No Children Should Be Left Behind During COVID-19 Pandemic: Description, Potential Reach, and Participants' Perspectives of a Project Through Radio and Letters to Promote Self-Regulatory Competences in Elementary School

Abstract

Around the world, many schools were closed as one of the measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. School closure brought about important challenges to the students' learning process. This context requires strong self-regulatory competences and agency for autonomous learning. Moreover, online remote learning was the main alternative response to classroom learning, which increased the inequalities between students with and without access to technological resources or for those with low digital literacy. All considered, to level the playing field for students without digital resources, there is an urgent need to promote self-regulatory competences through offline intervention solutions. The current paper describes a project with this purpose, using radio broadcasting and letters to reach elementary students without digital resources. Moreover, potential reach and participants' perspectives of the project implementation are presented and discussed. The project draws on a prior evidence-based story-tool intervention grounded on a self-regulated learning framework. The original intervention was set previous to the COVID-19 pandemic and was implemented in the classroom context (N = 1,103 students). Once the schools had been closed down, the mode of intervention was adapted with the collaboration of the community. Alternative solutions were developed as follows: (i) story chapters were read on the radio and students received to their homes a printed script, prompting reflection, and suggesting related activities; (ii) students were provided with the story-tool to read autonomously and received letters from the main characters of the story which included, for example, suggestions for activities and reflection. These two alternative modes of intervention delivery potentially reached 394 elementary students, including students with digital resources. Interviews conducted with a group of students were provided information about the positive aspects of these two modes of intervention delivery, perceived learning (e.g., planning), constraints, and suggestions to improve the project. The current work is likely to merit attention from researchers and educational practitioners, given the need to use offline alternatives to provide support for students without digital resources to engage in autonomous learning during the pandemic period. This project may also be used as an alternative or a complementary solution to online modality.

Changes in Physical Fitness Parameters in a Portuguese Sample of Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A One-Year Longitudinal Study

“…As suggested by the same authors, a decline in body composition and aerobic fitness may reflect possible changes in children’s physical behaviors during the pandemic lockdown [ 11 ]. For example, some of the measures imposed in Portugal to mitigate the pandemic’s effects, including school closure (i.e., for more than three months [ 24 ]) and other social distancing norms (e.g., the mandatory use of social masks), are likely to have limited students’ engagement in school and out-of-school activities (e.g., collective and outdoor sports) and interaction with friends and classmates [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. In fact, as the literature reports, adolescents enclosed at home were prone to engage in sedentary activities such as screen time [ 25 , 26 ].…”

Coping with the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on primary education: teachers' struggle (case study in the Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

“…Unfortunately, both teachers and students were lacking in the required competencies, which made them unable to carry out online teaching and learning properly (Almazova et al. , 2020; Cunha et al. , 2021).…”

“…This causes teaching and learning activities to be ineffective. According to Cunha et al. (2021), despite having appropriate Internet connection, children still lack digital literacy.…”

“…A student also needs critical thinking skill to understand the learning materials provided by the teachers (Mayeshiba et al, 2018). Unfortunately, both teachers and students were lacking in the required competencies, which made them unable to carry out online teaching and learning properly (Almazova et al, 2020;Cunha et al, 2021).…”

La radio escolar como recurso para el desarrollo de la competencia mediática

“…A estos aspectos positivos hay que añadir que la radio en estos tiempos de pandemia se ha usado como herramienta para acercar el aprendizaje a los estudiantes con dificultades de acceso a Internet y carencia de dispositivos, con resultados igualmente favorables en relación con la creatividad que aporta, incremento de la implicación familiar, apoyo como guía en la realización de las actividades y mejora de la planificación, aunque también han existido limitaciones relativas a la mayor sobrecarga de trabajo y la ausencia del profesor (Cunha et al, 2021).…”