When Dan Crispino took the job overseeing the curriculum for elementary schools in Meriden, Connecticut, it was 2019 and he had a big problem to solve. The low-income district, where nearly 75% of kids receive free or reduced lunch, was struggling with math.
“When I would go into classrooms all over the district, I could see that kids didn’t seem as excited about math,” Crispino said. “And it didn’t surprise me that our results were depressed in math.”
Crispino said math classes were 60 minutes then. They are now 90 minutes, beginning with a 30-minute lesson followed by an hour-long block where every minute counts. The class is made up of tightly timed segments, where students and the teacher rotate through small groups.
And if the countless issues and complaints brought up by disabled students weren’t enough to demonstrate the importance of remote learning, Nicholas Gelbar, an Associate Research Professor at the Neag School of Education, conducted a study to consolidate it even further. Gelbar’s study, published in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, surveyed students regarding the abrupt transition to online education in the spring semester of 2020. After tabulating the data collected from 340 student survey responses on personal experiences with remote learning, Gelbar concluded that “[disabled students] were able to change how they took notes, because they were able to watch an online lecture and then watch it over again.”
Researchers from Connecticut higher education institutions are evaluating the program’s effect on attendance and other results. But interviews with families and staff members suggest a lasting impact.
Kenya Overton and Andrew Kuck, Neag School of Education doctoral students in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, prepared the following rapid research brief on secondary math education with the Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Evaluation (CEPARE).
Britney Jones, Neag School of Education doctoral student in the Department of Educational Leadership, prepared the following rapid research brief with the Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Evaluation (CEPARE).
Enduring the turmoil of a global pandemic for more than two years now, many of us have struggled. We can recognize the importance of self-care and wellness, but not everyone has necessarily adopted a daily meditation practice or quit their late-night doomscrolling. By now, though, perhaps we can admit to ourselves one thing: It’s OK to not be OK in every moment.
What tips do you have for fighting stress without spending money?
When schools were shut during COVID-19, teachers dealt with a lack of student engagement during online instruction, said Michael Young, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education who has expertise in cognition, instruction and learning technology.
The twin events of the COVID-19 pandemic and a heightened awareness of racial inequities in the United States have further cemented the commitment of female Black school principals to their schools, according to a recent journal article published by three UConn scholars from the Neag School of Education.
“A global analysis has found that kids whose schools closed to stop the spread of various waves of the coronavirus lost educational progress and are at increased risk of dropping out of school. As a result, the study says, they will earn less money from work over their lifetimes than they would have if schools had remained open,” says Sandra Chafouleas, a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology.
