April 28, 2020 | BY C. Todd Lopez , DOD News
While students in Department of Defense Education Activity
schools might have imagined an early start to summer vacation as a result of
the first of the brick-and-mortar schools shutting down in February due to
COVID-19, the learning stopped for only a few days before instructors and
students were back to reading, writing and arithmetic via digital learning
efforts.
"What I'm so remarkably proud of is that our teacher
workforce, our educational leaders in the field and our [information
technology] specialists ... have all been remarkably resilient and effective in
trying to provide quality instruction to kids that are stuck at home,"
DODEA Director Tom Brady said.
Across the U.S. military, DODEA runs 161 schools for about
71,000 pre-kindergarten through high school students worldwide. The first of
those schools shut down in late February, said Patrick Martin, the acting chief
of education operations at DODEA.
"We started in hot spots where host nation countries
were beginning to take steps, so Daegu, [South Korea], was the first community
to close on Feb. 20," Martin said. "Then Vicenza and Aviano in Italy
followed just a few days later, in line with local authorities."
A young girl sits at a kitchen table and looks at a laptop
computer screen. In the background, a young woman also looks at a computer
screen.
The last of the schools to close was at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, on March 25, he said.
But for students, the disruption in learning was
short-lived, thanks to work by instructors, principals, district
superintendents, and IT professionals with DODEA, Martin said.
"In all cases, we were able to transition from a closed
school to the first learning activities being sent out in four days or
fewer," he said. "I think that was a testament to the hard work on
the part of our teachers and leaders in the field."
A large part of that online-learning capability comes
through Google Classroom, Martin said. And while DODEA already had some online
and digital learning capability, he said teachers were asking for Google
Classroom capability, and the IT staffs were able to make that happen.
Between March 10 and March 25, he said, more than 16,000
Google classrooms were created and populated for students. That's essentially
one online classroom created for each course that had been taught in shuttered
brick-and-mortar classrooms.
"It wasn't perfect in four days, but they got it going
in four days," he said. "I'd say it’s still not perfect, but it is
amazing what talented and dedicated educators can do when they're put to the
test and provided the tools that they need."
Michael Morris, a 3rd-grade teacher at a DODEA school in
Vicenza, said he thinks he and his students have made a successful transition
to digital learning.
"Overall, I would say that we are very successful,
given the situation," he said. "There are varying degrees of success,
and we are learning as we navigate through the virtual platform and making
adjustments as we progress."
One adjustment is that what happens online is different from
what can happen in a real classroom, Morris said.
"The digital learning platform looks much different
than a day at school, at the elementary level," he said. "We strive
to create assignments that students work on independently and without always
being at the computer, which is challenging."
One concern is that students aren't spending all day online
in front of the computer. It's not only not good for them, it's not good for
learning either, Brady explained.
"About two weeks ago, we started looking at what do we
need to do to make sure that we minimize digital fatigue," Brady said.
"We put out some guidelines on how many hours that we're targeting for
instruction for each kid, you know, by grade level, by elementary and high
school ... what can we do to make sure that we’re still hitting standards, but
we're not trying to overload parents and overload kids."
Teachers are mindful of student computer time when planning
lessons to minimize the amount of time they need to be in front of the
computer, Morris said, but they still meet with students online each day.
"We meet with students in small groups or one-on-one for instruction, and
we are constantly looking at ways to maximize that time for learning and
keeping student engagement," he added.
David Rudy, the community superintendent for DODEA Europe
South District, said that as part of the digital learning effort, students
experience both "synchronous" and "asynchronous" learning.
Synchronous learning involves face-to-face time with the teacher through online
tools, while asynchronous learning involves students working on their own
without involvement of the teacher.
"As part of the weekly digital learning plan, teachers
publish their synchronous meeting schedule so that students and parents know
exactly when and where they will be meeting with their teacher," Rudy
said. In Italy, he said, that means students in pre-kindergarten through fifth
grade will have two scheduled sessions per week with their instructors. For
students in grades 6 through 12, these synchronous sessions happen during regularly
scheduled class time once or twice a week for each student.
"Classwork and homework blend together in the
asynchronous learning time, where students are engaging in learning activities
that their teachers have designed for them to complete on their own time and
schedule," Rudy said. "Of course, these activities have due dates and
expectations attached to them, so students have to be diligent to 'be in
school' and complete the assigned work as laid out by their teachers."
Another concern for educators is that while students might
be learning online, and doing homework assignments as well, they are missing
out on the important social aspects of being in class, being in school,
participating in extracurricular activities, meeting with their teachers and
friends, and developing the independence that comes with being away from their
parents and on their own for a portion of each day.
"The thing that is pretty heartbreaking is you know
students are going to miss proms, basketball championships, jazz competition,
the kind of stuff that happens in schools all the time," Martin said.
