#BT Column – Pandemic learning losses provide impetus for education reform

By Garry Hornby & Marcia Pilgrim

A major current issue in Barbados, as well as countries all around the world, is how to address children’s learning losses that occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Research on a wide range of approaches for remediating learning losses have found the most promising specific strategies to be the provision of ‘out-of school-programs’ and ‘in-school tutoring’ of the most vulnerable students (Moscoviz & Evans, 2022). So these are two interventions that could be valuable. However, the research has concluded that, whatever interventions for remediating learning loss are considered they need to be implemented within education systems that are well organised and equitable, or there is little chance that they will be effective.

The OECD has found that well organised and effective education systems are ones that promote both equity and excellence and are staffed by teachers committed to using evidence-based instructional practices. So rather than focus only on singular interventions in the unlikely hope that these will provide the ‘silver bullet’ to solve pandemic learning losses, it is considered more important to work on ensuring the optimal functioning of education systems, and the teachers within them, in providing effective education for all their students on an ongoing basis. Therefore, needing to urgently address pandemic learning losses provides increased impetus for bringing about comprehensive reform of the education system in Barbados.

Developing highly effective education systems 

Guidance for developing highly effective education systems has been provided by the OECD in a research report on how to build a world class 21st-century school system (Schleicher, 2018). This states that key indicators of successful school systems include: focusing on all students improving their learning; setting high expectations; aligning teacher, parent and student goals; focusing on student well-being; having high quality teachers with access to ongoing professional development; giving teachers responsibility for planning and evaluating learning outcomes; and, having capable leaders with professional accountability.

This is supported by the findings of a report on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted in sixty-nine countries, which concluded, … that more inclusive and fairer school systems are those that … offer additional support to struggling students…. These systems also strive to have excellent schools located in every neighbourhood and ensure that they are accessible to all students, and provide additional support to disadvantaged schools (OECD, 2016, p. 46).

Reforming education so that it embodies the above criteria and becomes a world class education system that provides effective education for all young people in Barbados has been the subject of several previous articles that we have published in Barbados Today as well as that in the open access Journal of International and Comparative Education (Pilgrim & Hornby, 2017). In all these articles we have made it clear that education systems that promote equity and excellence will be ones that have neighborhood schools with high levels of community and parental involvement, procedures for identifying and meeting young people’s special educational needs, and a broad curriculum focusing on their social, emotional and vocational development, as well as their academic achievement.

However, a critical component of effective education systems is the quality of teaching and this is highly dependent on the use of teaching strategies that have strong bases in research evidence for their effectiveness. Fortunately, over the past thirty years extensive research evidence has been collected so that we now know which teaching strategies are more effective and which are less effective (Hattie, 2009). So it is possible for teachers to use this information to ensure that their teaching is successful and that evidence-based teaching strategies are embedded in the everyday practice of schools. World class education systems are ones that support teachers in making sure that this happens.

Guidelines on implementing effective evidence-based teaching strategies

In order to help teachers identify and implement key evidence-based teaching strategies, a book has been produced detailing information and guidelines for doing this effectively (Hornby & Greaves, 2022). This was based on a review of major sources of evidence-based practice, including Hattie’s (2009) syntheses of meta-analyses, which has revealed that there is a consistent consensus for the effectiveness of eight interventions that teachers can directly implement. These eight interventions are considered to be key evidence-based strategies for improving student outcomes that need to be embedded in the daily practice of teachers in all levels of schools.
They are: teacher-student rapport, formative assessment, direct instruction, metacognitive strategies, peer tutoring, cooperative learning, functional behavioral analysis, and parental involvement.

The new book, entitled Essential Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies: Increasing Student Achievement details how the eight, key evidence-based strategies can be used, and has links to videos of them being implemented in classrooms throughout the world, in order to help teachers to learn how to use them effectively. Briefly, the rationale for using these eight strategies is as follows. Developing teacher-student rapport is a pre-cursor to facilitating optimal learning, while use of formative assessment enables teachers to identify students’ strengths and needs and to plan their teaching to address these. Direct instruction provides a guide to teachers in the steps needed for effective teaching, and teaching metacognitive strategies helps students to learn more effectively. Implementing peer tutoring strategies helps students to learn together in order to maximize achievement and cooperative learning strategies facilitate their social and academic learning. Functional behavior analysis facilitates the management of student behavior and prevents classroom disruption, and, teachers supporting parental involvement both at school and in the home produces optimal academic and social outcomes.

Conclusion

It is considered that the best way to address learning losses due to the pandemic is not to rely on any single intervention but to ensure that our education system is reformed so that it promotes both equity and excellence for all children and has targeted programmes for vulnerable students. Equally important is ensuring that schools provide high quality teaching because they are staffed by teachers who receive ongoing training on using the most effective evidence-based instructional strategies and who are committed to embedding these into their everyday classroom practice.

Dr. Marcia Pilgrim is a Learning Support Teacher at St Winifred’s School.

Garry Hornby is an Emeritus Professor of Education, from whom links to the articles cited above and the book on Essential Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies can be obtained at:  hornbygarry@gmail.com