Online (Mathematics) learning in a post COVID world

Now schools are back, are we back to what we used to do, or are there valuable lessons that can be gleaned from this challenging time of school lockdowns and closures? What are the lessons we have learnt throughout the COVID closure period that will leave us in a stronger position once we get back to face to face teaching?

Firstly we shouldn't go back to what was normal pre COVID19, because we live in a different time now. There have been many challenges, and successes during school closures, successes that we can build on to make us more efficient and resilient in the future. When it comes to embracing technology, some feel that this is the beginning of the end for teachers, and that in some way technology will replace face to face instruction. In fact the opposite is true. What technology can do, is to reduce teacher workload (content delivery), and improve teacher effectiveness (identification of key learning priorities and learning needs).

COVID-19 highlighted the need to have practices and solutions in place in regular classroom routines that can continue to be effective if students are unable to attend school.  iLearn Education created some Google Slides for their teachers to download and adapt to continue to make learning visible at school or at home allowing students to post their achievements and reflect on their learning, activities they struggled with and those they enjoyed and why.  If effective classroom usage around digital technologies such as Maths-Whizz are embedded while students are at school, there is no reason why these cannot continue if students are at home with online technologies available and support resources available through education partners like iLearn Education.

Lessons learnt during COVID19 will mean that for many, it will be less of an issue when students are absent (sick, hospitalised, family holiday), meaning that learning can continue remotely, and teachers can stay in contact with learners. Effective AI tools like Maths-Whizz will supply the content, provide teaching, and more importantly for teachers, provide real time progress and assessment data allowing for very specific identification of student learning needs through a process we call “Course Correction”.