{"id":572376,"date":"2021-05-24T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?p=572376"},"modified":"2022-08-15T14:53:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T18:53:14","slug":"a-better-equation-new-pandemic-data-supports-acceleration-rather-than-remediation-to-make-up-for-covid-learning-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/a-better-equation-new-pandemic-data-supports-acceleration-rather-than-remediation-to-make-up-for-covid-learning-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"A Better Equation: New Pandemic Data Supports Acceleration Rather than Remediation to Make Up for COVID Learning Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As educators plan how they will address lost student learning during the next school year, they should forgo the traditional remedy of remediation in favor of a strategy known as acceleration, a new report recommends. The analysis was performed by TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, and the nonprofit Zearn<\/a>, whose online math platform is used by one in four elementary students nationwide.<\/p>\n

If they are coached on missing skills required, students complete 27 percent more grade-level work than if teachers try to back up and fit in unfinished material from prior years, the researchers found. Yet the children who are likely to return to school in the fall with the biggest learning losses are twice as likely in many instances to get ineffectual remediation.<\/p>\n

The researchers hope states and school districts will consider the new data<\/a> as they decide how to spend their American Rescue Plan dollars, which come with a congressional mandate to use a portion of the money to address academic gaps, both for summer programs and for the 2021-22 academic year.<\/p>\n

Teachers are trained that remediation, the practice of focusing on missing, below-grade-level material \u2014 covering all lessons in second grade before moving on to third, for example \u2014 is the chief method for helping students who are behind catch up. But past research by TNTP and others shows it\u2019s not effective.<\/p>\n

Teaching grade-level material, while stopping to supply missing, underlying skills as they become necessary \u2014 acceleration \u2014 is a strategy some researchers have found promising. TNTP and Zearn say the new data is the most concrete yet to support this notion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a counterintuitive difference,\u201d says Shalinee Sharma, Zearn CEO and co-founder. \u201cThe simple idea [behind] remediation would be that if a child is struggling, you go back all the way to where everything is easy again and you bring them back gradually.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcceleration says, \u2018Nope, the human brain is plastic,\u2019\u201d she continues. \u201cYou start with something really specific, like how do you add fractions. You drop down and teach that skill and then pop right back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because it is an app, Zearn\u2019s math platform automatically gathers data every time a student opens it. Because of this, it has drawn the attention of researchers at a number of organizations. The new report analyzed information gleaned from 2 million students in 100,000 classrooms during the current academic year. It\u2019s possible to tell who, in socio-economic terms, the students in any given classroom are and whether they are working on grade-level materials or covering ground lost last year.<\/p>\n

The same two-way flow of precise information, complete with demographic data, compelled the economists leading Harvard University\u2019s Opportunity Insights<\/a> team to incorporate Zearn into their interactive pandemic tracker. At the same time, the platform\u2019s effectiveness has spurred education leaders in Louisiana<\/a>, Delaware and other places to create incentives for schools to incorporate it in their plans to address learning losses.<\/p>\n