COVID Catch Up: How to Make Up for Years of Fragmented Learning
We’re two years into the pandemic now, and while schools have been back to in-person instruction for the majority, if not all, of the 2021-22 school year, the struggle for students to recover from their academic interruptions continues.
Often referred to as “COVID learning loss” or “unfinished learning,” the fits and starts of academic instruction has left many students months, if not a full school year, behind in their grade-level expectations. Achievement gaps have continued to widen - particularly in high-poverty areas and regions hit the hardest by COVID waves and subsequent school closures and/or quarantines - and with every new surge, the necessary restrictions have continued to cause students academic decline.
It’s not surprising to see such huge academic delays when for two years now students have had to quickly adapt to learning their lessons from in-person instruction to online/distance learning and blended/hybrid learning with adjustments and changes being made by schools on the fly. Remember the “No Grade Spring” of 2020?
To be clear, by “academic decline” and “learning loss,” it's not exactly that students have displayed academic regression - they’re not losing skills they had successfully developed prior to the pandemic, but their requisite academic gains have been stonewalled by two years of fragmented learning.
For example, according to McKinsey & Company’s ”COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning,” students at the end of the 2020-21 school year exhibited a 5-month delay in math and a 4-month delay in reading, on average. Academic lags like these can have lasting effects on student development and result in potentially major learning setbacks for their future college education as well.
Quality Tutoring: Proven to Be an Effective Method for Learning Loss Recovery
After two years of data showing significant learning delays, education researchers and school districts are testing out methods to find the most successful approaches that will help students academically catch up without overburdening them.
In one evidence review, “The Transformative Potential for PreK-12 Learning Outcomes: Lessons from Randomized Evaluations,” conducted by researchers from Northwestern University, University of Toronto, and J-PAL North America, MIT, tutoring was found to be an effective method of improving learning outcomes— particularly in regards to learning loss.
“Among the most widespread and versatile education tools, tutoring—supplemental one-on-one or small group instruction—has been promoted as an effective method for helping students learn, particularly those who have fallen behind.”
Quality tutoring in which classroom-based curriculum is supplemented through additional instructional time is the key to picking up students who have fallen behind. When specific content is taught and practiced through focused instruction, students are able to make significant academic gains.
So, what does quality tutoring look like in practice?
Quality Tutoring Programs Help Students Make Up for Learning Loss
Academic recovery due to COVID learning loss will be an ongoing, multi-year process. And while there is no one-size-fits-all catch-up strategy, there are a few effective tried-and-true methods that can benefit all students by helping them to catch up and minimizing the effect of fragmented learning on the rest of their academic journey.
High-Dosage, High-Impact Tutoring- Providing frequent tutoring sessions is vital in this time of catch up. EdResearch For Recovery’s “Accelerating Student Learning with High-Dosage Tutoring” found that
“Tutoring is most likely to be effective when delivered in high doses through tutoring programs with three or more sessions per week … 30-60 minutes per day. Studies have found little evidence that once-a-week tutoring is sufficient to generate meaningful gains.”
Learning delays require intensive tutoring in order to sufficiently catch up and maintain grade-level skills. Keep that in mind when creating a tutoring schedule for your clients— particularly those students who have the most catching up to do.
Similarly, strongly advise clients to continue tutoring sessions throughout long breaks (reminder: spring break is fast approaching!) and summer to continue to work on weak points, maintain the skills they’ve learned this school year, gain strength in all content areas, and have a firm foundation in place before the upcoming school year.
Alternative Pedagogies- What sets quality tutors apart is how inherently different the one-on-one instruction is from the classroom setting. Even when executing the same teaching strategies, one-to-one or small group tutoring allows students the opportunity to be more actively engaged in their learning. And because the setting is so small, tutors—unlike teachers—are able to make immediate alterations to lessons and practice in real time, providing the most effective method of instruction. Additionally, tutoring sessions provide students with more time to spend on a given task or learning a new skill than they would typically get during regular classroom time.
Accelerated Learning Techniques- As tutors, we’re accustomed to meeting students where they are, academically speaking. It feels counterintuitive, but with the gaps in education as significant as they currently are, the best approach to closing those gaps is an accelerated learning approach.
Rather than go back and try to tackle content from the previous year’s curriculum, the current plan should be to focus intently on grade-level content and expectations. This will avoid redundancy, potential boredom and loss of interest, and stimulate growth and progress.
Be sure to practice to maintain fundamental skills and watch for struggles in courses like math and science since these are subject areas in which content builds on previous learning. Increase the level of support as needed.
Extra Support for Learning Differences- Be cognizant of those students who need extra support in even the best of times. In these cases, remember to utilize strategies like instructional scaffolding when teaching new skills or concepts; break them down into multiple steps and manageable parts. The key here is to introduce new concepts without overwhelming them.
Targeted Remediation- When your students face an obstacle, use targeted remediation to reteach any missing pieces or requisite skills needed to overcome that learning snag. Doing so will lead to better comprehension and quicker mastery.
Customized Learning- Offering your clients tailored instruction that not only meets them where they are intellectually, but helps them develop and strengthen the skills needed to catch up when they’ve fallen behind is essential to quality tutoring. Tutors need to have a comprehensive strategy and curriculum in place that is hyper-personalized to their students’ individual needs.
Prioritization- In the same vein as creating tailored instruction for each client, every academic plan must establish clear learning objectives and prioritize the skills and content that require the most attention.
High-Quality, Evidence-Based Tutoring Programs- Supporting your clients through an evidence-based tutoring program that uses student data to assess learning levels, diagnose each student’s knowledge gaps, establish goals and objectives, and guide lessons is critical to quality tutoring. EdResearch For Recovery notes:
“Tutoring programs that support data use and ongoing informal assessments allow tutors to more effectively tailor their instruction for individual students … successful tutoring interventions … [collect] ongoing implementation data and [use] it to continuously improve their programs.”
Clear Choice Prep offers a 100% customizable skill-building curriculum with high-quality instructional materials that can be altered and modified to coordinate with each student’s classroom content to enable tutors to reinforce what students are learning in school and help students to reach and maintain grade-level standards.
Frequent Measurement and Assessments- Students need to be frequently assessed to keep tabs on their individual learning gaps. A quality tutoring program performs frequent and thorough evaluations in order to assess student progress and allow tutors to make adjustments to the educational plan as needed. Routine assessments and measurement enable tutors to keep a finger on the pulse of the effectiveness of their program, which in turn creates the most effective and successful tutoring sessions for students—especially those struggling with learning delays.
Thankfully, effects from the pandemic have become somewhat predictable and definitely more manageable, and we will be closing the 2021-22 school year with reliable, continuous in-person instruction; both of which lend to students finally receiving a steady, dependable education. The key going forward is to effectively supplement that education with quality tutoring that will make up for the COVID learning loss, so students can start the 2022-23 school year on grade level.
For more information on how Clear Choice Prep can help you and your business provide your clients with quality tutoring, contact us for a free software demo and consultation today!