Combating Learning Regression

#UKEdChat session 503 – For the first two weeks of lockdown, I didn’t use my car even once. Getting behind the wheel again felt a little strange. I knew what to do and when to do it, but it didn’t feel effortless as it usually did when I was driving almost every day. I hadn’t lost my ability to drive, but it didn’t feel instinctive for the first few miles.

The idea of Learning Regression, where after a long break pupils forget knowledge and are no longer in ‘the zone’ for learning, is often cited as an issue by teachers, and it can take a little while to get things back to how they should be. As with my driving, the pupils haven’t forgotten everything (although it may feel like it sometimes), but they may have lost their edge and dulled their learning skills over time.

The lockdown is a unique situation, as in the UK, it has been (at time of writing) 7 weeks since schools closed – probably the longest time away from school that the current cohort of pupils has known. Schools have taken different approaches to providing remote education, from a full timetable of online video chat lessons to providing work-packs to complete independently. Plus there has been the Easter holiday in the UK, meaning that the students have had a break during this time too.

In the #UKEdChat discussion on Thursday 14th May 2020 at 8pm (UK) we discussed what can schools do to mitigate Learning Regression and what schools can do to quickly get pupils back to where they need to be after schools return.

Questions

1. How much learning regression do you think your students have had over their time away from school?
2. What methods will you use to assess learning progression or regression when schools return?
3. Which of your students’ learning skills do you think may have regressed while away from school?
4. How have teachers at your school tried to maintain learning skills while teaching remotely?
5. Do you think social skills will have regressed while away from school? If so, how may this manifest in the classroom when schools return?
6. Do you think the experience of remote learning will make students more independent in the future?
7. Do you feel that the lockdown will have a lasting regressionary impact of the current cohort of students?
8. Do you think your own teaching skills have progressed or regressed while learning remotely?

Click here to view the tweet archive.

You need to Login or Register to bookmark/favorite this content.