This is the final, concluding post in a year-long blog series looking at strategies student-centered schools have used in the pandemic.
In the kick off post, we asked: were student-centered schools more ready for the challenge of Covid-19? Over the last 10 months—through case studies and analysis—we found that to be true.
Our follow-up question was: “Why?” Schools cited a series of student-centered strategies. These included both pedagogical practices, as well as indicators and evidence they use to gauge their success. We review those below.
But this post also explores a deeper truth we discovered: while specific strategies were important, more fundamentally student-centered schools were prepared because educators embraced a culture of quickly and continually adapting.
In short, a truly student-centered education looks different from school-to-school, from student-to-student, and even from day-to-day. Student-centered schools are those built to accommodate that reality.
The schools we spoke with described using a few key common practices, both before and during the pandemic. The most common were:
This series also sought to understand the success indicators and evidence-gathering strategies schools were using to know how they were doing. Some key characteristics were:
In our initial research questions for this series, we conceptualized learning practices and success indicators as distinct. In practice, we found that they were often intertwined, even inseparable.
Take, for example, the regular check-ins with students described above. They commonly yielded data on learning progress and needs, which educators logged in a shared spreadsheet or student database. Relevant staff members could then respond in real time to support students’ particular needs.
Is this a learning practice or a way to gauge success? Or both? In student-centered schools, the two are often melded together, enabling in-the-moment adaptation for individual students.
It wasn’t just approaches used with specific students that were adapted on short notice. Over the last 18 months, student-centered schools were continually adjusting their core school-wide designs and practices.
For example, many of the systems we described above for logging and responding to student needs were created in real-time, in response to student needs. They weren’t dreamed up in a strategic planning session years before, or adopted after formal resolution of a school board.
Rather, they emerged from a culture where change is seen not as a source of fear, but a source of opportunity. Educators had the capacity and support to change and adapt. While they certainly had constraints—such as state and district requirements—they found ways to work within them.
Foundational to this culture is a high level of trust among colleagues and students, the sense that “we’re in this together.” We’re going to adapt. It’s going to be hard. But it’s what we need to do.
It’s tempting to conclude: the agile, adaptive, responsiveness exhibited by student-centered schools was crucial in this present time of Covid.
But the reality is, to equitably serve all students—during times of broader world turbulence and times of relative stability—our system has always needed to be and will always need to be more agile, adaptive, and responsive.
Covid-19 merely made the need for a student-centered future unmistakably apparent.
This blog post is part of a larger series exploring the practices and success indicators used for student-centered learning in a pandemic—and beyond. We are grateful to the Leon Lowenstein Foundation for their generous support for this series.
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