Teaching and Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era

What We’ve Learned and What We’re Still Learning

To be honest, I’m not even sure we can call this the “post-pandemic era.” People are still getting sick, and the youngest in our society can’t be vaccinated yet.

What I mean is that we’re no longer quarantined, but still traumatized.

For schools, the trauma and residual effects of COVID cannot be overstated. Teachers have to learn how to engage students in classroom learning for the first time in a long while, and students have to relearn the norms of social and academic growth after an extended hiatus from both.

Teachers are learning how to be teachers again, and students are learning how to be students again.

In the Beginning

In the early days of COVID, teachers, and students found themselves isolated, frustrated, and fatigued. Remote learning got really old really quickly. One of my colleagues just this week summarized it well:

“Getting ready for the next day’s Zoom meeting was like getting ready for a substitute teacher. It required more work and preparation than teaching in person!”

Students had little motivation because there was little structure or accountability and because we were in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

A Tale of Transition

When we returned to face-to-face learning, we did so in stages and missteps. We came back to a patchwork of teaching and learning platforms. Many of us were juggling in-person learners with temporarily quarantined/confined students and year-long online learners— three different groups!!

To be honest, many of us, students and teachers alike, were phoning it in. We were going through the motions because we were grieving and reeling from the staggering number of human lives lost and from the loss of a way of life as we knew it.

How Do We Return to a New Normal? We Need a Reset

A hot topic of conversation now among teachers I know, and I would guess among teachers around the country, is how to get back on track. My school hosted an internal forum yesterday dedicated to achieving a “reset.” Teachers and administrators shared their thoughts on what’s truly important moving forward.

Three areas of concern quickly surfaced in my small group: accountability, mental health, and critical thinking.

Dear reader, before I continue, I must emphasize that this is a generation of students in crisis. They have lived through the trauma of COVID quarantine and isolation; they have lost family members to illness; they have endured a season of separation as online learners.

I have never heard more cries for help from students as I have over the past two school years. Too many students with dangerous ideations and self-harming behavior. Too many young people lost to suicide.

How do we improve accountability and critical thinking skills while meeting the mental health needs of our students?

As teachers, we have to care about them as people, all while providing them with an education that will help them realize their dreams.

Three Ideas to Get Us Back on Track

Consistently check in on our students’ well-being. When we first went to quarantine, I started weekly check-ins with my students via Google Forms. I couldn’t see them in person; sometimes they attended Google Meets and sometimes they didn’t. The Google Form provided a platform for them to communicate their present level of comprehension, progress, and mental well-being.

I’ve kept up this practice since we’ve returned to face-to-face instruction, though now I check in once per unit or once per month.

Here’s an example of a recent Check-In:

***I try to build relationships by checking in on their academics and social and emotional health. The crazy questions are just there to spark some conversations and tear down some walls.***

2. Reintroduce accountability. Because we care about our students, we need to establish and maintain realistic expectations and deadlines. Yes, many of our students are behind because of “the COVID years.” We can help them by breaking assignments down into manageable chunks. We can bridge the gaps through scaffolding and modeling. But let’s put some teeth into holding students accountable. They need consistent boundaries and deadlines. We need to reintroduce high expectations as a path forward into the new normal.

3. Improve critical thinking skills. Remote learning allowed our students to automatically default to online resources when they needed help. And to be honest, can we blame them for taking advantage of all of the rich materials at their disposal? It’s time for them to regain confidence in their abilities and trust the skills they’re acquiring. Let’s design activities that require them to rely on their own knowledge. Now is the time for more in-class assessments and writing assignments. Writing should go beyond the superficial. They need to explain and elaborate — annotations, details, connections, and analysis are key.

To be sure, education has changed dramatically since the pandemic. We can’t afford to look backward with a nostalgic longing for what used to be. Let’s look forward to a new, healthy normal.