How Texas Teachers Are Prioritizing Basic Skills as Instruction Time Gets Crunched During the Pandemic

Private donors and businesses are helping some Connecticut public schools provide students and their families with access to the internet, a critical need when distance learning is imposed. Long-term hopes to close the growing achievement gap between wealthy and poorer schools through public-private partnerships need more time to ripen. But some nearer-term successes include one philanthropy's grant to provide 60,000 laptops and broadband internet to students statewide who otherwise lacked access, while a grant in Norwalk put 1,000 families online to help with homework and healthcare access.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, “almost half of schoolchildren, or a total of 121 million pupils, are unable to access remote learning,” according to a 2020 UNICEF report, an even bigger problem during a pandemic when students can’t access virtual classes. Eneza Education is using texts messages to deliver classes. Their bite-size lessons delivered via text and “Ask a Teacher” feature are providing education to millions of subscribers.

Across the state of New Hampshire, school districts found themselves adjusting to the meet the particular needs of special needs students. Outside tents, remote games, and equipping paraprofessionals with Chromebooks, where just some of the things different school districts implemented.

Teachers in some California dual-language classrooms are coming up with creative ways to help students practice and learn languages during remote-only learning. Across Fresno Unified School District, teachers develop and share lessons, record videos, and have students use educational programs like Flipgrid or Seesaw so students can record themselves speaking Spanish. During some Zoom breakout groups, teachers select a fluent language speaker in the group to model pronunciation for others.

In the Philippines, more than half of households have limited access to the internet, making remote teaching challenging. Schools, teachers, and the government have found creative ways to reach students. Some teachers are texting students, others drop out printed materials at student homes, and the government even produced radio and TV shows to explain assignments.

In Denver, learning pods are helping students access virtual classes during a pandemic. At the Adams 12 school district, 4000 students, district-wide, participate in the pod. Similarly, HOPE Online Learning Academy Co-Op launched a learning center. Students can sit in a classroom, access Wi-Fi, and count on the support of an adult. They also distributed 600 computers, 400 webcams from PCs, and 1,077 laptops to enrolled middle and high school students.

A collaboration between Ohio's Wooster City Schools and the College of Wooster has allowed for an enhanced educational experience for many students during the coronavirus pandemic. The partnership not only provides tutoring services to the K-12 students but has also "strengthened the bond between the college and its surrounding community."

The city of Tulsa took a variety of steps to make sure English as a Second Language learners didn’t fall behind in their virtual classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, school officials made sure students had their basic needs by providing them with meals, hotspots, Chromebooks, and classroom supplies. Families were also given access to social workers that check in one of them, had support from teachers, and could network with other ESL parents through the English Learner Parent Advisory Committee. “Everything they’ve given us has been a miracle.”

Apps that track students’ online activity, door-to-door visits, and receiving input from families on how to reopen schools, are all ways school districts across the country are responding to absenteeism during the pandemic. In one San Antonio district, they were able to locate around 2,900 of the 3,000 students who weren’t showing up to classes.

When schools across New Hampshire, and the U.S., suspended in-person classes as a result of the pandemic, each developed its own way of dealing with a new teaching landscape, including Beech Street Elementary in Manchester. Instead of having teachers individually their class, the school took a "collective approach" and had teachers work as a team, with each teacher in charge of one specific lesson, to deliver the lessons to all students within the same grade. The school also accommodated ELL students by relying on a translation app, and used social media platforms to communicate with parents.