What Is Learning Loss in the Wake of the Pandemic?
A Q&A with Ellen Wagner
Ever since the pandemic forced schools to ramp up remote learning in a hurry, we've heard about how educators rose to the challenge and quickly adopted distributed communications technologies and available tools like Zoom to keep their programs afloat. Most reports gave these efforts high praise — and why not, because they did save the day for our institutions over the past two years.
But there are some voices who ask, "Even with all of that, is there still learning loss?" Here, CT talks with Ellen Wagner, in her role of interim executive director of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), to learn about approaches to defining, measuring, and mitigating learning loss.
Mary Grush: Ellen, I'll start with a simple statement of the question: What is learning loss?
Ellen Wagner: I spent a bit of time reviewing what people are saying about learning loss. Generally speaking, the definition is fairly straightforward, like this example from EdGlossary: "Learning loss refers to any specific or general loss of knowledge and skills or to reversals in academic progress, most commonly due to extended gaps or discontinuities in a student's education." I found five variations of that description (Chalk; Marketscale; EdGlossary, Washington Post, EduTopia), so I think this is a fairly safe way to think about it.
Grush: What is the level of concern about learning loss?
Wagner: If you take a look at the popular education press over the past two years, you see a fair amount of concern expressed about learning loss as a result of the obvious disruptions that the pandemic has had on students' education experiences.
These concerns are particularly poignant and passionately expressed when adults describe their perceptions of the impact that closing schools and flipping to remote teaching had on K12 students. In that environment, the dramatic shift from classroom instruction to remote instruction couldn't help but lead to learning loss if being in school is your success enabler.
Grush: How is the scope of the disruption caused by the pandemic characterized?
Wagner: There is no doubt that the pandemic has been measurably disruptive. UNESCO estimates that two-thirds of the academic year may have been lost with the change from direct classroom instruction to remote instruction in its various forms. That estimate would affect over 800 million students in 79 countries — more than half of the world's student population one year into the pandemic according to an article in Chalk.
Grush: What are some of the proposals to understand, contain, and mitigate learning loss from these pandemic-related disruptions?
Wagner: If you read Mark Schneider's blogs, especially those written over the past two years through his position as director for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), along with Kumar Garg's observations from Schmidt Futures, you can see an entire national research agenda dedicated to helping reverse pandemic-related learning loss emerge. Called Operation Reverse the Loss, Schneider and Garg proposed organizing essential response activities to pandemic-driven learning loss into three main categories:
First, understanding the loss crisis. While much of the current attention focuses on K12 education, higher education leaders serving community college and university audiences are also interested in accelerating the discovery of solutions to mitigate loss as measured by drops in student enrollment as well as drops in student performance.
Second, responses to the crisis are already coming with new tools to help students catch up, and you can be sure that more are on the way.
Many of these loss-mitigation solutions are likely to leverage AI and predictive analytics for both K12 and higher education. I have been noticing a lot of interest in analytics-enabled tutoring for early interventions in reading, STEM, and math, as well as broad use of augmented reality and AI personalization for college students. There is also much promise in data methodologies used in practice, with the continuous formative improvement that comes from real-time assessments as corrections to "critical path" instruction.
Many of these loss-mitigation solutions are likely to leverage AI and predictive analytics for both K12 and higher education.
Third, we need to be thinking about ways to make sure the highest-need students don't get left behind. In the case of higher education, the unevenness of responses for marginalized groups still seem to echo the discoveries from the early predictive analytics days, when student success turned out to be as much about case management as it was about cognition.
Grush: Are these proposals aimed primarily at K12?
Wagner: Definitely not. Lest you think this is all about K12 education, know that it is much bigger than that. Remember that whenever there is a major call for national reform on a particular topic, other related things happen: Leading research funding entities such as the National Science Foundation and the Education Department launch initiatives for grant funds to university-based researchers who then undertake programs of research on topics of interest. There has been significant funding released to K12 entities and to higher education institutions alike, with research and effective practice evaluations looking at strategies, solutions, and even networks to accelerate recovery.
