When schools closed in March due to COVID 19 almost all teachers in the United States had to shift their teaching from classroom instruction to remote learning, with no time to plan for the transition. Even with high quality/hard working teachers, few teachers were able to ensure that every student was able to learn the planned content and skills through June.
What are the pandemic-related learning gaps? According to the Northwest Education Association, students lost approximately 70% of learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year, and lost approximately 50% of learning gains in math.
In this workshop, participants will learn effective strategies that teachers and school leaders can use to make up for the lost essential knowledge in ELA and mathematics from March to June. In the workshop, we will focus on four major topics:
- Why current online models were less effective even with high quality teachers
- How to identify the specific March-June achievement gaps
- How to identify essential priority standards, assessments, and sample units of instruction for the content not taught or learned last year, and
- Four no-cost models that will allow your educators to teach the lost material and not lose priority math and ELA content this year.
Meet our Presenter:
Paul B. Ash, Ph.D. is the former Superintendent of Schools in Lexington, MA. During his 42 year career, Paul held a wide range of school leadership roles: Superintendent of Schools, President and Negotiations Chair, Dover-Sherborn Teachers Association, Dover, MA; President of the Massachusetts Association of School Personnel Administrators, and Member of the Newton School Committee, Newton, MA.
Paul's contributions to the field have been recognized at the state and national level in closing the achievement gaps for minority, special education, and low-income students. In 2010, the national newspaper Education Week highlighted Lexington's professional development program as one of six national models on how professional learning can be used to improve student learning and teacher innovation. In 2017, Paul’s leadership skills in Lexington were the focus of the case study in the book Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Leadership (Louis, Hord, Von Frank, Learning Forward, 2017).
In 2012, Paul co-authored the book School Systems That Learn, which focuses on how any school district can raise academic achievement for all students by creating an adult learning organization based on trust, capacity building for all educators, collaboration in all directions, and leadership at all levels.
Suggested Attendees: Middle and High School Administrators, 6-12 ELA and Math Teachers, Department Chairs, Curriculum Directors.
Written by Wendy Zdeb, MASSP Executive Director