More ‘leadership and coordination’ needed for home-based learning, expert says

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The virtual school bell is ringing once again this week, as kids and parents get used to the reality of learning at home during the pandemic.

While wrinkles are being ironed out, many parents are frustrated at trying to manage a patchwork of education and one expert is calling for more coordination and leadership.

“My wife and I (mostly her) just became proficient in Office 365, Sway, Tumble Books, Fresh Grade, PowerPoint, Kids Messenger, Zoom,  and consuming copious amounts of alcohol on the weekend,” tweets Harjot, and he not alone.

Many moms and dads are taking to social media to express feelings of frustration and guilt — they appreciate all teachers are doing to make home education work, but they are feeling overwhelmed by all the different platforms being used by all the different educators.

“I think there should be better coordination among the various players. It appears the onus is on school boards, and school boards in turn are putting the onus on individual schools and schools on individual teachers rather than fashioning a more coherent approach,” says Charles Ungerleider, an education expert at the University of British Columbia.

“In fairness, some school boards are providing guidelines, but their guidelines differ from an adjacent school board, much less one more remote than theirs. I think there’s an opportunity to talk about what are reasonable expectations for students at different grade levels,” he tells NEWS 1130.

“Vancouver, for example, has put out what they believe are reasonable expectations and have shared those with teachers. Not all boards have done that, and it is a patchwork. Even in your own home it can be a patchwork. That makes it difficult for parents even just to be informed about the expectations, much less to monitor them.”

Ungerleider does express a lot of confidence in teachers to get things right and make up for any inconsistencies.

“But consistency is needed because of the inequalities among kids — we don’t want to exacerbate those — either within schools or between schools. Different districts have different capacities. I think there needs to be more working together across boards and partner groups — the teachers, the principals, the superintendents, etc. — to play in trying to ensure continuity of learning.”

Districts, schools and teachers have worked hard over a short period of time to find creative and supportive ways to slowly ease kids back into learning.

Parents overseeing a large family’s learning need to stay on top of it all, and that can mean keeping tabs on eight different teachers using eight different ways to teach for each student in higher grades.

However, districts, schools and teachers have made it clear that this is process, and that everyone has a learning curve during this unusual time – teachers, too — and effort is being made to be as supportive as possible of every situation.

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