This article originally appeared on Education Dive on June 18, 2020, and was co-authored by Mariana Aguilar and Claudio Estrada. Claudio Estrada is principal of PUC Community Charter Middle School in Lakeview Terrace, California, and Mariana Aguilar leads the research team at GoGuardian.
A principal and an ed tech researcher outline steps for assessing students' learning loss and making curriculum adjustments this fall.
The spring 2020 semester is coming to a close. It’s time to step back and examine where we’re at, so we can effectively determine just how much we’ll have to make up in the fall semester and beyond.
First, an acknowledgement. Everyone — from students, to parents, to teachers and administrators — has been doing their best to make this semester as academically rigorous as possible under unbelievably difficult circumstances.
Administrators have moved heaven and earth to close the digital divide by taking swift action to increase the availability of devices and hotspots. Teachers have adopted new instructional tools and adapted their curriculum for online learning all while upskilling to meet the demands of new technology along the way.
Parents have juggled protecting their children from the virus, supported them in this new digital learning environment, all while balancing their career demands (if they’re still employed). And kids have been resilient at times, overwhelmed at times and downright heroic most of the time.
Now it’s time to take account of where we stand academically in comparison to last year, and how much we’ve lost in comparison to the typical summer. The data is not promising.