There has been significant funding released to K12 entities and to higher education institutions alike, with research and effective practice evaluations looking at strategies, solutions, and even networks to accelerate recovery.
Grush: Do you have more on IES stepping up to fund research in these areas?
Wagner: Just this past week, the IES Research Networks Focused on Critical Problems of Education Policy and Practice closed its call for proposals that had been launched in January. For FY 2022, IES invited proposals on a single topic: Leveraging Evidence to Accelerate Recovery Nationwide Network (the LEARN Network). IES has been interested in supporting the creation of networks of interested stakeholders — in this case, with research institutions and corporate producers of education technology solutions — to explore complex problems at the intersection of learning, technology, engagement, and student success. IES believes that networks advance the field's understanding of a problem or issue beyond what an individual research project or team can do on its own. This is important for assisting policy makers and practitioners in using relevant information to strengthen education policies and programs and improve learners' education outcomes.
Grush: How does all this fit with your own experience in learning analytics — especially in higher education? As you were developing the PAR Framework in its early days, were you thinking in terms of learning loss? How was this tied to intervention and completion or persistence?
Wagner: That last point about learners' education outcomes reminded me of when I found myself actively dealing with the notion of learning loss back in 2009. In those early days of the learning analytics movement, we found ourselves being asked by our national leaders what we as a nation could do about improving student success. Specifically, we started asking ourselves how to improve our rates of college completion. This quickly led to a more thorough exploration of what it would take to mitigate risks to student success as measured by student rates of progression, retention (or, if you prefer, persistence), and completion of college programs. While I am exceedingly mindful of the systemic losses we incur when students drop from the education pipeline, I think we are also beginning to see that not all losses are created equally.
While I am exceedingly mindful of the systemic losses we incur when students drop from the education pipeline, I think we are also beginning to see that not all losses are created equally.
College access has increased but college completion rates haven't kept up. Graduation rates have remained unchanged nationally, and learner preparedness varies widely based on socio-economic factors. Some researchers believe it is imperative that education organizations begin to adopt and adapt the products and processes that ensure learners recover — eventually either getting back on track for degree completion or on a career track.
Grush: Maybe a too-often overlooked measure of learning loss in higher education is how disruptions ultimately affect the lives of students — that as opposed to focusing on rates of completion. Or is that opening a Pandora's box right here at the end of our time together for this Q&A?
Wagner: It's something to think about! These days, in higher education, it could be that a student leaving school for a career certification and a subsequent job actually doesn't see their own education experience — or their decision to leave school — as one of loss.
These days, in higher education, it could be that a student leaving school for a career certification and a subsequent job actually doesn't see their own education experience — or their decision to leave school — as one of loss.
Maybe what we are really seeing on the part of that student is some fairly deliberate contextual problem solving in action. Maybe their leaving school to get training, a certificate, and a job is a perfect example of a socio-economic opportunity.
Nevertheless, the social and economic values of college students' progression, retention, and college completion as a matter of each state's economic health and well-being continue to be undeniable, especially for public institutions.
Many of us are finding that our beliefs in certain value constructs are being challenged by the changes affecting our schools and colleges, both as a function of the pandemic and the responses that have emerged from all of the conditions we've encountered. We have been forced into considering the quintessential value of going to school as we have always known it. We are also seeing impatience with being stuck in the old ways of thinking, and growing interest in multiple pathways toward career success.
Many have a hard time imaging that anyone would question the value of a college degree, and yet here we are, in 2022, seeing major corporations announce that a college degree is no longer a requirement to obtain professional positions. Certification programs are popping up like mushrooms, and universities are discovering that they need to be more responsive to stakeholder concerns.
Is this a question of loss? Or is it a question of change? I'm thinking that we are really talking about both.