I came across a recent article from The Atlantic claiming “the pandemic broke a fundamental principle of teaching” (Freireich & Platzer, 2021). Considering that many long standing ideas about education and teaching were reshaped, overlooked, or outright discarded during the pandemic, I was curious to learn more.
After relaying a number of sobering statistics to show how much the pandemic changed the learning environment, Freireich and Platzer (2021) stated “teachers typically enter a school year ready to teach a set curriculum that fits between what was taught the previous year and what will be taught next year.” However, they argue, the pandemic scrambled this system in irregular and unimaginable ways.
This scrambled system is “scope and sequence,” the central part of any school’s curriculum. A basic curriculum includes: 1) the state, governmental or other standards related to the class or grade, and 2) the scope and sequence outlining what material is to be covered and in what order the material is to be taught in the class. More specifically, “scope and sequence” refers to the overall organization of the curriculum in order to ensure the coherence and continuity of the many interrelated concepts presented to learners over time (International Bureau of Education).
This organizational system gives teachers a general sense of where kids are when they begin a year and where they should be when they end a year (Freireich & Platzer, 2021). This systems also gives teachers and parents the critical tools for understanding a child’s academic development from one grade to the next, particularly where a child may be flourishing and where a child may be struggling. But now the system has been radically disrupted.
During these past two years, students have not been exposed to some topics or have merely been introduced to other concepts associated with their grade. Should educators be concerned? Should parents? Some say no. One teacher argues that we should not focus on “educational gaps” or “learning loss,” but rather we should consider students’ “learning leaps.” Even Freireich and Platzer (2021) point out that “much of what we teach kids is arbitrary.”
However, this educator says YES, we should be very concerned. Current concepts build on those to which a student has been introduced in the past. For example, multiplication builds on addition. Literary analysis builds on comprehension and inference skills. The research on learning is very clear …. background knowledge matters. Brown (2014) writes that “without knowledge [there is no] foundation for the higher-level skills of analysis, synthesis, and creative problem solving.” These higher level skills are critical for growth and advancement in an information rich, technology based society.
Success at every step of a student’s educational and professional career will correspond to what happened previously. The deeper a student’s network of connections, the greater their ability to see relationships and understand new concepts (Boser, 2017). So as a college educator that teaches classes with learning outcomes such as “critical thinking” and “application of concepts,” I am very concerned about how students will engage and respond to course content.
Yes, the structure of my classes will be reshaped to meet this new pandemic paradigm. However, the expectations will remain, because the workplace students will enter has grown increasingly competitive and complex. Those students with lingering gaps in their “scope and sequence” will be at a disadvantage compared to their peers. As educators, we must determine how to build our students’ knowledge … for their sake as well as ours.
References:
Bosner, U. (2017). Learn Better. New York, NY: Rodale Books.
Brown, P., Roediger, H., & McDaniel, M. (2014). Make it Stick: the Science of Successful Learning.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Freireich, A. & Platzer, B. (2021, August 28). The Pandemic Broke a Fundamental Principle of Teaching.
The Atlantic.