or against switching off their camera. We were interested in the justification of both answers. What we learned was that those who were switching off their cameras were not just those who were lazy or who wanted to disengage, but they had many other reasons. For example I remember one student wrote something like: “I’ve got a scar on my cheek and normally it’s not seen in the physical classroom. But online, it’s magnified, and everyone can see it. So if I switch on my camera, I’ll think about nothing else.” Or young people said, “my home situation is not okay, and during the lesson someone could come in and scream or do something strange and everyone would witness it.” We learned that not everything is as easy as it seems. The most important thing during the pandemic was to have this kind of feedback, and to get the learners’ perspective, because sometimes we, as teachers, force our own understanding of what’s going on and it’s not necessarily true. It’s better to go deeper with other perspectives.
Thomas Hatch: Did you do a webinar that focused on how to deal with turning off the camera? Did you have a particular recommendation on how teachers could deal with students turning off the cameras?
Jacek Pyżalski: Yes, I had a lot of recommendations. The starting point is diagnosis, really asking how it looks in the student’s microenvironment. Then I would talk with teachers about things like using a step by step approach. They could ask their students, “Okay, if I’m talking directly to you, please switch the camera on.” That’s easier than having it on all the time. Some of the students also gave the argument that if everybody switched on their cameras and they see everybody moving, it’s harder to concentrate. So, step by step, and sometimes to find something funny. For example, tell the students “tomorrow, let’s have everyone wear something yellow. Maybe what I’m saying is very plain, and very modest, but actually those small things matter.
Also, I told them that it’s not that easy to make big generalizations like, “remote education is not engaging students.” For example, you can give a task like recording an interview with your grandmother, publishing it, and then listening to them and discussing them as a class. Or when we are teaching new vocabulary in a foreign language, go to the kitchen and take a photo of some equipment, and then we could create a PowerPoint Presentation together, showing photos with subtitles we’ve written underneath in Spanish, or any language. Generally, our message for the teachers was that remote education is what you make it. You can make it work based on your educational goals.
Our message for the teachers was that remote education is what you make it. You can make it work based on your educational goals.
Thomas Hatch: Despite some concerns about well-being in the US, I don’t think there has been as much talk about teacher-student and peer relationships, though I suspect we might find these same kinds of results. These relationship factors might help explain some of the findings related to learning loss. Have there been discussions of learning loss in Poland?
Jacek Pyżalski: There were a few threads of this discussion, including how to measure it. There was a big pressure on lowering the standards for the exam, because they said, “Okay, it’ll be impossible to use the same standards as in traditional learning.” They did some of this, and then they learned there was some loss. Another thing was the issue of assessment, that it’s not fair because you can cheat. It might not be mirroring the real situation because of this.
There has also been a big general discussion about whether you can do online education that is at the same level of traditional education. There was also the big question, to what extent should we use online education afterwards at all levels of education (university, secondary, primary, kindergarten, levels). We are so “zoom fatigued” that young people have problems with this. They use it too much, they use it at night, they use it all the time, they are multitasking. There are some indicators of this lack of digital wellbeing. We also had an interesting finding that these indicators were sometimes even more prevalent in teachers than they were in students. What is normally understood as the younger generation’s problem is also ours. So if you ask me about the most important factors for the wellbeing of all interested, I would first name the quality of important relations, and the second one, the quality of digital wellbeing.
So how do we tackle ICT? How do we tackle technology in our life in terms of multitasking and the length of what we are doing? This was also for teachers, things like work-home balance, there were a lot of factors. Not only Poland, but a lot of countries, took care of young people forgetting that the mental health of teachers is also really impacting young people even though we know there is a connection. You cannot aim for high quality wellbeing for young people without thinking about how the teachers feel, the teachers emotions, and how the teachers cope. I think it was neglected.
You cannot aim for high quality wellbeing for young people without thinking about how the teachers feel, the teachers’ emotions, and how the teachers cope.
Thomas Hatch: This is really fascinating. Are there any other promising innovations from the Covid era in schools or other lessons that you think we should remember?
Jacek Pyżalski: Oh, yes. I think there are some hybrid methodologies like design thinking, projects or some things like innovative usage of technologies for cooperation or technologies for producing some common things by the students. But I would say that the COVID situation was really a kind of cold-water bucket on the heads of Utopian people who thought that just digitizing education would be a big step into the future. They learned that that technology itself is nothing, and I think we learned, and we are more realistic about what technology can do, what it cannot do, and how to use it. I think that those who are wise should have learned – and I know that some of them have learned – that we really have to learn how to use technology.