"Some of those kids put on an athletic uniform or stepped up to a
microphone for the last time a couple of months ago, and they didn't know that
was the last time. Students are grieving the loss of some of these experiences,
and our hearts are broken for those kids."
Morris said that in his own classroom, and in some of the
other classes at the school, there's an effort to try to replicate some of the
socializing that happens in schools that is so important to the development of
young students.
"We were very fortunate to have entered into this
digital learning platform with relationships already built," he said.
"But the school provides a community that you just can't capture in the
virtual platform. We have informal Google Hangout [meetings] together twice a
week, celebrate birthdays, and students constantly text, to continue those
relationships and times to share, but as you know, sharing through a screen is
just not the same as face-to-face interaction. Students are persevering, but
overall, they are having a difficult time socially and emotionally ... and
really missing school. I can say that for teachers, too."
Not all students who attend DODEA schools were able, at
least initially, to get on board with digital learning. Some lacked the
technology in their homes to participate. That's something DODEA worked hard to fix early on,
so that every student could continue to learn, Martin said.
"Equity was the focus of the education directorate from
the beginning of this process," he said. "Leaders in the field are
hustling to get systems in place, to get teachers ready. We had a lot of honest
conversations early on about what we can do to ensure that this model provides
all students the best we can under these circumstances."
For some students, Martin said, DODEA had to provide
technology to ensure they could get in on the online learning. That meant
handing out more than 7,000 computing devices to those who needed them.
"We issued hundreds of hotspots for students that needed more reliable
internet connections, just to make sure everybody had the same kind of
access," he said.
Rudy said students in Italy initially had been asked to use
personal digital devices to participate in digital learning. But a survey was
sent to families asking if they needed additional devices to support multiple
children in the home working at multiple grade levels and subjects.
"As a result, the district offered families the use of
school Chromebooks and wireless access points such as iPhones and hot spots,
depending on community availability," he said. "To date, the district
has distributed 577 Chromebooks and 44 wireless access points."
Martin cited a term in education called "the 'summer
slide.'"
"It's pretty well documented that students lose a
certain level of skill over the summer," he said. "So they leave, and
they show us what they know in math and reading, specifically. They come back,
and it's dipped a bit. They've forgotten some things -- the skills aren't where
they used to be."
Martin said researchers are predicting something similar — a
"COVID slide" — that's related to the time students are out of the
classroom due to COVID-19 — even if they are learning things online. The COVID
slide, he said, is likely to exacerbate the typical summer slide.
Brady said DODEA has plans to address this.
"No. 1 is that we're going to have an assessment — a
test that's going to be administered at the beginning of the new school year —
to be able to measure where students are in knowledge of standards," he
said. Based on the results, he added, decisions can be made about what
additional learning must happen to get students where they need to be.
Brady also said that over the summer, some additional
learning opportunities will also be offered to attempt to help curb loss of
skills.
"It's going to be a digital thing, focusing on reading
and mathematics and on what we can do to help our students better prepare for
opening, when it does come," he said.
Eventually, students will go back to their classrooms, though
whether that comes in September or later is unknown. If a vaccine isn't
available by then, but students are allowed to return to the classroom, things
will need to be different than they have been in the past, Brady said.
"What kind of social distancing are we going to have to
implement? What type of face masks?" he asked. "Until there's a
vaccine, what flexibility do we have to build into our system? That's what’s
keeping us up at night and trying to figure out options." Brady said that
what happens in the fall will depend largely on geography, local military
communities, and what's happening in host nations or communities.
"We're going to be remarkably flexible, and we're going
to work with our partners," he said.
One segment of the DODEA community is going to be
particularly affected by the COVID-19 social distancing: high school seniors.
For many, graduating from high school will be one of the most significant
events of their lives so far. For those students, it's unlikely they will have
the traditional high school graduation they had been expecting.
School leaders and DODEA officials are working to make sure
that those students still have a graduation experience that suits them best,
Brady said.
"We asked [students] through the chiefs of staff and
the three [DODEA] regions to hold virtual get-togethers in each one of the high
schools and ask them what they would like to do in terms of digital graduations
or graduation ceremonies," Brady said.
One school, he said, plans to have students come in with
parents one at a time to get their diplomas, and they will wear their caps and
gowns. Another school wants to have students come in and have photographers
shoot pictures of them where they would be sitting in the room if they could
all be there together, he said.
"We are working on trying to personalize the graduation
event to meet the needs of the students and parents in this very, very strange
time," Brady said.
Rudy said that in Italy, school principals are planning
graduation ceremonies in conjunction with student councils and parent input.
"All DODEA schools in Italy are planning virtual
graduation ceremonies that will be streamed on YouTube and/or Facebook,"
Rudy said. "Most schools appear to be settling on prerecorded content vs.
live streaming to reduce any technical hiccups. We want these ceremonies to go
off without a hitch, of course, for such an important event, especially given
the impact of the pandemic on our students' senior year in high school."
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