In the second post of a two-part series, Dulce Rivera Osorio explores what’s changing in schools by scanning news articles that report on educational “micro-innovations” developing by in the US and internationally by non-profit organizations, private companies, and states and education systems. In Part 1, Thomas Hatch introduced micro-innovations and then Rivera shared a number of examples of micro-innovations being made in instruction or school/district operations that have been described in media articles from the US. To learn more about the numerous proposals to change schools and “reimagine education” post-COVID, read IEN’s previous post: Is anything changing in US schools post-pandemic? Possibilities for rethinking time, place and supports for well-being.
In addition to changes in structures, resources, and practices at the classroom and school/district level, news articles have discussed a variety of micro-innovations that have been introduced by nonprofits and private companies in the US. To give a sense of the variety of initiatives, companies like Highland Electric Fleets and Thomas Built Buses have worked with school districts to cover the upfront costs involved in shifting from conventional buses to electric buses (US schools can subscribe to an electric school bus fleet at prices that beat diesel).
Airbnb, working in partnership with the National Education Association, has developed an adaptation to their hosting approach that provides extra income to teachers based in the US who share their homes through Airbnb (NEA, Airbnb partnership aims to help teachers supplement income). Nonprofits like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Clubs have provided before and after-school programs for some time, but during the school closures of the pandemic they helped provide child care, academic support and access to recreational and arts activities by implementing socially distanced “learning camps” in some parts of the country (New Players Fill Child-Care Gap as Schools Go Remote). The Boys and Girls Clubs have also been actively developing new programs to support career and workforce learning. As the The Hechinger Report describes, clubs in Indiana, Washington State, and Montana have been working with Transfr, a technology start-up, to use virtual reality to develop “immersive” career and workforce training simulations for manufacturing, carpentry, public safety, hospitality and automotive industries (Future of learning with virtual reality).
New policies and changes in policies are also encouraging districts and schools to develop new resources and mechanisms to support teachers and schools. In California, lawmakers made innovative changes in zoning policies that allow school districts to build staff housing on any property the district owns without requiring zoning changes from city or county officials (California removes hurdles to building teacher housing). At the national level in the US, federal agencies like the EPA are providing funding for states to take advantage of new technologies and developments that can both save schools money and support the environment (EPA nearly doubles funding to districts for clean school bus rebates). The passage of a $430 trillion spending package designed to address the global climate crisis includes a host of provisions that provide creative ways schools and districts can save money and support the planet. As a new guide from the Aspen Institute and the World Resources Institute (K12 Education and Climate Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act) reports, districts can now get tax credits to support energy-reducing innovations in the form “direct pay” – cash payments to the district instead of through credits claimed by a third party that made the whole process problematic (Quick Hacks: How Schools Can Cut Costs and Help the Environment).
Outside the US, NGO’s, companies, and education systems are also looking for new ways to address issues as varied as a shortage of bus drivers, “remote learning,” and mother-tongue language instruction. In Australia and New Zealand, GoKid, a carpooling app, hopes to aid the shortage of school bus drivers by making carpooling more accessible and easier for parents (GoKid partners to address school transportation crisis). The app helps parents to find carpool partners in a school or school district by providing a rough location map of nearby families and suggesting optimized routes.
In India, as a recent Brookings report explains, the development of young mothers’ groups created new ways to support learning at home during school closures. With the support of the Pratham Education Foundation, groups of 4 – 6 mothers met weekly or fortnightly to share experiences and access “idea cards” sent via WhatsApp containing games, activities, and recipes. For children in grades three to six, youth volunteers led small groups of children in “mini learning camps” for one to two hours per day using simple instructional activities and materials made by the children. In Bangladesh, BRAC dealt with the school closures by creating “phone schools.” In these “schools,” locally-recruited and trained teachers conducted virtual classes in group calls with three to four children. BRAC reported that those calls reached over 180,000 students in more than 7,000 schools (The power of community as a catalyst to tackle disrupted learning).
With emerging evidence supporting the expansion of mother tongue instruction, South Africa has instituted policies to support mother tongue instruction in grades 1, 2, and 3, but now the Eastern Cape education department allows high school students who are taking the matric exams to answer using their home language (Policy options to crack the mother tongue versus English riddle in South African schools). That kind of development can encourage schools to offer mother-tongue instruction through grade 12. As provincial education official Fundile Gade put it, “China, Singapore and Germany use their own languages. English is a secondary language, like other languages, so it can’t be given preference as if pupils can’t learn and develop outside of English (Matric pupils to write exams in isiXhosa and Sotho at Eastern Cape schools).
International Education News 